We write a lot around these parts about big numbers. There's a lot to look up when the Astros score 23 or the Marlins score 19 or the Nationals have one of their explosions. It's messy but it's easy. The smaller numbers are sometimes harder. What can possibly be unique about a 4-2 AL Central game where the [insert sponsor here] Star Of The Game went 1-for-4 and had a solo homer in the 3rd inning? But this week a bunch of teams managed to give us small numbers that also happened to be interesting. So hang on, we're going low.
Buried Treasure
We're going to start this one in Pittsburgh, because for every ridiculous Nationals reaction, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. (It's like Abner Doubleday's fourth law of bunting or something.) You of course remember that last week ended with a ridiculous series between the Nats and Brewers that saw scores of 15-14 and 16-8. Well, the next impediment awaiting the Nats on the high seas are those pesky Pirates. Who proved not to be much so on Monday when Adam Eaton and Matt Adams both lit up Trevor Williams for 1st-inning homers. It's 4-0 before the Pirates even bat, and in the 2nd, Trea Turner drops on three more after Elias Diaz airmails a ball to second. Williams would get out of the inning but not get out of the dugout for the 3rd; he gave up 8 runs and 3 homers while getting only 6 outs. Jordan Lyles did the same thing against the Cardinals on July 24, and his name will come up again in this column (for much different reasons). But that makes this the first season in Pirates history where two pitchers have posted that line.
There are still seven more innings to play, and Asdrubal Cabrera would finally tack on a 2-run homer in the 9th to sink the Pirates by the final of 13-0. Cabrera became the first Nationals player to have a 5-RBI game in Pittsburgh; Brad Fullmer (May 30, 1998) was the last to do it for Montréal. Another Expos 5-RBI game was had by Warren Cromartie on July 4, 1982, but that was also the only time a Nats/Expos player had 3 extra-base hits in Pittsburgh-- until Adams did that on Monday. Juan Soto had 4 hits and 4 runs scored, but never drove in a run himself; Steve Lombardozzi (August 10, 2012 at Arizona) is the only other in franchise history to pull that off. And for the Pirates it was the third time they'd been blanked by 13 or more since PNC Park opened in 2001; the Cardinals did it on August 1, 2013, and the Brewers dropped a 20-0 on them on April 22, 2010.
Tuesday's game broke up all kinds of streak notes by being a ho-hum 4-1 Pirates win, but the Nationals were right back at it on Wednesday behind the arm of Patrick Corbin. He threw 8 shutout innings while Asdrubal Cabrera was busy homering again, notably to anchor a 6-run Nationals 3rd inning. Three doubles-- including one by Corbin himself-- awaited Parker Markel in the 8th inning to make it 9-0; Corbin became the team's first pitcher (starter or reliever) to double in the 8th or later since Livan Hernandez did it in an Expos uniform on July 30, 2004. More notably, he was just the second pitcher in team history to throw 8+ scoreless innings and allow no more than 3 hits in Pittsburgh. Steve Rogers did that in a 6-0 win on August 7, 1983.
The Pirates did recoup one doubloon, somewhat literally, when Josh Bell hit an RBI two-bagger in the bottom of the 9th. In the past 50 years (before which we start to lose play-by-play info), only one other Pirates batter has broken up a shutout of 11-0 or worse with a 9th-inning double. That was David Freese against the Mets on June 15, 2016. The 11-1 final, combined with the 13-0 from Monday, made it the first time a Washington team (remember, most of them were in the AL) scored 11+ twice in a series in Pittsburgh since July of 1897.
The Nats closed out the series with a 7-1 win on Thursday that saw Anthony Rendon and Howie Kendrick each connect for a homer and a double. They were just the second teammates in franchise history to do that at PNC Park; the first... were Matt Adams and Asdrubal Cabrera on Monday! And that also meant the Pirates lost by scores of 13-0, 11-1, and 7-1 just in this series. We never mentioned that they were coming off a weekend series with the Cubs in which they lost the last two games 2-0 and 7-1. So except for that "barnburner" 4-run game on Tuesday, the Pirates managed no more than 1 run in five games out of six. The last time they had a dry spell like that was May 10 through 15, 1966, against the Giants and Dodgers.
