New Power Generation

A generation ago the last names were Bonds and Boone and Alomar and Griffey. But in the last couple years, a whole new crop of youngsters-- whose fathers and/or grandfathers were also MLB stars-- has emerged in your boxscores and news feeds, particularly this past week. So in a throwback to Cecil Fielder and "Prince", let's party like it's 1983.


Upstairs At Frederick's

Urban architect Frederick Law Olmsted is known for many more-famous projects (Central Park, Biltmore Estate, Belle Isle in Detroit, Stanford University), but he also laid out "The Fenway", the mile-long thoroughfare through Boston's Back Bay from which the neighborhood's ballpark took its name. He certainly didn't envision that nowadays, millions more people would know the stadium than the neighborhood, the subway station, and certainly the road. (Go ahead, put it in Wikipedia, see which one you get.) All this is a long way of saying that a "Yaz" appeared at "Fenway" this week, and we don't mean the '80s band was playing a free concert in the park.

We don't have a way of checking this, but we're guessing a lot more folks than usual were actually in their seats for the first pitch on Tuesday, instead of wandering around, waiting in the beer line, visiting the team store, and then in the 2nd or 3rd inning, insisting on climbing over, or forcing to relocate, those of us who were in the seats on time. (Sorry, end rant.) Because by now you know that first pitch on Tuesday was to Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Carl, as the Giants made an unusual interleague visit to Boston. And sure enough, Nate Eovaldi's fifth pitch would find the seats for a home run. Except that was by Brandon Belt, after Mike struck out. Those wanting history would have to wait a couple more at-bats, until the 4th inning, when Mike did take the fifth pitch of an at-bat to center field for his 20th homer of the season. Carl's last homer at Fenway Park was off Moose Haas of the Brewers on July 31, 1983; and his last game with both a homer and a double was 22 days before that against the Angels.

For Mike that double would be a while. Because after the Red Sox scored 3 in the 6th, the next run would also be a while. Not in the 10th. Not in the 11th. Both teams ground into double plays in the 12th to erase a potential go-ahead run. Brandon Crawford finally comes through with an RBI double in the 13th, the Giants' first-ever go-ahead two-bagger that late in an interleague game. Unfortunately, he only got credit for a two-bagger because he overslid third after initially making it safely. Which would be bad when the next batter, Donovan Solano, singled. And even worse when the Giants somehow feel the need to use four pitchers just in the 13th, and the last one, Kyle Barraclough, coughs up a bases-loaded walk to tie the game. The Giants had not issued a tying bases-loaded walk in extra innings since September 16, 1929, by Freddie Fitzsimmons in the 11th inning at St Louis.

That walk sent us to the 14th, when Mike finally got his long-awaited double, but he didn't score. It was Solano's double in the 15th that finally wound up as the winning run when Alex Dickerson hit the third-latest sac fly in Giants history by inning; J.T. Snow had a walkoff in the 15th in 1999, and Daryl Spencer hit one in the 17th at Wrigley Field on May 2, 1956. For both teams it was their second win/loss of 15+ innings in an interleague game. That J.T. Snow walkoff, on June 4, 1999, against Oakland, was the other win for the Giants. And the other loss by the Sawx?, well, Max Muncy may be able to tell you something about that one.

The Giants rolled to an 11-3 win on Wednesday, with the younger Yaz going an uneventful 1-for-4 plus a leadoff walk. The story in this one would be Jeff Samardzija, staked to a 4-0 lead by the 3rd inning, who took a no-hitter into the 6th before Rafael Devers finally broke through with his 30th homer of the year. Devers already had 50 doubles to go with those dingers. And so did Xander Bogaerts, such that the homer not only got us out of a no-hitter scare, it created the first pair of teammates in MLB history with 30 homers and 50 doubles in the same season.

That would, however, basically be the highlight for the Red Sox who lost the game 11-3. It was the Giants' largest victory margin in an American League stadium since a 15-3 win in Detroit on July 2, 2011. Stephen Vogt, assuming the role of Designated Hitter under AL rules, became the first Giants DH ever to drive in 4 runs in a game, leaving the Pirates and Nationals as the only franchises never to have a DH do it. He was also the first Giants batter to have a 4-RBI game in Boston since that city had its own National League team for the Giants to contend with. Hank Thompson drove in 4 in an 11-10 loss at Braves Field on August 11, 1952.

