It Takes Two

Along about Thursday of each week we start pondering what's been happening in the baseball world the last few days that is materializing as a theme for this post. Last week one of our early ideas centered around some of the strange doubleheaders that were happening, with oddities like a 7th-inning walkoff or an "extra-inning" homer in the 8th. There have been quite a few DH's played where the home team bats last in one game and first in the other. And some of that stuff did end up in last week's post, but it got shoved to the bottom when, oh yeah, the Padres hit five grand slams in six days. Little did we know those doubleheaders would give us, well, a second act. Without going into the variety of reasons why all these doubleheaders exist-- there are at least three major ones-- there were certainly some cardboard cutouts who got more than they bargained for.


2 Fast 2 Furious

One of the first games to get called off on Wednesday and turned into a twinbill was between the Mariners and Padres, and if you suspected neither of those teams plays in very many doubleheaders, you'd be right. The Mariners have always had a roof for their home games, and San Diego has always had, well, San Diego. In fact Petco Park has only ever had two other double-dips: September 2, 2017, against the Dodgers, and July 1, 2006, against the Giants, both of those caused by the rare rainout earlier in the season. And since Safeco Field opened in 1999, it's only had two doubleheaders, neither of them related to the weather in Seattle. Those were related to the weather in Cleveland (2007) and Kansas City (2004) which caused the Mariners' final game in those cities to be called off and rescheduled when those teams came to Seattle later on. (We were at the 2004 one, and at 7 hours 9 minutes, it remains our longest single-admission day of baseball.)

Thursday's Mariners-Padres activity would not quite take 7 hours, partly because the rules now lop 2 innings off each game, but still the cardboard cutouts got plenty of entertainment. Rookie Jose Marmolejos hit a 2-run homer in the 4th to open the scoring for Seattle, after which our old friends Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr would go back-to-back to tie things up in the 6th. That duo now owns two of the top five spots in Padres history for most home runs 32 games into a season; Tatis blew away the record with his 13th, while Machado joins Nate Colbert (1970), Fred McGriff (1992), and Adrian Gonzalez (2009) in the 10-homer club. Machado had also homered earlier in the game for the Padres' first run, making him the fifth San Diego batter with a multi-homer game against Seattle. That list includes Franmil Reyes last April, Damian Jackson in 2005, Bubba Trammell in 2001, and Steve Finley in 1997-- all of them doing it in home games. The Mariners promptly blew the game open in the top of the 7th (and now final!) inning, sending five batters to face Craig Stammen and coming away with four hits and a plunking. Stammen was the first Padres pitcher to pull that off in a home game (face five batters and retire none of them) since Adam Russell did it against the Reds on September 26, 2010.

Ah, but as much as the cardboard cutouts want to beat the intermission rush at the concession stand, they know by now that these Padres are capable of all kinds of weird comebacks. Like, oh, say, scoring 7 unanswer-able runs all with 2 outs? Hit batter. Wild pitch. Two walks. Two-run single. Another wild pitch for a third run. Another single for the fourth run that ties this mess up. That would be the point where we take Taylor Williams off the mound, having joined Arizona's Joe Kennedy (2007) and Willie Fraser of the Angels (1989) as the only pitchers ever to give up 5 earned runs, throw 2 wild pitches, and hit a batter while only getting 2 outs. And that fifth run charged to Williams, the one that tags him with the loss as well? All that does is score on a 3-run walkoff homer by Wil Myers off Dan Altavilla. It was the Padres' first 3-run walkoff homer (you might have heard they're good at hitting slams) since Ryan Schimpf hit one against the Diamondbacks on August 19, 2016. It was August 19 of this year when Machado hit his walkoff slam that we featured last week; 2010 (Chase Headley and Adrian Gonzalez) was the last season in which the Padres had both a 3- and 4-run walkoff homer. The only other time the Padres had hit either version of walkoff homer against Seattle was by Rondell White on June 20, 2003. And as you might expect, it was the first time the Padres had ever scored 7 runs in an inning and ended that inning with a walkoff victory.

So would you believe that after the Padres dropped their 7 runs, the Mariners answered them by scoring 6 in the very next inning? It's true. Now of course that next inning is in a different game, but who's counting? (Oh right, we are.) All 6 of those 1st-inning runs came off Garrett Richards, and unfortunately for the Padres, it had only been 3 years since a starter did that. Jered Weaver gave up 6 runs and 2 homers to the D'backs while only getting 2 outs as recently as May 19, 2017. The big blow was yet another Petco Park grand slam, but this one was by Jose Marmolejos, who you might remember also went deep in the first game. And as we've mentioned, the Mariners don't play many doubleheaders. Their only other players to homer in both games of one are Alex Rodriguez (2000), Edgar Martinez (1999), David Segui (1998), and Jay Buhner (1990). And two batters after Marmolejos, Shed Long connected for another homer, becoming the sixth batter in team history to hit a 1st-inning longball while batting 8th.

We'll spare you those last six boring innings because the outcome of this one is already decided and the teams are gonna split the twinbill. The only thing left is for Manny Machado to hit another home run. Which happened three batters into the Padres' side of things, setting a team record for the most futile 1st-inning homer. Yonder Alonso, on September 14, 2012, went yard with the Padres down 5-0 already, but they'd never hit a 1st-inning homer when trailing by 6. That also made Machado the first Padres batter to homer in both games of a doubleheader since Ryan Schimpf also did that about a month before his walkoff (July 20, 2016, at St Louis). The last doubleheader where both teams had a player homer in both games was just last August 12, between the Yankees (Gleyber Torres) and Orioles (Trey Mancini). And by hitting two dingers in the first game, Machado became the first Padres batter with three in a doubleheader since Sixto Lezcano on July 31, 1982. As doubleheader records go, however, the Padres own one of the most impressive ones.


Double-O and Seven

Now, if you prefer your doubleheaders without runs, we've got a few of those too. In fact, the Giants couldn't be bothered to score a run at all on Thursday, not just in 7 innings or even the regular 9, but the entire 14. Granted, they were facing Clayton Kershaw in the opener, and he blew through 6 innings on 86 pitches, never allowing more than 1 hit or facing more than 4 batters in any frame. This, plus Giants starter Logan Webb not being Clayton Kershaw (who among us is?), led to the first 7-0 score in the majors this season. Our famous matrix of all the score combinations in MLB history awaits only a 9-4 among the single-digit combos we haven't seen yet. (There is a big update, with much more detail, coming to that page in the next couple weeks, so stick around. Shameless plug.) Thursday's game was also the 14th win for Kershaw at what's now called Oracle Park, breaking a tie with Tom Seaver and Don Drysdale for the third-most wins by a visiting pitcher in San Francisco. Only Greg Maddux (16) and Phil Niekro (15) have more.