2 Win Or Not 2 Win
Ah yes, the Cubs. Who pulled into a tie with the Cardinals in the NL Central by winning those two games against Pittsburgh last weekend. You might think we're going to mention their 12-11 festival with the Giants on Wednesday. Well, okay, but mostly from the Giants' side. It was the first time they had scored 11+ at Wrigley and lost since May 8, 1984, also by a 12-11 count. And if that date looks familiar, it's because, if you went to a Wrigley/Comiskey double-dip that day, it was a long one. That's the night the White Sox and Brewers were suspended by the AL curfew, finished the next day, and played the longest game in MLB history that ended with a winner (25 innings).
Before Wednesday, the Giants hadn't hit 4 homers at Wrigley and lost since May 21, 1994. And San Francisco also had a 12-11 loss at Coors Field back on May 9 of this year. The Giants hadn't scored 11+ and lost twice in the same season since 1900. And that's not a general modern-era "since 1900"-- they actually did it in 1900, 14-13 to the Phillies on April 30, and 18-11 to the Braves a week later.
BUT the game that fits our theme, and leads to the Cubs' inclusion here, is the series finale on Thursday. Jason Heyward broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff single in the 4th. Two ground balls later, Anthony Rizzo lined a single to center to score him. Annnnd that's ballgame, boys and girls. For the remaining four innings the Cubs had only one baserunner and he was erased on a double play. What's that? You say there's five innings remaining? Well not when the Giants also have just four baserunners and they're all in different innings so none of them manages to score. Fly the W, a 1-0 Cubs win on just 2 hits. In 104 seasons of games at Wrigley Field, only 13 times have the Cubs had 2 hits there and won, and the only other one in the past 25 years was April 8, 2015, against the Cardinals (scored twice in same inning on a hit batter, an error, a single, and two sacrifices). Their last 1-0 win over the Giants at Wrigley was June 9, 1977, on what reads as a walkoff squeeze play by Jose Cardenal in the 11th (sac bunt with bases loaded).
The Giants, meanwhile, were shut out on 4 hits at Wrigley for the first time ever. In fact, while they'd had 4 or fewer hits there seven or eight other times, they'd actually won every such game prior to Thursday, usually by a score of something like 2-1. Jeff Samardzija was the team's first pitcher to throw 7 innings, allow no more than 2 hits, and lose since Madison Bumgarner gave up a solo homer to the Nats' Wilson Ramos on August 7, 2016.
Someone say Nationals again? Yep, guess who's making the rounds in the NL Central and is our next visitor to Wrigley for the weekend. On Friday they once again broke up the no-hitter in the 4th, but then they didn't even have a baserunner from the 5th through 8th. Anibal Sanchez blew through them on 10, 9, 15, and 6 (!) pitches, and probably deserved to finish this thing out with the Nats up 9-0. Unfortunately a walk in the 9th and then a throwing error by Anthony Rendon on a potential game-ending double-play ball meant he didn't. Matt Grace came on and gave up 2 more hits-- remember the Cubs only had the one before that-- to create a fairly mundane-looking final of 9-3. But combined with the 2 hits against the Giants on Thursday, it was the first time the Cubs were held to 3 or fewer in back-to-back home games since May 31 and June 1 of 2016 by the Dodgers.
Sanchez was charged with 2 of those runs in the 9th (1 unearned) and thus had the strange line of 7+ innings (actually 8⅓), 1 hit, but 2 runs. Only one other pitcher in franchise history had slung that, Mark Garnder aganist the Cardinals on August 15, 1992 (he did it by hitting three batters). Sanchez was also the first Nationals pitcher to throw 8+ innings of 1-hit ball since Gio Gonzalez did it in Miami on July 31, 2017. But he's also the first one ever to do it at Wrigley for either the Nats or Expos. And nobody's done it in interleague play against the White Sox. To find the last Washington pitcher to toss such a game in Chicago, you have to go 3 weeks before Comiskey Park opened. No, the original one. Dixie Walker did it in the next-to-last homestand at South Side Park on June 10, 1910.