The Sawx escaped with a 5-4 win in Thursday's getaway game, and this time Mike Yastrzemski found another way to send us back to July 1983. This time Mike didn't start as Joey Rickard and Austin Slater got nods in the outfield. Instead he showed up as a pinch hitter in the 8th after Slater went 0-for-3 and the Red Sox had switched to right-handed reliever Marcus Walden. The left-handed Mike promptly laced a first-pitch single to left, once again the first pinch hit by a Yastrzemski at Fenway since Carl had a double against Luis Sanchez of the Angels on July 10, 1983.

Thursday's 9th inning was not without its perils, though, as the first three batters all reached before Brandon Workman got two strikeouts to keep things at 5-3. He then walked Kevin Pillar, forcing the game to 5-4, before also fanning Longoria-- who became the first Giants batter with a game-ending strikeout with the bases loaded and the team down by 1 since Eliezer Alfonzo did it against Pittsburgh on June 9, 2006. That preserved the win for Eduardo Rodriguez, who was the second Red Sox pitcher ever to strike out 10 Giants batters in a game. The other was Smoky Joe Wood in Game 1 of the 1912 World Series. And even Carl Yastrzemski didn't play in that one.


Big-gio Wheel

We don't know if Craig Biggio ever had a Big Wheel plastic tricycle; he might have been a few years too old by the time they were nationally popular in the late 1970s. We're also pretty sure that son Cavan didn't; the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001 when he was 6. But as of this week, both Craig and Cavan share one other kind of cycle, and they're one of only two father-son combos who can say that.

Most of your baseball coverage in September focuses on the remaining pennant races, who's going to get home-field advantage, how a team is lining up their pitchers for the postseason, and not so much about a meaningless game between the 49-win Orioles and 59-win Blue Jays. Ah, but that's why they play the games. And why we at Kernels vow to look through all of them every day. Because Cavan began Tuesday's game with a slightly-interesting lead-flipping homer in the 4th inning. The Jays still held that 3-2 advantage when he batted again in the 5th, but Danny Jansen got picked off to end the inning. Cavan thus starts the 6th with a single, and the game now tied again after a Trey Mancini sac fly. Mancini would put the Orioles ahead again in the 7th with an RBI single, giving even more meaning to Cavan's double in the top of the 8th-- and the subsequent run he scored to re-tie the game at 4.

For the hundreds of times a year that someone is "a triple away from the cycle", nobody ever does it, and we really want to smack any announcer who mentions it. In fact Cavan's spot is still five away when Justin Smoak puts the Jays ahead for good with a leadoff homer in the 9th. Then two strikeouts. Danny Jansen singles. Bo Bichette-- speaking of fathers and sons-- works a nine-pitch walk that ends up briging Cavan to the plate after all. And after fouling off three pitches, he amazingly connects for that triple, not only scoring two insurance runs, but completing just the third cycle in Blue Jays history. And if you can name either of the others, you are probably related to them somehow. Jeff Frye did it against Texas on August 17, 2001; and Kelly Gruber had one on April 16, 1989, against the Royals in the final season of Exhibition Stadium.

On the way to scoring some of those deciding runs, Cavan also stole two bases in addition to recording all four possible hit types. Only one other player in the live-ball era (and the stolen-base rules changed frequently before that anyway) has hit for the cycle and stolen two bases in the same game, Charlie Moore of the Brewers on October 1, 1980. And Cavan is the first visiting player ever to hit for the cycle at Camden Yards, which opened in 1992. As mentioned, it's also the first cycle on the road in Blue Jays history, which of course started in 1977. Turns out the Houston Astros franchise also has only one road cycle since 1977-- and that's by dad Craig Biggio on April 8, 2002, in Colorado.

As hinted earlier, Craig and Cavan are the second father/son pair in MLB history to each hit for the cycle, the others being Gary Ward of the Twins on September 18, 1980, and son Daryle for the Pirates on May 26, 2004. But let's see how long that lasts, and which Blue Jays "favorite son" does it next. Because remember Bo Bichette from earlier? Yep, father Dante Bichette also had a cycle at Coors Field, playing for the Rockies on June 10, 1998. And while we haven't had reason to mention Vlad Guerrero Jr. yet, he's on the Jays too. And the Senior Vlad also hit for the cycle once, and also did it in Canada-- September 14, 2003, for the Expos against the Mets.