By Game 2 it's not even a pitching duel, apparently everyone is just tired and can't be bothered to hit the ball. The Dodgers used up seven pitchers in a 7-inning game (that they won!), and let's look at those hit totals, shall we. Joc Pederson, a solo homer and a double. Will Smith, an RBI double to score Pederson. Brandon Belt, two singles. And "<end list>", as we say. Dodgers 2-3-0 over Giants 0-2-0, the fourth game in stadium history where neither team got to 4 hits. It was the first road game where the Dodgers had 3 hits and won since August 4, 2013, at Wrigley; only the Red Sox and Mets have gone longer without doing it. The last time the Dodgers had 3 hits in a game in San Francisco but still managed to score multiple runs was way back on July 27, 1993, at Candlestick. As for the Giants, they hadn't been shut out in both games of a doubleheader, nor held to 4 hits in both games of one, since they relocated to California. The 4-hit deal last happened at the Polo Grounds on June 30, 1949, against the Braves; and the double zeroes in the run column even predates that by 6 years. The New Yorkers dropped a pair of 2-0 decisions at Wrigley Field on July 25, 1943.


Two For Tuesday Thursday

After all this, would you believe we still have two doubleheaders left to go, just on Thursday alone? Aside from the Astros, who had hurricane issues, the only teams that ended up playing on Thursday were the ones who did not play on Wednesday, and so on through the week. So the team that started it all, the Brewers, got to play a twinbill with Cincinnati on Thursday, and... uh... at least in the first game they scored? Once? Starters Sonny Gray and Wade Miley were not overly impressive, though the latter did hold the Brewers to one hit. But the duo of Jesse Winker and Nicholas Castellanos definitely came to play; in the opener they became the first Reds teammates with 3 hits, a home run, 2 RBI, and 2 runs scored in the same game since Adam Duvall and Steve Selsky did that in September 2016. They were the first Reds teammates ever to do it in Milwaukee, and remember the Braves stopped there for 13 years too. Winker's two homers in Game 1, as the designated hitter in our new world of experimental rules come to life, made him and Kyle Schwarber the only two National League players ever to have a pair of multi-homer games as a DH.

Castellanos, meanwhile, would collect a double in both games (in addition to his homer in the first one), the first Reds batter to do that since Billy Hamilton at Coors Field in August 2014. And with those new pesky National League DHs meaning the NL pitchers aren't stuck at the bottom of the batting order, Curt Casali and Tucker Barnhart-- the catchers for the two games-- did bat 9th and each came away with a hit, a walk, and an RBI. The last time Cincinnati had its #9 hitter do that in back-to-back games, it was by pitchers, and also in a doubleheader. Ray Kolp and Charles "Red" Lucas posted those lines in Philadelphia on July 25, 1928. And the last time the Reds swept a twinbill in Milwaukee... wasn't against the Brewers. Lest you forget those Braves years, Cincinnati dropped scores of 10-9 and 10-2 at County Stadium on June 27, 1965.

Thursday's final doubleheader was also a sweep, by the Pirates in St Louis (4-3 and 2-0) despite having only 6 hits in both games. That was the first time Pittsburgh had done that since the final day of the 1976 season, also against the Cardinals, by identical scores of 1-0 and with both (9-inning!) games played in under 2 hours because frankly nobody cared. Thursday was the first time the Pirates took both halves of a DH in St Louis since September 4, 1967. And as we hinted earlier, if you looked at Thursday's scoreboard when it was all said and done, you didn't see a single 9-inning game in the bunch. Eight games, four doubleheaders. The last day on which every game in the majors was part of a DH was September 1, 1958, back when Labor Day (and also Independence Day) were extremely popular (and profitable) for double-dips. But even then most of those games were 9 innings unless it started to get dark toward the end of the second one. Only once before since 1900 had there been multiple MLB games played on a day with none of them having a 9th inning. On June 21, 1943, the American League had an off-day, and the National League had only two games-- a weather-shortened affair in St Louis, and a game at Ebbets Field was stopped due to darkness; even though Ebbets had lights by that point, blackout restrictions during World War II prohibited them from being turned on.


New York, New York, It's A Wonderful Town

...And MLB deliberately has its two remaining teams play each other a couple times a year for "rivalry" purposes, and in this Year Of The Postponement, that ended up creating a 5-games-in-3-days situation over the weekend. Game 1 on Friday featured the Yankees jumping out to a 4-1 lead on Michael Wacha before turning things over to Chad Green with the tying run at the plate in the form of Pete Alonso. Alonso hit a 3-run homer at the current Yankee Stadium on June 11, 2019, and, well yeah, now he's the only Mets player to hit two there. Carlos Delgado was the only one to do it at the old place, and his were in the same game. And later in the inning, Dom Smith and Jake Marisnick would go back-to-back to seal the 6-4 victory. Green thus became the second pitcher in Yankees history to give up 3 homers while getting both a blown save and a loss; Dick Tidrow did that against Seattle on April 27, 1979. Clint Frazier drove in three of those Yankees runs, joining Robinson Cano (2005), Tony Clark (2004), and Paul O'Neill (1999) as the team's only players with a homer, a double, and 3 RBI in a loss to the Mets.

Unlike the police escorts of the past, the teams would not scurry over the Triborough Bridge to play the second game in Flushing. Instead the Yankees would just bat first and the videoboards would play cute Mets-related videos to make the visitors from that faraway land known as Queens "feel" at home. (No word on whether Mr. Met flipped anyone off to complete the experience.) In this one the Yankees held another precarious 3-2 lead going to the bottom of the 7th. And there are no Chad Green sightings this time, but we do have Aroldis Chapman. Who at least realized that it's already 11:00 (yes, we started at 4) and made quick work of things. Leadoff walk to Jeff McNeil. Two-run homer to Amed Rosario. The home run that even he didn't realize was a walkoff (so you see how well that "making them feel at home" part worked). It is, of course, the first walkoff homer in major-league history by a visiting team in the bottom of the 7th. But it's also the first one the Mets had ever hit against the Yankees, at any stadium including their own. There are six teams (BOS, CHW, CLE, SEA, TEX, TOR) against whom they still haven't hit one. The last time a Mets pinch hitter connected for a walkoff homer when trailing was The Ike Davis Grand Slam on April 5, 2014 (the Mets promptly traded Davis two weeks later because Mets). It was also their first-ever doubleheader sweep of the Yankees, regardless of site.