Light Beer
If we're gonna hang out in the NL Central, may as well grab some brews. Of course, two of MLB's three beer sponsorships are located here (sorry, Coors), and they played each other at the start of the week. We use the term "played" loosely here; at least in Monday's opener, only one team was doing much playing. Like everyone who gets pulled over on "Cops" or "Live PD" and says they only had one hit, the Brewers for once wouldn't be lying. In fact they left that goose egg up there much longer than we'd prefer, even as Dakota Hudson threw 111 pitches and didn't finish the 7th. He did walk four, but three were with two outs and it really doesn't matter if the Brewers can't hit the ball anyway. Hudson was the first Cardinals pitcher in (at least) the live-ball era to give up 0 hits, strike out 7+, and not finish the game. The others to do it were all in completed NH's, and if you're thinking of Daniel Ponce de Leon's MLB debut from last year, he only struck out 3.
Indeed, the Cardinals would be four outs away from their first-ever combined NH when Yasmani Grandal bounced an automatic double into the seats down the right-field line. And that would be all as Andrew Miller had a 1-2-3 9th and the Cardinals won 3-0. The Brewers' last time getting one-hit was August 25, 2017, by the Dodgers; of the 31 times in team history that they've had exactly 1 hit, in only 6 of them has it been a double, though none of the others was the automatic ("ground-rule") variety. Twice it came in the 9th; Robin Yount broke up a bid by Dennis Lamp of the White Sox in 1981, and in their inaugural season, Don Mincher prevented the Seattle Pilots from ever getting no-hit with a one-out double off Joe Sparma (May 31, 1969).
The Cardinals also threw a 1-hitter against the Cubs to start off the month of August; that was a Nick Castellanos single off Jack Flaherty in the 6th. The fine folks at Retrosheet have team hit totals for every game back to 1905, and it's the first time in that dataset that the Cards have thrown two in a calendar month. This also lets us point out that Busch Stadium is one-- and the oldest-- of only four active parks without a no-hitter (Yankee Stadium, Target, SunTrust). But the other side of this matchup has its own quirk; Miller Park has had only one no-hitter, and it wasn't in a Brewers game. Carlos Zambrano tossed it on September 14, 2008, when the Astros relocated two games against the Cubs to Milwaukee because of Hurricane Ike.
Heh. There's a reason we bring this up, of course, and it's Friday night's game against the Diamondbacks (who are not in the NL Central). Which Jordan Lyles started (we told you he'd come up again). And which Jordan Lyles left after 99 pitches and 6 innings-- still not having allowed a hit. Christian Walker, appropriately, walked twice and was the only baserunner for Arizona in the first eight frames. The Brewers radio crew voted to send Lyles out for the 7th and see how smoothly it went, especially since he's got a 6-0 lead to play with. Craig Counsell disagreed, trotting Devin Williams out to let Walker bloop a single in front of Trent Grisham in center, thus keeping the Zambrano factoid intact for another day.
As mentioned, the D'backs wouldn't have another baserunner (or any besides Walker) until the 9th when Jarrod Dyson drew a leadoff walk, went to second on a passed ball, and then scored an unearned run on Ketel Marte's "duck snort" to left. The only other time the Diamondbacks got held to 2 hits at Miller Park was April 7, 2006, against Dave Bush, though that one had a little less drama because Luis Gonzalez homered in the 2nd. Juan Nieves, in 1987, still owns the only completed no-hitter for the Brewers, but Lyles is now one of two pitchers in franchise history to be removed in the 6th or later with a no-hitter intact. Ben McDonald more-or-less removed himself from a game in Baltimore on July 11, 1997, complaining of a "sore shoulder" after the 6th. And Lyles also had an RBI single in the 5th to score Milwaukee's final run. Ordinarily a National League pitcher having 1 hit doesn't intrigue us unless it's a triple or something, but remember he gave up 0. And to paraphrase a popular allergy-medicine commercial, 1 is more than 0. (You know, in case you missed that day in preschool.) No Brewers pitcher had ever done 1-and-0 before, but it turns out Brandon Woodruff had 2 hits on May 26 against the Phillies while giving up only 1. And that makes this the first season where two Brewers pitchers produced more hits than they allowed in a game.