Acuña Matata

You probably never heard much about the playing career of Ron Acuña. Signed by the Mets as an international free agent in 1999, he got as high as double-A by 2003, did one-year minor-league deals with the Jays and Brewers in '04 and '05, totalled 18 homers in affiliated ball, then returned to play in Venezuela until 2010. That, of course, is in addition to an 8-game stint in 2007 with (OF COURSE!) the Long Island Ducks. Obviously he is listed on scoresheets from back in the day (we actually have 11 of them, in which he went 12-for-40!) as just "Acuña". There was no "Sr." necessary. Ya know, back in the day.

Today there's almost no "Jr." necessary, because when we mention "Acuña" in the past couple years, you know we're talking about his still-21-year-old son who took the baseball world by storm last season. On Thursday the younger version finally reached the 40-homer plateau with a 3rd-inning go-ahead dinger off Aaron Nola of the Phillies. And that means he has 472 left in his MLB career. How do we know? Because only two other players in MLB history have hit 40 homers in their age-21 season or earlier. They're Hall-of-Famers Eddie Mathews and Mel Ott-- both of whom finished their MLB careers with exactly 512 homers.

As for Aaron Nola, he's been a solid cog in the Phillies' rotation for several years now, although in that Thursday game he was the first Phillies pitcher to giv eup 9 hits, 5 runs, and 2 homers to the Braves since Kyle Kendrick did it in July 2013. But Aaron's brother Austin, who's actually 3½ years older, finally found his way to the majors in June, having spent five years bouncing around the Marlins' minor-league system, then finally signing with Seattle as a free agent. And Austin popped up in a couple notes this week too, when the Mariners made a rare trip to Pittsburgh and actually recorded their first-ever shutout there on Tuesday. Austin hit one of three M's homers in the 8-0 win, doubling the number of longballs the team had ever hit at PNC Park, and also added a single and a double. Kyle Seager, in July 2016, is the team's only other player to go single-double-homer in Pittsburgh.

And Thursday's game was finally decided in the 11th inning on a very strange play started by Austin. With Shed Long on third and Omar Narvaez on first, Nola grounded to Kevin Kramer at second. Rather than run into a double play, Narvaez stops and tries to get in a rundown to allow Long to score the go-ahead run (he does). Kramer throws behind Narvaez to retire batter Nola, then ends up running him back to first where catcher Elias Diaz has come up to make the tag. GIDP (4-3)-6-2, no RBI, inning is over but the Mariners take the 6-5 lead and go on to win. Obviously in extra innings, the defense is going to cut down that run at the plate whenever possible. Thus the last "go-ahead double play" that we found in extras was on August 26, 2016, when Ramon Cabrera of the Reds hit a sac fly and the second out only happened because a runner from second got greedy and tried to move up. The last one to happen on your traditional infield grounder was on June 20, 1998, when Paul Molitor of the Twins hit into a standard 6-4-3, and the White Sox were probably well aware they had no chance to gun down the speedy Otis Nixon breaking from third.

By the way, since we're doing this family thing, we learned from Wikipedia that Ronald Acuña's grandfather on his mother's side, Romualdo Blanco, also got as high as double-A in the mid-1970s. He, however, was a pitcher. He never homered (though he did give up 25 of them).

Appropriately enough, the younger Acuña and the younger Yastrzemski would meet each other over the weekend when the Giants traveled to Atlanta. Both batted leadoff on Friday, and both basically were their team's entire offense, although in much different ways. Mike Foltynewicz shut down the San Francisco offense on only 4 hits, but 3 of those were by Yaz, making him the first Giants leadoff batter with 3 hits, including an extra-base knock, in a game where the team got shut out, since Randy Winn against the Astros on April 13, 2006. No Giants leadoff batter had done it in a road game since Bill Madlock in Houston on May 31, 1978. Acuña, meanwhile, erupted for 2 hits, 2 RBIs, 2 walks, and 3 runs scored as the Braves rolled to a 6-0 win. It's the fourth time he's had multiples in all those categories while batting leadoff, setting yet another Braves franchise record. Claudell Washington did it three times in 1984-85.


The Power Station

We chose this week's title not just for the "generation" theme, but for the "power" theme as well. Because that lets us segue into a team that seems to do nothing except mash homers. You know the one we mean. The one that just happens to be from the same city as Prince and "the NPG" too.