But the fun part comes in that walkoff. Back in the old days, in another rule similar to cricket, the home team got the choice of batting first or fielding first. Although the rule stayed on the books until 1950, the last instance of a team electing to bat first was in 1915. So before this year, the only avenue we had for a team to get walked off in its own park was to look at the suspended-games list. And that's what happened to the Astros back in 2009; a game in Washington on May 5 got suspended by rain, the Astros weren't coming back the rest of the season, so they finished the game in Houston when the Nats went there in July. And the Astros lost via walkoff to the first batter (Josh Willingham) after the resumption.

But as for the Friday situation, where the home team "elects" to bat first and then gets walked off, well, according to Elias that hadn't happened since May 21, 1906, when Sherry Magee of the Phillies hit a "tremendous jolt to left" for a triple and a 1-0 victory at Robeson Field in St Louis. And a walkoff homer in a "home team batted first" game hadn't happened since May 12, 1899, when Ed McKean of St Louis, who had played for the Cleveland Spiders the year before, hit a 10th-inning homer against them for loss number 18 (of their record-breaking 134 that year).

Saturday's ending may not have been quite as historic, but it was just as fun. Luke Voit, as he tends to do, opened the scoring with a solo homer in the 1st, but then we sat. 1-0 for seven more innings as J.A. Happ and Anyone The Mets Could Find ate up inning after inning. (Seriously, the Mets used seven pitchers, only one of them got more than 3 outs, and only two of them even gave up hits. C'mon man.) Finally, with Happ out of the game in the 8th, Wilson Ramos unleashes his own solo homer to tie things up, and it's the kind of game that makes you glad we have the free runner. Because it's equally likely that neither team is going to score again for seven more innings. Ramos had the Mets' first-ever tying homer against the Yankees in the 8th or later, although they do have four of the go-ahead variety.

But we wouldn't need those free runners after all, because in the continuing quest to mess with our New York state of mind, on comes Dellin Betances for the 9th. At Yankee Stadium. In a Mets uniform. Yeah, we weren't aware he worked for them now, either. His tenure is still to be determined, however, as he issued a leadoff walk to Clint Frazier, who then took third on a single to right by Jordy Mercer. And two pitches later, scored on a wild pitch. We affectionately call these a "bounce-off", even though this one was way high instead of bouncing, and it's the first one ever in a Mets/Yankees game (either direction). The Yankees' last win on a wild pitch was September 8, 2013, when Brandon Workman of the Red Sox bounced home Ichiro Suzuki, and the Mets' last loss was earlier that same year (April 30) when Brandon Lyon uncorked one to bring home Juan Pierre of the Marlins.

And you didn't think the Mets and Yankees were gonna let us go gently into next week, did you? In Game 1 on Sunday the visitors held a fairly stable 7-2 lead after making Brooks Kriske the first reliever in Yankees history to give up 5 runs and throw 2 wild pitches while getting only 4 outs. Robinson Cano brought home the first of those runs with a 5th-inning homer, at the time breaking the tie and making him just the fourth player to hit a go-ahead homer for the Mets against the Yankees, while also hitting one for the Yankees against the Mets elsewhere in his career. The others are Carlos Beltran, Robin Ventura, and Curtis Granderson. But did you notice we just used "Mets" and "stable" in the same sentence? Mm, yeah, no. Andres Gimenez started the 7th with a throwing error which is going to make all of this unearned. It still counts though. With 2 outs, walk, hit-by-pitch, single (7-4). And then someone thinks we should go get Edwin Diaz. Wild pitch (7-5), Aaron Hicks game-tying homer. In the past 3 years, the Yankees have hit three tying or go-ahead homers when down to their final out, and Hicks has all of them (the others were both in July of last year). Jared Hughes got charged with the first 4 runs on 1 hit, the first Mets pitcher ever to have that line against the Yankees.

And when Former New Britain Rock Cat Mike Tauchman managed to sprawl across the plate with the winning run on Gio Urshela's single in the 8th, the comeback was complete and we had our third walkoff victory at Yankee Stadium in three days. The only other time that happened at the current place was barely a month after it opened: The Yankees beat the Twins on May 15-16-17, 2009, with a Melky Cabrera 2-run single and homers by A-Rod and Johnny Damon. The only other extra-inning walkoff the Yankees ever had against the Mets was a single by Tino Martinez off John Franco on June 18, 1997.

So now, thankfully for our word count, it's the fifth and final game of the series, and this is another makeup of a postponement from over at Citi Field, which means the Yankees are going to "choose" to bat first. And we honestly thought we were going to escape this one. Tyler Wade hit a solo homer. Dom Smith drove home Jeff McNeil in the 6th. Deivi Garcia became the first pitcher to make his MLB debut with the Yankees and throw 6 innings with 0 earned runs since Sam Militello in 1992. And so we end up in extras again. Drew Smith is the "lucky" Mets pitcher who gets to eat this one; between the free runner and two walks, he has suddenly found himself with the bases loaded, 1 out, and pinch hitter Gary Sanchez wandering toward home plate. And of course it wouldn't be noteworthy if he hadn't hit the first extra-inning, pinch-hit grand slam in Yankees history. Ignoring the pinch-hit part, it was their first extra-inning slam of any kind since Bobby Abreu took Jesse Carlson of the Jays deep on September 24, 2008. The Mets had only given up one other pinch-hit extra-inning slam in their history, to the Cubs' Mike Vail on June 30, 1979, in a game where the Mets scored 6 in their half of the 10th and then proceeded to give back 5 of them. And because the Yankees batted first, this still isn't a walkoff situation. That would be up to Wilson Ramos, who also came to the plate as a pinch hitter with the bases loaded in the Mets' half. There's no way we could really-- is there?--. Mm, nope. He struck out. Only Gary Carter (1987) and Duffy Dyer (1974) had whiffed with the bases loaded in extras to end a Mets game. And even though Sunday's entire escapade took 6 hours 58 minutes, it certainly could have been worse. The last time the Yankees won two extra-inning games on the same day, it required 24 frames; that was August 2, 1960, when they walked off both games of a DH against the Tigers by a score of 3-2.