Sweet Home Chicag-O
Maybe it's not the division, maybe it's the time zone. Because the American League Central had a couple of dirges this week as well. Of course, it could also be the pitching. Lucas Giolito, arguably the ace in the White Sox rotation now, made believers out of the high-powered Twins offense on Wednesday by twirling a 3-hit complete-game shutout. The second batter of the game, Jorge Polanco, broke the Unwritten Rule by bunting for the first hit, but from there Giolito allowed only a harmless single to Nelson Cruz in the 4th and a double to Jonathan Schoop in the 8th. No other baserunners. And oh yeah, he fanned 12 including every starter except for Schoop. No White Sox pitcher had thrown an individual shutout and struck out 12 since Floyd Bannister against the Mariners on September 16, 1983! That was the longest drought of any team by more than 7 years; the Rangers now hold the honor of not having a pitcher do it since May 1, 1991-- and that was only Nolan Ryan's seventh and final no-hitter.
The last pitcher to shut out the Twins on 3 hits with 12 strikeouts was Anibal Sanchez, then of the Tigers, on May 24, 2013; Joe Mauer broke up his no-hitter with 1 out in the 9th. And it was only the second game in Target Field's 10 seasons where the Twins got shut out and only had 3 baserunners. The other was also a complete game by a Sox pitcher, Zach Stewart on September 5, 2011 (Danny Valencia broke up that NH in the 8th).
Lower Michigan
At age 36, Justin Verlander doesn't scare us as much as he used to, but every time a team struggles to get to him for the first 3 or 4 innings, it's like, uh-oh, here we go. Break out the lists just in case. Especially when he's facing his former team for whom he threw the two no-hitters he already has. So Ronny Rodriguez took care of that worry on Wednesday with a 5th-inning solo homer. Unfazed, JV kept setting down batters, eight more in a row on 36 pitches to reach the 9th inning. The game is now tied 1-1 and JV's only at 88 pitches for the game. No way he's coming out of this one. He might have pitched 11 or 12 innings and needed to be hit with a tranquilizer dart to get pulled. Welp, John Hicks kinda provided the dart with another solo homer to lead off the 9th. And Robinson Chirinos added the final nail by making the third out at third base trying to stretch his 9th-inning double into a triple. So it was that Verlander threw a 9-inning complete game, gave up only 2 hits, struck out 11, and lost because both those hits were solo homers.
So where to begin. The only other pitcher in the past quarter-century to pull off all of that (9-inning CG, 2 hits, 11 K, and lost) was James Shields of the Rays in a fairly meaningless last-weekend-of-season game on October 2, 2012. Dropping out the 2 hits for a moment, the last Astros pitcher to throw any CG with 11 strikeouts and lose it was Shane Reynolds against the Pirates on August 15, 1999; he also gave up 2 solo homers among 5 total hits. And foreshadowing the Cubs' game the next day, it was the second time in the past 15 years that the Tigers had 2 hits in a game and won. They also did it in Chicago on April 8 of last year. It's also their first game in (at least) the live-ball era where the team as a whole had multiple hits and all of them were solo homers.
Many people would say that Gerrit Cole is now the scary one in the Astros rotation, and a few of those people would probably be Tigers batters as well. They had to face him in Thursday's finale, and yet again managed to come up with only 2 hits, although Ronny Rodriguez broke this one up in his first at-bat. Victor Reyes's roller to left was the only other blemish on Cole's outing; he left after 7 having struck out 12. Including Game 2 of last year's Division Series, it's the third time Cole has struck out a dozen and allowed no more than 3 baserunners; that's actually the most in Astros history. JV, J.R. (Richard), and Mike Scott have each done it twice.
So you can kind of forgive Joe Biagini for coming into the 9th with a 6-0 lead and maybe not being as locked-in as possible. But the reason you didn't notice this game was that the Tigers, having gotten only 2 hits in the first 8 innings, took Biagini for 3 hits, 3 runs, and 2 homers to make the final score a very average-looking 6-3. The last time the Tigers failed to score in the first 8 innings, and then went yard multiple times in the 9th, was June 17, 2016 at Kansas City against Dillon Gee. And John Hicks recorded the Tigers' first pinch-hit homer in the 9th or later since Victor Martinez hit one at Target Field on September 22, 2016. The only team to go longer without such a homer is the Rockies-- by 3 days.