The Twins added a giant red "Bomba Counter" to their right-field concourse about a month ago when they started a homestand with 240 taters. It has since ticked well past the Yankees' previous single-season record of 267, which even the Yankees have also surpassed in this Year Of The Homer. By the time Tuesday's game with the White Sox rolled around it sat on 287, and jumped to 289 when Ryan LaMarre and Miguel Sano led a 5-run 3rd inning.

Ah, but on this particular day it would actually be the visitors from Chicago who out-"bomba"d the "bomba squad". Zack Collins and Adam Engel went back-to-back to re-tie the game in the 6th, and then it gets interesting. Tim Anderson leads off the 11th with a go-ahead dinger, and all Alex Colome has to do is get three ou-- mm, yeah, about that. Leadoff single, groundout, wild pitch, Mitch Garver sac fly, the Twins' first tying sac fly in the 11th or later since Luis Rivas against Texas on September 20, 2000. Let's try this again. Ryan Cordell, 2-run homer in the 12th, already creating the first road game in franchise history (1901) where the White Sox homered in two different extra innings. Now Jose Ruiz has a 2-run lead and just needs to get three ou-- oh no. The Twins' third base hit of the inning (by Marwin Gonzalez) re-ties the game, and then two more singles set up the bases loaded with 1 out. And Ronald Torreyes receives the gift that doesn't actually hurt, the walkoff hit-by-pitch (or "plunk-off", as we call it). Twins win, 9-8, despite giving up home runs in both the 11th and 12th. The Twins hadn't had one of those in any extra inning since Paul Molitor got plunked by the Royals' Jeff Montgomery on May 1, 1996, and that was in the 10th. In the 12th or later, the franchise hadn't had one since April 27, 1931.

As for the White Sox, they managed to collect 20 hits and lose, which has happened just once before in the past 80 years (July 13, 2008, at Texas). And to go deep in the tops of two different extra innings and still lose? Well, no team's pulled that off in over 30 years; in a game reminiscent of the Astros/Dodgers World Series tilt a couple years ago, the Padres and Expos traded runs in the 11th (Roberto Alomar homered for San Diego), and again in the 12th, and then again in the 13th (Marvell Wynne homer) before Candy Sierra gave up three straight singles and the Expos' 3 runs trumped the Padres' 2. That game, on May 24, 1988, ended up being Sierra's only career MLB decision; he got traded to the Reds 2 weeks later and never made it back.

Nelson Cruz would bump that Twins counter to 293 on Thursday when his second tater of the game sealed an 8-5 win over the Royals in the 7th. It was Cruz's fourth game this season with 2 homers and 5 RBI, setting a new franchise record. Gary Gaetti had three such games in 1986. Cruz had one other game this year with 5 RBI but not 2 homers; his five 5-RBI games also set a franchise record, topping Jason Kubel's four such games in 2009.



Not only was the "New Power Generation" the band, you may have forgotten that they released a song by that name too, sort of as their way of breaking onto the scene. So lay down your funky weapon and join us on the floor. Intermission!



Diamonds & Pearls

We had a handful of other "pearls" of wisdom this week that didn't really fit anywhere else. So let's go around the diamond and recap some other things that would have you drawing diamonds on your scoresheet.

After Cavan Biggio followed in his father's footsteps with a cycle on Tuesday, the Jays and Orioles played a back-and-forth game on Wednesday that saw Baltimore run out to an early 7-1 lead before giving much of it back on a 3-run homer by Teoscar Hernandez in the 7th. Biggio's bases-loaded single makes it 9-6 with 2 outs in the 9th, but still, all Miguel Castro has to do is not give up a grand sl-- oh. Randal Grichuk with the fourth lead-flipping slam in Jays history when down to their final out, joining Justin Smoak (last August), Gregg Zaun (2008), and Dave Winfield (1992). It was the sixth time this season the Orioles had led a game after 8 innings and lost, their most in a season since 2013, and tied with the Cubs for the most in the majors....