Since we're doubling up everything in this post anyway, we'll give you the choice of just how old-school you'd like to get. You may choose either forgotten one-hit-wonder girl groups of the 80s or go with some upbeat late-era Motown from Marvin Gaye himself. Or both. We'll be here. Intermission!


Citi Fish Market

If New York, New York, is "the city so nice they named it twice", then we might as well have the Mets and Yankees not just play doubleheaders against each other (Friday and Sunday), but also separately. That came along earlier in the week when the Mets and Marlins met up at Citi Field. The hour-long rain delay may have been the most exciting part of the first game, in which the Mets obtained 8 hits but went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position and lost 4-0. Daniel Castano, who started for the Fish, became the first pitcher in Marlins history to allow 9 baserunners in an outing of less than 5 innings and yet not get charged with a run. Over on the Mets side, Corey Oswalt finished the game after Rick Porcello gave up those four early runs; it had been 11 years since a Mets pitcher worked 4+ innings of 1-hit relief in a game. Former Norwich Navigator (yeah, that far back) Pat Misch pulled that off against the Phillies on August 23, 2009.

Second verse, same as the first. In the nightcap the Mets also had 9 baserunners (4 hits and 5 walks) and failed to score, their first time being shut out in both games of a DH since the Expos dropped a pair of 7-0's on them on August 5, 1975. But it's not like the Marlins were doing much scoring either. They had only 2 hits in the game, and they were back-to-back in the 4th to score a pair of runs after Jon Berti started the inning with a walk. It was the third game in Marlins history where they scored 3+ runs on 2 or fewer hits, but it was already the second game this year (August 5 at Baltimore) where they had 2 hits and won. It's the first season in team history where the Marlins did that twice.

That third run, you might say Jon Berti stole it. Literally. (At least in the baseball sense; you can't "literally" "steal" a run because it's an intangible thing, not something you can go lift off your neighbor's porch while they're sleeping. But we digress.) Berti also led off the 6th inning with a walk and then stole second on the first pitch to Jesús Aguilar. After Aguilar lined out, Berti waited until the second pitch to Corey Dickerson before stealing third. Dickerson grounded out. And if you've found his pattern, on the third pitch to Brian Anderson, Berti stole fourth. Er, yeah, that's home plate. All three possible steals in one trip, something that's pretty rare by itself, and which had never been done by a Marlins player. But if it sounds familiar, it's because Berti also got credited with a steal of home back on August 14 against the Braves. Only one other player has swiped home twice while wearing a Marlins uniform; that was Preston Wilson, and he did it in two different seasons. Combined with Eddy Alvarez doing it two days earlier, the Marlins have already stolen home three times this season. In the previous 13 seasons combined (2007-2019)... they did it twice.

Also on Tuesday, Brian Anderson became the first Marlins batter to record a double in both games of a twinbill since... uh... Brian Anderson on August 5 of last year, also at Citi Field. Hanley Ramirez and Christian Yelich are the only others in Marlins history to do that twice.


Br-aves New World

As it turns out, you can't spell "Brian Anderson" without "Ian Anderson". In one of the few doubleheaders actually caused by weather (wow, remember when that was the only thing we had to worry about?), the Yankees and Braves met for some 7-and-7 on Wednesday, and Ian was tapped for his major-league debut in the opener. Now, it's worth pointing out that in the last few years we've seen a huge rash of teams who struggle to hit debuting pitchers the first time or two through the order, maybe because they've never seen him before? (We thought this was why teams have advance scouts and video, but okay.) Two that come to mind immediately are Daniel Ponce De Leon and Nick Kingham, both of whom took no-hitters into the 7th. And sure enough. Anderson doesn't quite get that far, but he had us flashing back until Luke Voit homered with 1 out in the 6th. It being only a 7-inning game, they weren't about to let Anderson try to finish it, because reasons. But still he left as the first pitcher in the modern era to make his MLB debut in a Braves uniform and strike out 6+ while allowing only 1 hit. Kingham was the last to do it for any team. And Game 1, while only 7 innings, was the first time the Yankees had been held to 2 hits in any interleague game since that famous six-pitcher no-hitter by the Astros on June 11, 2003.


Game 2 didn't get much better. Oh sure, the Yankees at least got a hit in the 2nd inning this time, but mustered only a sacrifice fly by Tyler Wade in the 5th and lost 2-1. The last time the Bronx Bombers scored 0 or 1 in both games of a doubleheader was September 12, 2014, in Baltimore; and the last time they were held to 5 hits in both games was way back on July 3, 1987, against the Rangers. Freddie Freeman's 2-run homer in the 6th was the difference in the game, and it was the second lead-flipping homer ever hit by the Braves against the Yankees that late in a game. Ryan Klesko took Ramiro Mendoza deep on July 1, 1997.


Double Your Fun
(OR, shorter doubleheader vignettes that are all getting stuffed into the same section.)

⚾ ⚾ Remember that Saturday game where the Yankees won on a "bounce-off"? Apparently bouncing is contagious. After their two games in Milwaukee on Thursday, the Reds returned to Great American Ball Park for two more with the Cubs on Saturday. Behind Yu Darvish, the Cubs took the first one easily despite having only 4 hits, the first time they'd ever won such a game at GABP. They hadn't even done it at Riverfront since May 23, 1997.

The second game, however, would bounce the other way. Quite literally. We started with Ian Happ and Joey Votto trading leadoff home runs, the second time that had ever happened at GABP. Felipe Lopez and Houston's Orlando Palmeiro were the other combatants to do it, on July 2, 2005, in what was also the back half of a doubleheader. And the Cubs would even overcome Alec Mills giving up 3 homers, but they couldn't overcome The Kimbrel. That's their own pitcher, Craig, of some infamous postseason trouble with the Red Sox two years ago. On Saturday, however, it was walk, strikeout, wild pitch, another walk (okay, clears the first WP), single, second WP, intentional walk to load the bases after falling behind 2-0, and then the fateful third WP to lose the game. The Reds' last bounce-off victory was August 31, 2009, when the Pirates' Jesse Chavez let loose. And Kimbrel was only the third pitcher in the modern era, for any team, to uncork 3 wild pitches and have the last one lose the game. Cleveland's Jim Bixby did it in 1977, and Jean Dubuc of the Tigers may have done it in 1912; although his game definitely ended on a bounce-off, the Retrosheet boxscore lists three wild pitches but the contemporary news story we found only mentions two.