Once again you get your choice. We're about to get to the Marlins, so "Flo Rida" seems appropriate. But of course there's the classic that's the title of the post. And we just made a whole bunch of beer references. So feel free to slip on down to the oasis as well. Intermission!
The Lowcountry
The Braves' offense went through a couple long stretches of doing nothing this week. On Wednesday against Marlins starter Caleb Smith they collected only three hits, but those aren't any ordinary hits. After a leadoff walk in the 2nd, Tyler Flowers broke up the proverbial no-hitter with an RBI triple. Five pitches later, Adeiny Echavarria put one over the center-field wall to make it 3-0. Smith did do his part with doubles in both the 3rd and 5th, but with no one aboard and the top of the order never brought him around. He then walked Echavarria to start the bottom of the 5th and Ronald Acuña homered. That's 5 runs. On 3 hits. Two homers and a triple. The Braves had not pulled a 5-on-3 since April 8, 2012, in a 7-5 loss at Citi Field. But it was just their second game ever in the live-ball era where they collected 2 homers and a triple, but no doubles or singles. That other contest was also in 2012, July 19 against the Giants. As for Smith's two doubles, he joined A.J. Burnett (2002), Brian Edmonson (1999), and Terry Mathews (1995) as the only Marlins pitchers to do that, and is the first pitcher for any team (including the Braves) with a 2-XBH game at the relatively-new SunTrust Park.
By Friday the Braves hit the road to that kinda swampy part near LaGuardia and got the joy of facing Jacob deGrom and his strikeouts of many colors. Atlanta countered with Mike Foltynewicz, who also went into a fairly effective shutdown mode. Both teams did get a hit in the 2nd, but then floundered through those middle innings until Ozzie Albies singled, stole second, and Freddie Freeman drove him in. Leading off the 6th for the Mets is deGrom, who is constantly plagued by lack of run support and is already the Mets' all-time leader in games where he strikes out 10 or more and doesn't get a win. So all he can do is help himself by going yard. Oh yeah, and striking out a total of 13 Atlanta hitters. It's something he also did in April 3 in Miami, thereby becoming the first pitcher in MLB history to have multiple games where he fanned 13 and also homered.
Except our problem is that once the two starters leave after 7, it's still a 1-1 tie and someone forgot to wake the offenses-- who manage just 4 hits between them until the 12th, and three of those are with 2 outs. It is not until the 14th that Tyler Flowers draws a leadoff walk, apparently scores on a double but then gets sent back to third by replay, and thus needs Billy Hamilton to single him home. That last hit was the Braves' first go-ahead single to occur that late in a road game since Randall Simon also had one in the 14th at Coors Field on August 19, 1999. And when the Mets couldn't score in their half, well, there's another deGrom no-decision for you. If you use a strikeout threshold of 11 or more, it's his 10th non-win in such a game, passing Sid Fernandez and leaving him one shy of Seaver. (At 12 or 13, the three are always either tied or one apart depending on whether you include postseason.)
Thanks to the extra innings, though, those 13 K's by deGrom were only half of the Braves' total for the game. They are the second team that we know of ever to strike out 26 times in a game of any length and win it. The Brewers did it in a 17-inning, 1-0 "triumph" over Anaheim on June 8, 2004. And remember deGrom's homer? That winds up being the Mets' only run of the game, something that had only happened once before in team history-- when Noah Syndergaard did it against the Reds on May 2 and they won.
The finale on Sunday was much of the same, the Braves again escaping with a 2-1 win, but this time they were nice enough to even do it in 9 innings. In fact, the "2" in that score belongs completely to Josh Donaldson, who became the fifth player in Braves history to hit multiple solo homers that accounted for all their runs in a win. Those others are A.J. Pierzynski (2015), Chipper Jones (1999), Hank Aaron (1961), and Butch Nieman (1944).