...Until Saturday, that is. That's when the Cardinals held a 5-3 lead over the North Siders, who have already decided to pinch-hit for their pitcher in the 4th inning. That gives Ian Happ a little nook in history, hitting the earliest (by inning) pinch-hit homer for the Cubs since Jason Dubois in Houston on April 30, 2005. He ties the game at 5, and the Cubs briefly take the lead when Nico Hoerner goes yard in the 6th. However, then it's Marcell Ozuna's turn to go deep with a 2-run shot, the Cards' first lead-flipping homer in the 7th or later at Wrigley since Stephen Piscotty hit one on August 14, 2016. No worries. The pitcher's spot is up again in the bottom half, so let's send up Tony Kemp, who happens to hit right after Ben Zobrist has doubled to represent the tying run again. Wham, another pinch-hit homer, the first time the Cubs have hit two in the same game since Tyler Houston and Orlando Merced did it against Milwaukee on September 12, 1998. It's the first time since at least 1900 that the Cubs have hit two and both of them have been of the multi-run variety.

So here's that lead we mentioned. 8-7, hand it to Craig Kimbrel to close out the 9th. Which he did. Eventually. If only he could have those first two pitches back. Boom, leadoff, game-tying, save-blowing homer by Yadier Molina. The crowd isn't even done booing yet when, very next pitch, boom, go-ahead homer by Paul DeJong. The Cardinals have hit back-to-back homers to lead off the 9th just one other time in the last decade, on August 20 of last year by Jedd Gyorko and Matt Carpenter against Kenley Jansen. And for Kimbrel, it was the second time this year (July 27 at Milwaukee) that he gave up 2 homers, blew a save with the first one, and took a loss with the second one. Only Carlos Marmol (2013) has done that twice in a season in Cubs history.

And the part everyone wondered about online? Tying and then go-ahead homers on the first two pitches of the 9th? Well, in the available pitch-count data on the great Baseball Reference Play Index, which is complete back to 1988, it's only happened once before. On August 8, 2000, Oakland's Jason Isringhausen served up a gopherball to Bernie Williams and then a walkoff to Dave Winfield on back-to-back pitches at Yankee Stadium.


Power Level 1

The Rays wrapped up the interleague portion of their 2019 schedule with a visit to Dodger Stadium, and wrapped up that series with a come-from-behind extra-inning win on Wednesday. Tommy Pham singled and stole second off Kenley Jansen in the 9th, eventually scoring on a single by Ji-Man Choi. In the 11th the same cast of characters comes around again; this time Austin Meadows homers to give the Rays the lead; Pham then doubles and scores on a sac fly by Choi, an insurance run that would actually be needed when the Dodgers scored an unearned run in the bottom half. What we haven't mentioned is that Pham already had 3 hits prior to his late-inning heroics, making him the third player in Rays history with a 5-hit game in a National League park. Tim Beckham did it at Coors in July 2016, and Jeff Keppinger collected 5 hits in Philadelphia in June 2012. The stolen base also made him the third in Rays history with 5 hits and a steal, joining Carl Crawford (2006) and Julio Lugo (2004).

And we've learned to never prepare the shutout notes early. Two batters this week proved us right; on Tuesday the Mets led the Rockies 6-0 with 2 outs in the 9th, on the verge of their largest-ever shutout at Coors Field, and Charlie Blackmon denies that with a solo homer. Only once before in Rockies history have they homered to break up a 6-0 (or worse) shutout when down to their final out; Vinny Castilla went deep off Tim Pugh of the Reds on August 2, 1993.

Meanwhile, Aristides Aquino-- who has sorta dropped off the home-run radar the last couple weeks but still has 17 of them since making his debut in July-- also faced a shutout from the Mets when they went to Cincinnati on Friday. Jeurys Familia began the 9th with an 8-0 lead, and five pitches later he had an 8-1 lead. Although it wasn't the "down to final out" scenario, Aquino's homer was the second one this season the Reds hit in the 9th inning to break up a shutout of 8-0 or more. Jose Peraza had the other, against the Dodgers on May 19-- and that makes it the first time since at least 1894 (when we start to lose too much game detail) that the Reds have done it twice in a season.


All Seven

You knew this one had to find its way in, huh? Until Saturday we weren't sure exactly how, but there's always a team or two that comes through.