And circling back to that Yankees/Mets game, the last time we had two bounce-offs on the same day? That's June 20, 2009, when Jason Jennings of the Rangers brought in Nate Schierholtz of the Giants, and the Cubs were on the right side of one of these when Former Cub Kerry Wood, by then with Cleveland, bounced home Andres Blanco.

⚾ ⚾ A team named for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul should be ripe for twinbills. It's not, because they had that big dome for almost 30 years. So even though the Tigers cruised through Saturday's doubleheader, they did not Cruz through it. Nelson went deep in both games despite both of them being Twins losses, the first Minnesota batter to do that since Kent Hrbek at Texas on September 6, 1982. And it turns out Cruz also homered in both games of a DH just two weeks ago (August 15 against the Royals). No Twins batter had done that twice in a season, regardless of win/loss, since the great Harmon Killebrew in 1966.

⚾ ⚾ And the A's and Astros played their first-ever doubleheader against each other on Saturday (recall that one is in California and the other has always had a roof), which means it's somewhat pointless to say it was Houston's first-ever sweep of Oakland. But both games did ride squarely on the shoulders of Kyle Tucker, who cranked a 3-run homer in the 1st inning of Game 1, followed by a 3-run triple in the 1st inning of Game 2. The former item was the fifth such homer ever hit by an Astros designated hitter; Yordan Alvarez also hit a 3-run 1st-inning dinger on August 14. The others on that list are Evan Gattis (2015), Jason Castro (2014), and Chris Carter (2013).

As for the triple in Game 2, only Terry Puhl in 1989 and Jim Wynn in 1967 had delivered a lead-flipping triple for the Astros in the 1st inning, which obviously requires them to have given up run(s) in the top half. Ramon Laureano had provided that with the second leadoff homer ever hit by the A's in Houston. Coco Crisp took Brad Peacock deep on April 5, 2013. Tucker joined George Springer (2016), Glenn Davis (1990), Ed Herrmann (1976), Cesar Cedeño (also 1976), and Bob Aspromonte (1966) as the only Astros batters with 3 RBI in each game of a doubleheader. But going back 75 years (before which we start to lose significant amounts of play-by-play), Tucker is the first batter for any team with a 3-run 1st-inning triple and a 3-run 1st-inning homer in the same doubleheader.


They Might Be Giants

With all this doubleheader fun, it's almost possible to forget that there were some "traditional" 9-inning games played this week too. Oh, but there were. Even though the Dodgers/Giants twinbill was on Thursday, the Dodgers probably wished Tuesday's series opener could have been capped at 7 innings, because then they would have won. (They already did win 22 of their first 30, they'll be okay.) It was already 3-3 in the 1st when Max Muncy and Brandon Belt traded homers, the first MLB game ever played in San Francisco where both teams hit a 3- or 4-run homer in the 1st inning. Muncy's blast was the second time the Dodgers had hit one of those at the current Giants park, joining Luis Gonzalez (off Barry Zito) on September 8, 2007.

Ah, but Belt would, um, belt another home run in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game at 6, becoming the first Giants batter to hit multiple game-tying homers in the same contest since Andres Galarraga in Montréal on August 23, 2001. That sent us off to extra innings where the free runners-- and the "1"s on the scoreboard-- just keep on coming. After scoring theirs in the 10th, the Dodgers blew another save when Scott Alexander gave up an RBI single to Mauricio Dubon. In the 11th, Justin Turner drove home free runner Will Smith with his fourth hit of the game; Turner is the first Dodgers batter with 4 hits and 3 runs scored in a loss since Andre Ethier in July 2006.

Loss, you say. Ah-yup. Because not only did Evan Longoria hit yet another tying single in the 11th-- marking the first time since saves became official in 1969 that the Dodgers blew three of them in one game-- but Donovan Solano followed with a walkoff homer to finally send the cardboard cutouts (and the seagulls) home happy. Since the two teams came west in 1958, the Giants have only hit two other multi-run walkoff homers in extras against the Dodgers; the others were by Andrew McCutchen in April 2018 and Juan Uribe in August 2009. Longoria ended up with 4 hits and 4 runs scored despite all of those hits being singles; he's the first Giants batter to do that since J.T. Snow against Arizona on September 3, 2004. And Longo's hit, combined with that tying homer from Belt and the RBI single from Dubon in the 10th, marked the first time the Giants had three game-tying hits in the 9th or later of the same game since July 3, 1951.


Mollusk Mania

While every MLB stadium sells "kernels" at the concession stands, we're not aware of any that sell shrimp. (Maybe in those fancy corporate suites up top where most of the people don't even care about watching the game, but we're not allowed in there. Which might be for the best.) The double-A team in Jacksonville, Fla., does have a shrimp window, for the same reason that the Montgomery (Ala.) Biscuits have a biscuit stand. (Your move, Hickory Crawdads.) But why buy the shrimp when you can get it for free if you just wait four pitches?

This is a long way of getting to Wednesday's renewal of the I-70 series between the Royals and Cardinals, which was jammed up at 2-2 until Ryan McBroom went yard in the top of the 8th. He joined Yuniesky Betancourt (2012), Alex Gordon (2008), Mike Aviles (2008), and Mark Teahen (2006) as the only Royals batters to hit a go-ahead homer in the 8th or later in St Louis. And none of those others were pinch-hitters. So after the Royals tack on two more runs in the 9th, the stage is set for shrimp. Or will be soon enough.

"Shrimp", if you're unfamiliar, is Baseball Internet's moniker for a game-ending bases-loaded walk that forces in the winning run in possibly the least dramatic way. The blog post that started it is long gone, but each time one happened, they would post this video of a shrimp on a treadmill, because this is clearly what the Internet was designed to be used for. But first, Tyler O'Neill must poke a game-tying hit off the glove of Maikel Franco at third, the first tying multi-run single for the Cardinals with 2 outs in the 9th since Matt Holliday connected against John Axford on July 16, 2012. And after another walk to Dylan Carlson to re-load the bases, and the proverbial 3-0 "mercy strike" to Kolten Wong, Randy Rosario hangs ball four and the Cards literally walk off. And John Axford fans, this is not a good paragraph for you, because the Cardinals' last helping of shrimp was also against Axford, who by then was with the Rockies, on July 30, 2015. The runner who scored that run was none other than Kolten Wong. And the last one issued by the Royals was from Kelvin Herrera to Cody Bellinger, scoring Chase Utley, on July 8, 2017. More notably, Wednesday's game was the first time shrimp had been served in the majors this season. And even in the strike-shortened seasons of 1994-95 we did not go 11 whole months without one. Yum.