The Braves' only other hit in that Sunday game was when Adam Duvall doubled on the heels of Donaldson's first homer but ended up stranded at third. So that's 3 hits in a win. Sound familliar? Scroll up, as the kids say. That's where we started this section, with their game against the Marlins on Wednesday. The last time the Braves had 3 hits and won, twice in five days, was a back-to-back on June 20 (vs PIT) and 21 (vs SF) of 1963. It's also the fourth time this year they've won such a game, the team's most in a season since 1916.
Low Ceiling
The Mets were not without some other moments this week, however. On Wednesday they lumbered along to a 2-2 tie with Cleveland before Luis Avilan gave up a solo homer to Carlos Santana in the 10th. It was the first extra-inning homer the Indians had ever hit in Queens (including those two seasons the Yankees played at Shea), and their first in any borough since Marquis Grissom took Mariano Rivera deep on July 14, 1997.
Amed Rosario would renew the spark with a leadoff double in the bottom half, score on a forceout by Michael Conforto to tie the game, and after another single put runners at first and second, J.D. Davis comes through with the walkoff when Conforto beats the play at the plate. That rendered Santana as the first Cleveland batter with a double and an extra-inning homer in a game they ended up losing since... Carlos Santana at Arizona on June 24, 2014. He's the first player in team history to do it twice.
And as for walkoffs, well, the Mets had never had one (of any kind, extra innings or not) against Cleveland. There remain just two teams against whom they don't have one, the Mariners and Rangers. And asterisk alert, their only one against the Red Sox did come in the postseason. But as you may know, that's a pretty big asterisk.
On Thursday it was Noah Syndergaard's turn to take the mound, and well, it turns out "Thor" wasn't the only god of thunder hanging around Citi Field. On a day that also featured rain delays in Baltimore, St Louis, and many other minor-league cities along the East Coast, a storm that brewed over Flushing in the 6th inning was the only thing able to force Syndergaard out of the game. Certainly it wasn't the Indians' offense, which had gotten perfect-gamed until Tyler Naquin and Francisco Lindor snuck in singles right before the rain started. With the Mets leading 2-0, the game was halted for almost 2½ hours, shutting down both Syndergaard and Cleveland starter Aaron Civale. However, Jeurys Familia gave up only a walk in the 7th, and Paul Sewald worked a perfect 8th before it started raining again. This time (it's already close to midnight and this is the end of the series) the umpires waited only the required half-hour before declaring the game over and the Mets 2-0 victors. The last time the Indians were held to 2 hits in any game in New York was on September 4, 1993, when the Yankees' Jim Abbott no-hit them. It was the sixth time it had happened to them in a National League park, with two of those being in the 1995 World Series against Atlanta. And Syndergaard, by also not walking anyone, became the first Mets pitcher this year to throw at least 6 innings and allow only 2 baserunners.
Low-s Angeles
Chavez Ravine, kind of by the definition of a "ravine", is among the lower spots in its immediate area, and it's not known as a hitter's paradaise. Certainly not compared to Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays play. But those two teams were not playing in Toronto this week, they were in downtown Los Angeles, and with Walker Buehler taking the mound for the Dodgers on Wednesday. That went well; in typical Buehler form, he scattered 5 hits and 8 strikeouts across 7 scoreless innings. The Jays, who have embraced the "opener" format for many of their games over the last couple months, also watched their five bullpen guys combine to only give up 5 hits and 1 run over the first 9 innings. And that meant the Dodgers were on track to win another 1-0 game... until Rowdy Tellez crushes one off Kenley Jansen in the 9th for the latter's sixth blown save of the year (and some audible boos from the locals). Buehler is probably wanting Wednesdays in August as his day off (see what we did there?), because the last Dodgers pitcher to throw 7+ innings with 0 runs and 8 strikeouts and not win... was Walker Buehler, exactly 52 weeks ago (August 22, 2018). Only three other Dodgers pitchers in the live-ball era have done that twice-- Kevin Brown, Hideo Nomo, and Don Sutton.