Last Sunday the Oakland Raiders played what may well be the final NFL game in a shared "dual-use" stadium that was also hosting baseball at the same time. (There could be one more in October if the A's get past the Wild Card game.) In both their home games so far this season the Raiders scored a 1st-quarter touchdown. So on Saturday the A's said, hey, we can do that too. Leave that "7" up there. With Brock Burke taking the hill for the Rangers, they opened the game with three singles, a forceout-plus-error, a double, two walks, a sac fly, and then one final single to knock Burke out of the game having gotten only 2 outs. While he did get a lot more than 2 outs in the other starts, Burke became the first Rangers pitcher to give up 6 earned runs in three straight starts since Derek Holland did it just over a decade ago.

Marcus Semien, who began the game with a single, would draw a walk against Luke Farrell as the 10th batter of the inning, then walk again in the 2nd when Jonathan Hernandez couldn't find the strike zone and issued three of them. By the end of the 2nd inning the Rangers are already on their fourth pitcher, and the fine folks at Stats Inc. report they are the first team to have their first three pitchers all get 2 outs or fewer since the Astros did it on September 9, 1984.

The 12-3 final is pretty much academic as the A's just have to not implode, and for once they didn't. The rest of the day would belong to Semien, who greeted pitcher number five (Shawn Kelley) with a solo homer in the 5th, then welcomed number seven (Brett Martin) with a single, and then walked again in the 8th. That's 3 hits and 3 walks, the first batter for any team to do that in a game since Brett Gardner of the Yankees, also against the Rangers, on July 28, 2015. But combined that's six times reaching base in any fashion, and that's the idea behind havnig him bat leadoff.

So the last A's leadoff batter to reach base six times? That's Rickey Henderson, in a 10-inning affair in Cleveland on August 28, 1998). What about in a 9-inning game? Well, that's Rickey too, in the next-to-last game of 1991, also against the Rangers. But that was in Arlington. What about a home game? Yep, Rickey again, in 16 innings against the Angels on April 8, 1982. Finally if you add the combo of 9 innings and a home game, not only is it not Rickey, it's not in Oakland. It's not even in Kansas City. Wally Moses was the team's last leadoff hitter to do that, at Shibe Park against the Browns on September 12, 1939.

And about those touchdowns? Well, it turns out it's the third time this season that Oakland has scored 7+ runs in a 1st inning. They also did in Houston on September 10 in that 21-7 jubilee we covered last week, and on July 13 against the White Sox. No team in the majors had posted three 7-run 1st innings in a season since the White Sox did it in 2000.


And We'll Watch Them Fall

The sevens didn't just show up at the beginning of the games on Saturday, either. Earlier we mentioned a couple of games that the Twins played this week, but Saturday looked destined for extra innings as well when Ryan O'Hearn led a 3-run 6th to tie the game at 5-5. However, the ball got passed to Taylor Rogers for the 9th, and Cheslor Cuthbert promptly untied the game with a 2-run pinch-hit homer. That was the first time the Royals hit a go-ahead, multi-run, pinch-hit dinger in the 9th since Matt Stairs in Cincinnati on June 27, 2006. After Whit Merrifield was awarded a double on fan interference, the ball got passed to Trevor Hildenberger, and well, oof.

RBI double. Stolen base. Single. Single. Single plus an error. Walk. It's now 10-5 with the bases still loaded, and Hildenberger has become the first Twins pitcher to give up 4 hits and 4 runs while getting 0 outs since Tyler Duffey on May 31, 2017. Jorge Alcala is able to finish out the inning, but not before allowing 2 more inherited runs to score, giving the Royals their third 7-run 9th in the past 15 seasons. The previous one was also at Target Field, on September 6, 2016; and earlier that same season they famously had a 7-run bottom of the 9th to come back from 6 down against the White Sox. (It's famous to us because we were there.)

The last Royals run, to cement our 12-5 final, came on a bases-loaded walk to Cuthbert. Who, remember, entered the game as a pinch hitter earlier in the same inning. This is one of our favorite scoresheet quirks, and you don't see it often. He can't very well pinch-hit again. But he also hasn't yet taken a position on defense. Usually the scoreboard will continue showing him as a PH, but he's literally in limbo, in a "position" that's not actually defined in the rule book. He's the first Royals player to bat in this state since Jarrod Dyson pinch-ran for Billy Butler on April 30, 2011, and came around again to single. Cuthbert is also the first batter in Royals history to draw a bases-loaded walk from the undefined position. All told in MLB this year there have been only 12 such plate appearances... out of nearly 180,000 total.