Rolling In The Deep Ball

Okay, AL West, we see you. We love to harp on this division because all their games are 3-1 snoozefests that don't end until 1:30 in the morning back east, but rumor has it they do occasionally combine a week's worth of weirdness into one big "what the heck was that?" game. This week's installment would be in Anaheim on Saturday, and we say hello to our game in the 5th inning with the score (you guessed it) 3-1. Justus Sheffield ran into trouble at that point, walking three straight to make it 4-1 before being removed. Albert Pujols singled home two inherited runners to make it 6-1. The next step, of course, is skyfall. Jo Adell (have you found the theme yet?) began the 6th with his second homer of the night, after which Mike Trout doubles home another pair and it's 9-1. Zac Grotz somehow got through the 7th despite allowing four more walks, and oh yeah, a 3-run dinger to that Trout guy when he comes around again. It was yet another instance of Trout saying send my love to the Mariners; he's hit 46 home runs in his career against them, more than any other batter except Rafael Palmeiro (52). And 21 of those have been of the multi-run variety, breaking a tie with Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez for most in that category. Grotz, Sheffield, and Aaron Fletcher who got stuck in there for the 6th all gave up 4 earned runs, at least 1 homer, and at least 2 walks, the first trio in Mariners history to do that in the same game.

So it's 14-2 in the 7th and you know what's gonna happen next. Obviously we need a position player to pitch, maybe someone like you, Tim Lopes. This is especially fascinating because Lopes wasn't in the game as a position player. He was the designated hitter, who by rule bats for the pitcher. Then he became the pitcher. If that blows your mind and makes you want to set fire to the rain (okay, that one's not great), he's only the 11th player in MLB history to start a game as the DH and then pitch in it. Mike Ford of the Yankees and Houston's Tyler White both did it last season. And in his brief little mound visit, all Lopes did was give up two more runs, including a sac fly to Trout for his sixth run batted in of the evening. Trout also had a 6-RBI game against the Mariners on July 13 of last year, a 13-0 win that isn't remembered for Trout's 6 RBI, but for the Angels throwing a no-hitter in their first home game following the death of Tyler Skaggs. The only other players with multiple 6-RBI games against Seattle are Mike Greenwell, Rafael Palmeiro, and Cleveland's Pat Tabler. And only Garret Anderson has more 6-RBI games overall in Angels history. Trout also joined a list of Angels luminaries to have 4 runs scored and 6 driven in: Troy Glaus of the 2002 World Series team, Dave Winfield in 1991, Reggie Jackson in 1986, and Freddie Patek in 1980.

And yes, this game really was 3-1 at one point back when we were young. It ended up as the first 16-3 loss (exact score) in Mariners history, and the third 16-3 win by the Angels. That third run for the Mariners, well, that came on one of the saddest homers you'll see, by Shed Long in the top of the 9th. Sure, it still counts, but he came two runs shy of the Mariners record for futility. Mike Zunino hit a homer at Fenway Park on August 15, 2015 with the M's trailing by 16 in the 9th.


(Thought we forgot one? Nope. If you made it this far, you deserve some Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock. And yes, we're sure you should be listening to this. Bonus dance break!)


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Cubs, Sunday: Second game in team history where three different players had multiple homers. Randy Jackson, Dee Fondy, and Ernie Banks all did it in St Louis on April 16, 1955.

⚾ Shane Bieber, Tuesday: Became fourth pitcher in modern era to start a season 6-0 with at least 8 strikeouts in each win. Randy Johnson did it in both 1995 and 2000, and Mike Mussina reeled off such a string in 2003.

⚾ Trea Turner, Saturday: Second leadoff batter in Nats/Expos history with 5 hits in a loss. Marquis Grissom at Shea Stadium, June 26, 1991.

⚾ Javier Baez, Monday: Second Cubs batter ever to have a multi-homer game against the Tigers. Sammy Sosa did it in a loss on July 8, 2001.

⚾ Yasmani Grandal (Fri) & Luis Robert (Sun): First time White Sox have hit two walkoff homers in three days since Andruw Jones & Alex Rios against the Mariners on April 23-24, 2010.

⚾ Red Sox, Wednesday: First time a Boston MLB team was held to 1 run in Buffalo since their NL team, not yet called the Braves, did it on September 16, 1882.

⚾ Trent Grisham & Fernando Tatis, Sunday: First game in Padres history where their #1 and #2 batters each had 2 extra-base hits and scored 3 runs.

⚾ Franmil Reyes, Friday: First Cleveland batter with a 5-RBI game in St Louis since that city also had an American League team. Luke Easter did it against the Browns on August 14, 1953.

⚾ Joey Votto, Tuesday: First Reds leadoff batter to strike out 4 times and commit a fielding error since Kal Daniels at San Diego, July 31, 1988.

⚾ Mike Yastrzemski, Saturday: First Giants leadoff batter with 4 strikeouts but also a double since Stan Javier against Montréal, May 22, 1996.

⚾ Justin Dunn, Sunday: First pitcher in Mariners history to give up 1 hit and strike out 6+ in back-to-back appearances (regardless of innings).

⚾ Ty France, Friday: Second designated hitter in Padres history with 3 hits & 4 RBI in a game. Greg Vaughn did it in Oakland on June 30, 1997.

⚾ Kolby Allard, Wednesday: First Rangers pitcher to throw 5+ innings, allow 1 hit, and get a loss, since Charlie Hough at Seattle, August 15, 1989.

⚾ Tommy Milone & Jake Arrieta, Sunday: First opposing starters to give up 7+ earned runs while getting no more than 7 outs each since SD Dennis Tankersley & SF Ryan Jensen on April 9, 2003.

⚾ Josh Hader, Saturday: First pitcher since saves became official in 1969 to blow one by issuing 5+ walks while only getting 1 out.

⚾ Cesar Hernandez, Monday: Became first batter in Cleveland Indians history (1901) to hit a leadoff home run in consecutive games.

⚾ Rafael Devers, Sunday: First Red Sox batter with 4 hits, 3 runs scored, and 3 RBI in a home game against Washington since Billy Klaus on September 2, 1957.

⚾ Orioles, Saturday: First time a Baltimore MLB team was shut out in Buffalo since both cities had Federal League teams. The Blues defeated the Terrapins on September 8, 1915.