Taking nothing away from Tellez, he was the second player in Jays history to hit any 9th-inning homer at Dodger Stadium, but it turns out the other one also tied the game at the time. Matt Stairs went deep off Takashi Saito on June 8, 2007. And you know that thing about history repeating itself? In that game 12 years ago, Olmedo Saenz promptly re-won the game for the Dodgers with a walkoff homer in the 10th. Oh hey, look who's coming up for the Dodgers in the 10th on Thursday. (NO, it's not Olmedo Saenz. But dare to dream.) It's Max Muncy, who's been known to hit walkoff homers for the Dodgers in interleague games. Boom. And if you'd like to complete your list, we've mentioned three of the four walkoff homers the Dodgers have ever hit in extras against an AL opponent; the last was by Andre Ethier in the Freeway Series on August 2, 2015.
In the finale on Thursday, the Dodgers got the interesting phenomenon of Jays rookie Jacob Waguespack. There's nothing particularly interesting about him (we know, his parents would definitely say otherwise, please don't @ us), just the phenomenon of a new, unscouted, rookie pitcher from the opposite league who these Dodger sluggers have never seen before and need some time to figure out. To the extent that, for some of them, even three tries wasn't quite enough. In 7 innings versus 24 batters Waguespack walked 1, hit 1, and gave up only 1 hit-- to the freakin' pitcher, Kenta Maeda. The Dodgers get only a harmless 2-out walk in the 8th, sending them to the final inning down 2-0 and on the verge of getting 1-hit in their own stadium.
Something about history repeating. Max Muncy is due up to start the 9th, but down by 2, all he can do is draw a walk. And have Cody Bellinger double him to third. And have Corey Seager double both of them in to tie the game. That took Waguespack's 7-inning, 1-hit performance out of the running to also get a win. Trent Thornton and Marcus Stroman had identical games earlier in the year (7 IP, 1 H, didn't win); the Jays are the first pitching staff in at least the live-ball era to have three such outings in the same season. And when Enrique Hernandez singles home Seager for the walkoff, the Dodgers have their second-ever interleague series (including World Serieses) with multiple walkoff wins. The other was in April 2015 against the Mariners.
Order
Our overwhelming theme was low numbers, but when we chose the title, we picked "low places" since it can also refer to spots in the lineup. With some unusual interleague series also happening this week, the low numbers toward the top were sometimes offset by big numbers, well, down low.
In one of the games of that Brewers/Cardinals beer series, Harrison Bader posted the unusual combination of a triple and 3 walks. That was already strange enough to be the first such game for the Cardinals since Jim Edmonds in Philadelphia on August 16, 2003. BUT he did it batting 8th, a victim of the "unintentional walk" the other team always issues to get to the pitcher's spot. No Cardinals 8- or 9-hitter had collected a triple and 3 walks since Charlie Gelbert, also against the Phillies, on May 12, 1932.
Delino DeShields didn't have much to do with Monday's walkoff win over the Angels, other than keeping the line moving. He neither scored a run nor drove one in, but he did collect 2 singles and 2 stolen bases from the 8-hole in the Rangers' order. Their last 8- or 9- to do it? That's Delino DeShields, aganist the Mets on June 6, 2017. Others in Rangers/Senators history to do it twice include Elvis Andrus, Julio Borbon, Craig Gentry, Tom Goodwin, and Wayne Tolleson.
Nick Ahmed of the Diamondbacks collected both a homer and a sac fly out of the 7-spot in Tuesday's win over Colorado. He also did that on July 7 of last year in a blowout win over the Padres, joining Chris Snyder and Danny Bautista as the only Arizona hitters to do it twice.
From the "random combo" file, Richie Martin of the Orioles managed to connect for 2 hits, get hit by a pitch, and lay down a successful sac bunt all in Wednesday's game against the Royals. Only one other #9 batter in Orioles history has ever done that, Mark Belanger against the Yankees on August 12, 1978.
Mike Ford-- who has gotten to know the I-80 New York-to-Scranton corridor fairly well this season-- was with the Yankees at (okay, very near to) the other end of I-80 in Oakland this week. On Wednesday he was part of the Yankees' second consecutive loss there (4-2 and 6-2) despite their having 11 hits in both games. They'd only done that in Oakland once before (July 3-4, 1993), and Ford chipped in 3 hits including a homer out of the #9 spot. No Yankees batter had done that in a road loss since Mike Blowers at Texas on April 21, 1990.