And while it doesn't quite fit the "seven" theme, an honorable mention to the Nationals for blowing a 4-run lead on Saturday but then scoring 6 times in the top of the 10th to end up winning in Miami after all. Fernando Rodney managed to give up 3 doubles, the last-- by Austin Dean-- being the first game-tying 3-run double in Marlins history in the 7th inning or later. Rodney and Joe Ross, who did it May 4 in Philadelphia, are two of the three pitchers in Nats history to give up 3 doubles while only getting 1 out; Jorge Sosa also did it at Wrigley in 2009.

The Nats scored those 6 runs in the 10th on four singles, two walks, and a bases-loaded double of their own, by Kurt Suzuki. It was the team's first bases-loaded double in extras since Kevin Frandsen hit one in Atlanta on August 9, 2014, and their first ever of the pinch-hit variety. Only once before (since 2005) had the Nationals scored 6+ runs in an extra inning; they did it July 23, 2012, at Citi Field. Saturday was also the first time they'd ever scored 10+ runs at Marlins Park without benefit of a home run.


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ George Springer, Sunday: First leadoff batter in Astros history with a 3-homer game. With Yordan Alvarez on August 10, first season in Astros history where they've had a 3-homer game by two different batters.

⚾ Mitch Moreland, Friday: First batter in Red Sox history to hit a tying homer and a go-ahead homer, both in the 7th or later, in a game they still lost.

⚾ Miguel Rojas, Tuesday: First player in Marlins history to have 6 RBI in a game but not score a run himself. Last to do it for any team was Minnesota's Chris Colabello on April 3, 2014.

⚾ Glenn Sparkman, Monday: First Royals pitcher to throw 2 wild pitches and commit a balk since Doug Linton at Chicago, July 20, 1996.

⚾ Brad Miller, Saturday: First Phillies batter ever to have a multi-homer game in Cleveland (including the Spiders years). Also first game there where the Phillies hit 4 homers as a team.

⚾ Homer Bailey, Wednesday: First A's pitcher to allow 0 runs on 3 hits, strike out 11, and not get a win since Jack Coombs pitched an entire 16-inning scoreless tie against the White Sox on August 4, 1910.

⚾ Pete Alonso, Friday: First batter ever to hit his 50th home run of a season in Cincinnati. The only Reds batter with a 50-HR season, George Foster in 1977, got his 50th on the road.

⚾ Eddie Rosario, Sunday: Second 3-double game of season (also June 18 vs Boston). First Twins/Senators batter to do it twice in a season since Stan Spence in 1946.

⚾ Tigers, Tue-Wed: First time being held to 4 hits in back-to-back games in Cleveland since getting swept in a doubleheader on June 14, 1982.

⚾ Rays, Fri-Sat: First time in team history winning back-to-back games via extra-inning walkoff.

⚾ Blue Jays, Thursday: Fourth 6-run inning of the year at Camden Yards, most by any visiting team in a single season since the park opened in 1992.

⚾ Yu Darvish, Tue-Sun: First pitcher for any team to strike out 12+ in back-to-back starts and lose both of them since Javier Vazquez of the White Sox in September 2006.

⚾ Mike Fiers, Friday: Third pitcher in Oakland history to throw 8+ innings and face the minimum. The others went on to finish perfect games (Dallas Braden in 2010 and Catfish Hunter in 1968).

⚾ Brandon Nimmo, Monday: Became fourth visiting player to hit multiple leadoff homers at Coors Field, joining Dexter Fowler, Kevin Newman (in same series last month), and Chris Stynes.

⚾ Noah Syndergaard, Wednesday: First Mets pitcher to give up 10 hits and 4 stolen bases in a game since Steve Trachsel against Atlanta on June 24, 2001.

⚾ White Sox, Saturday: Second 9-inning game in live-ball era where they collected 17 hits but only scored 5 runs. Other was June 12, 1973, also in Detroit.

⚾ Jordan Luplow, Tuesday: First Clevelander with a pinch-hit triple in the 3rd inning or earlier in exactly 100 years and 1 day. Doc Johnston batted for pitcher George Uhle who gave up 5 runs in the 2nd on September 16, 1919.

⚾ Hyun-Jin Ryu & Will Smith, Sunday: First game where both halves of Dodgers' battery homered since Andy Ashby & Chad Kreuter at Montréal, May 19, 2002.