Connect Four

Normally we think of baseball as a game of threes. Three strikes and you're out. Three outs in an inning. Three times three = nine innings per game. Nine batters per side. And sure, there are a handful of fours around. Four balls for a walk, though this wasn't always the case. Four infielders. Ever heard of a fourth out in an inning? (It's mentioned in the rule book-- think appeal plays for missing a base.) And of course, four bases required to make the diamond. And that last one sorta leads to a whole litany of other fours that got dropped, um, square into our laps this week.


Four Square(d)

In the Before Times, back when we were allowed to travel freely, we checked in last summer at Petco Park on a trip based around the annual SABR convention. We baseball lovers had a grand old time at the Grand Hyatt downtown, but nobody could see this much grandiosity coming.

Oh sure, it starts innocently enough, even though Jordan Lyles has already given up 7 runs to the Padres on Monday before we join our storyline. But that somehow just wasn't enough for the offensive machine that is Fernando Tatis Jr, who wandered to the plate in the 7th with two on and promptly made the game 10-3. It took Jesse Chavez four more batters to get out of that inning, and then Juan Nicasio began the 8th with a single and two walks. Bringing up Tatis again... with the bases loaded. Cue grand slam number 1. It was the first slam the Padres had ever hit in Arlington, and the second time they'd ever hit one with the team already leading by 7 runs. Greg Vaughn had the other of those on August 16, 1996. And yeah, that was a 3-run homer just last inning, making Tatis the fourth-youngest player ever to drive in 7 runs in a game. Ron Santo (1961) and Granny Hamner (1948) were a younger version of 21 than Tatis is, while Travis Jackson of the Giants was still barely a teenager when he did it in 1923. And Tatis is the fourth player in Padres history to hit both a slam and a 3-run dinger in the same game, after Hunter Renfroe (2016), Jack Clark (1989), and Dave Kingman (1977).

The Padres were apparently so excited by this development that they couldn't wait to do it again. Just 2 innings and 17 hours later, they begin Tuesday's game with consecutive singles from Trent Grisham, Tatis again, and Manny Machado. The Padres already hadn't done that in over two years (June 9, 2018), but you know what's coming. Mike Minor got two quick outs, including a force at home, but the bases are still loaded when Wil Myers can either end the inning without a run scoring, or he can... yeah. That. The Padres' previous 1st-inning slam came from Ryan Schimpf at Citi Field on August 12, 2016, and Tuesday was the first time they'd ever hit one in an American League park. It was the first time any visiting team had slammed in back-to-back games in Arlington (any stadium), and it was the fifth occurrence in Padres history of slams in back-to-back games. Chase Headley and Kyle Blanks did it in Pittsburgh in August 2011; the others were when Fred McGriff hit two by himself in 1991, Benito Santiago and Jack Clark in 1989, and Al Ferrara and Ollie Brown in May 1969 just 26 games into the Padres' major-league existence.

And speaking of the Padres' existence, they're still, 52 seasons later, looking for that first pesky no-hitter, so it's worth mentioning that Adrian Morejon had one in this game. Okay, so it only lasted 3 innings and 39 pitches because he's not truly a starter, but still he was the seventh pitcher in team history to be removed in the 4th inning or later with a no-hitter intact. Eric Lauer was the last to get that distinction, on August 30, 2018. This would also mean that the Rangers ended both games Monday and Tuesday with 5 or fewer hits, yet still managed to score 4 runs in each. The last time the Rangers pulled that off, they weren't the Rangers. They were the second Senators, and they actually won both games, in Kansas City on August 11 and 12, 1964.


Quad City Padres

On Wednesday everybody got to fly out to San Diego so the same teams could play two more games out there, because 2020 scheduling. Those cardboard cutouts paid good money for their 30 home games, darn it. And now that we're truly on the west coast, this one had your more-traditional west-coast feel of being an uneventful 2-1 yawnfest, with the Padres' "2" being solo homers from Jurickson Profar and, oh yeah, Fernando Tatis again. That was already Tatis's 12th homer of the season, but they've come in 10 different games to set a Padres record for the most games with a homer out of the team's first 26 of a season. Nate Colbert did it in 9 of the 26 back in 1972.

Had this stayed a 2-1 "meh" kind of game, we would have ended this section already. But noooo, thanks Joey Gallo. His solo homer sent us to extras and joined Mike Napoli's walkoff in May 2017 as the only tying or go-ahead homers the Rangers have ever hit in the 9th or later against San Diego. The Rangers then score their free runner to take the lead, but Rafael Montero walks two Padres batters to load the bases in the bottom of the 10th. As you know by now, loaded bases for the Padres soon become unloaded bases, in this case sending the cardboard cutouts into a frenzy when Manny Machado hit the second extra-inning walkoff slam in team history. Adrian Gonzalez had the other against the Mets on June 2, 2010. And the other walkoff homer the Padres ever hit against the Rangers was also a slam, Francisco Mejia in the 9th inning on September 16, 2018. There have only been four other walkoff 4-run homers in Padres history-- Hunter Renfroe last May, Rondell White in 2013, Steve Finley in 1998, and Bip Roberts in 1995. And the fine folks at Stats LLC pointed out that San Diego was the first NL team to hit a slam in three straight games since the old Cleveland Spiders did it in June 1895.

Now, if you had to match an accomplishment of the Cleveland Spiders, the grand-slam thing is one of your better choices. Can you not just be happy with that, cardboard cutouts? Sigh. So demanding. On Thursday we are stuck at a 2-1 score again, this time in the Rangers' favor, and Former New Britain Rock Cat Kyle Gibson has gotten himself in a little trouble in the 5th. Austin Hedges led off with a single. Tatis singled and Machado walked, but that's not the worst thing in the world considering both of them hit grand slams earlier in the week. So here comes Eric Hosmer with the bases loaded, but at least he hasn't hit a sl-- yes. Yes he did. And not even the Cleveland Spiders pulled this one off; the Padres are thus the first team in major-league history to hit a 4-run homer in four straight games. Recall that the walkoff one on Wednesday also came with the Padres trailing; the last team to hit a lead-flipping slam in even two consecutive games was the 2003 Yankees (Enrique Wilson & Nick Johnson). And we could find no instances of a go-ahead slam (so, includes the game being tied at the time, not trailing) in three straight games; the 1992 Phillies (Darren Daulton, Dave Hollins, Wes Chamberlain) were the last to even have three such slams in a week.