The Twins dropped Friday's game to Detroit 9-6, but it wasn't for lack of that homer-happy offense of theirs. You just had to look a little further down. Jake Cave, all the way at the bottom of the order, had two homers to become the second #9 batter in franchise history to do that in a loss. Mark Salas did it in Detroit on May 29, 1987. And Cave joined Miguel Sano, up in the 6-hole, as the first teammates in Twins/Senators history to each homer twice in a loss.
Meanwhile on Friday, Dee Gordon was busy collecting a single, double, and triple in the Mariners' 7-4 win against Toronto. Dee gets around the batting order (and the bases), he's actually batted in every spot except 3rd this year, but it's most often either 1st or 9th. On Friday it was 9th-- from which the only other Mariners to do the single/double/triple combo had been Desi Relaford (2002) and Harold Reynolds (1987).
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Dodgers, Tuesday: Third home game in Los Angeles where they had 5+ homers and 5+ doubles. One was a 21-5 win over Milwaukee last August; the other was the game in September 2006 where they hit 4 straight in the 9th to tie and then walked off in extras.
⚾ Joe Musgrove, Friday: Pirates' first pitcher-as-pinch-runner to score the winning run in a walkoff since Rick Reuschel against the Phillies on July 2, 1986.
⚾ Corey Dickerson, Saturday: First Phillies batter to have 4 hits and 5 RBI without homering since Tom Herr against the Astros on May 2, 1990.
⚾ Royals, Monday: Sixth game this year where they had 6 or fewer hits but still scored at least 5 runs. Most in a season in team history (did it 5x in 1977 and 1969).
⚾ Mallex Smith, Wednesday: Second lead-flipping triple in Mariners history when team was down to its final out. Al Cowens hit one at Texas on June 15, 1983.
⚾ Kevin Newman, Sunday: First player with 4 hits, 2 stolen bases, and a hit-by-pitch in same game since Mike Benjamin of the Giants on June 11, 1995.
⚾ Starlin Castro, Friday: Second Marlins batter ever with 2 homers and 5 RBI in a game he didn't start. Jeff Conine did it in an 11-0 win at Wrigley on August 26, 1997.
⚾ Tigers/Astros, Tuesday: First game ever played in Houston (any stadium) where both teams led off the game with a home run.
⚾ Yankees, Saturday: Ended 1-run loss with back-to-back strikeouts with the bases loaded. Last time they did that was July 23, 1988, at Kansas City (the whiffers were Jack Clark and Dave Winfield).
⚾ Ariel Jurado, Thursday: First Rangers pitcher to throw a complete game and give up 10+ hits since Kevin Millwood at Anaheim, April 5, 2008.
⚾ Bryce Harper, Wednesday: First Phillies batter ever to hit a lead-flipping homer (any inning) at Fenway Park, including the occasional game that the Braves played there.
⚾ Alex Wood, Saturday: First Reds pitcher to have multiple hits in a game where the team got shut out since Tony Cloninger at San Diego on May 8, 1971.
⚾ Madison Bumgarner, Tuesday: Second pinch-hit walk (as a batter) this season, other being August 9 against the Phillies. Last Giants pitcher to receive two in a season was Johnny Antonelli in 1957.
⚾ Matt Boyd, Sunday: First Tigers pitcher to give up 7+ earned runs on only 4 hits in a road game since Beiker Graterol did it in his only career MLB appearance, April 9, 1999, against the Yankees.
⚾ Didi Gregorius, Friday: First Yankees batter with a multi-homer game against the Dodgers since, oh, a little 3-homer one you might have heard of.
⚾ Jose Alvarado, Saturday: First starter for any team to throw 2 wild pitches while recording only 1 out since Toronto's Jim Clancy on August 22, 1984.
⚾ Mariners, Monday: First time scoring 9+ runs at Tropicana Field since May 24, 2007. Have done it in every other American League stadium at least three times since then.
⚾ Gleyber Torres, Thursday: Second Yankees batter to have 2 homers in a loss in Oakland, joining Oscar Gamble on May 1, 1981.
⚾ Clayton Kershaw, Tue/Sun: First Dodgers pitcher to give up 3+ homers in consecutive starts since Claude Osteen in July 1970! Every other team has had at least one pitcher (usually several) do it just in this century.
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