Unlike Wednesday, however, the game's not over. And then Danny Santana comes up for Texas in the 7th with the bases loaded and his team down by 3. So guess what he does. Nope, trick question. But he did hit a bases-clearing double, the Rangers' first such game-tying two-bagger in the 7th or later since Robert Kelly in Seattle on June 26, 1999. So are we gonna end up in extra innings again? Well, yes we are, but it's not that simple. After the Rangers score again in the 8th, Ty France and Austin Hedges both hit solo homers in the San Diego half, the first time the Padres have gone back-to-back to tie and then take the lead that late in a game since Adrian Gonzalez and Vinny Castilla did it in Milwaukee on June 7, 2006. And that just set up Nick Solak's tying homer in the top of the 9th, which was the second one ever hit by the Rangers in San Diego. You may remember the first one, because Joey Gallo hit it yesterday. And eventually Jake Cronenworth shoots a single up the middle in the 10th, the Padres' fourth walkoff ever against Texas, but surprisingly the first that was a mere single. The other events (including this week) were two homers and an error.

Now, the good news is that the Padres decided to take Friday off from hitting grand slams. So the 4-game streak of 4-run homers is broken and we can start thinking about other things that happened this week. But by Saturday a different Texas team (the Astros) was in town and the Padres were nice enough to let them have a taste too. And Houston starter Brandon Bielak probably did not have a grand time in San Diego. Trent Grisham greeted him with the Padres' first ever leadoff homer against Houston, leaving six opponents (CLE, LAA, MIN, NYY, TB, TOR) against whom they've never hit one. Two batters later Manny Machado made it 2-0. Then the madness began. Wil Myers led off the 2nd with a homer as well, just the third time in Padres history they've started the first two frames with dingers. And two of those three games are this year; Tatis and Cronenworth did it August 7 against Arizona. (The other was in 1970.) The rest of Bielak's inning: Single, walk, sac bunt, 3-run homer by Grisham again, hit Tatis with a pitch and get your catcher ejected. Bielak was the first pitcher in Astros history to give up 4 homers while getting no more than 4 outs. Then it got weird.

Humberto Castellanos gives up three singles to re-load the bases. And now Cronenworth, of the walkoff single on Thursday, is at the plate. About 30 seconds later he's at the plate again. And so are all his teammates. In just 29 games the Padres have hit six grand slams, already within four of their team record for an entire 162-game season. And that wouldn't even be the big story, because in the 7th Trent Grisham homered again. For the third time. Grisham and Cronenworth would be the first teammates in Padres history with 3 hits, 3 runs scored, and 4 RBI in the same game, and don't forget Grisham was the leadoff batter. They don't drive in 6 runs very often, because the guys at the bottom of the lineup don't usually reach base a lot. The only other leadoff batter in Padres history with a 6-RBI game was Bobby Tolan on July 17, 1974. And only five other players, for any team, have had 3 homers and 6 RBI out of a leadoff spot. Matt Carpenter did it for the Cardnials last July, along with Andrew McCutchen (2009), Oakland's Ernie Young (1996), Mickey Brantley of the Mariners (1987), and Cleveland's Billy Glynn (1954). And remember that Tatis had the 7-RBI game on Monday when he started this whole mess. The only other time in Padres history that two players had 6-RBI games within a week of each other was in May 2001, by Bubba Trammell on the 19th and Ryan Klesko two days later.


Doubling Down

Love it or hate it (and the odds are that you hate it), the international extra-innings rule, affectionately known as the free runner, isn't going anywhere anytime soon, certainly not this year. Ah, but what exactly counts as an "extra inning"? Because in this season of experimental rule changes suddenly come to life, MLB has also adopted the minor-league doubleheader rules stating that both games are only 7 innings long. Just as we were wrapping up last week's post, Willy Adames of the Rays made MLB history by hitting the first-ever "extra-inning" homer that was in the 8th. And that was only made possible because Toronto's home game last Saturday was suspended by rain, invoking another doubleheader quirk that the suspended game is played to its scheduled nine frames but then the original ("second") game is shortened to only seven. And remember, this is Toronto, where they have a roof. Which of course they are not playing under; the rain was at uncovered Sahlen Field in Buffalo. (Random fun fact: It was actually NOT the first suspended home game in Jays history. On August 28, 1980, a game with the Twins went into extras and had to be stopped after 14 nnings due to a curfew. And not the old 1:00 am American League curfew, but one imposed because the stadium had to be converted for a concert later that night by The Cars. Way to shake it up.) But to recap, the team that plays in a dome had a home game suspended by rain, which created a doubleheader in which the second game was only 7 innings, which they lost because the visiting team hit an "extra-inning" homer in the 8th, which was a 2-run homer because of the free runner who started at second base. Ain't 2020 baseball great?

The Jays, however, would find themselves in another doubleheader later in the week, this one with the Phillies on Thursday. And after being on the wrong end of that extra-inning homer on Sunday, the Jays suddenly found themselves on the right end of the first true "walkoff" anything in MLB history to occur before the 9th inning. (We say "true" walkoff in the sense that it occurred in the last scheduled inning; there have been a handful of plays that gave the home team the lead right before a game was called. The last one of those happened between the Rangers and Yankees in 1984. Wayne Tolleson is of course the father of Former New Britain Rock Cat Steve Tolleson. The more you know.)

Anyway, back to Thursday. After tying things up on a 6th-inning Cavan Biggio double, the Jays advanced Teoscar Hernandez to third in the 7th with a little help from a replay. Seven pitches later, Lourdes Gurriel rolled one through the left side for the 3-2 walkoff victory, yes, in the 7th inning. It was the fourth walkoff anything ever for the Jays against the Phillies; Rajai Davis singled in 2012 to score Yunel Escobar, while Raul Mondesi hit into a fielder's choice in 2000 where Shannon Stewart beat the play at the plate. But of course the only one fans of either team really remember, as Friend Of Kernels Jayson Stark reminded us, is a certain Joe Carter homer in 1993. And speaking of weird homers, Bryce Harper went deep for the Phillies early in that game on Thursday, making him the team's first batter to hit a round-tripper in Buffalo since that city had its own National League team. It was one Charlie Bastian who hit that homer-- on September 17, 1885.

So in Game 2 the Phillies decided they did not want to get walked off in the 7th inning again, and Jays starter Tyler Thornton obliged. Four singles and a walk to the first five batters of the game led to a 7-run 1st inning without a homer being hit, and it led to Thornton's departure from the game after getting only 2 outs. Teoscar Hernandez tried to start a comeback by homering in the Jays' half, the first time in team history they'd hit a 1st-inning homer when already trailing by 7 runs. Kelly Gruber held their old mark in a 6-0 game (April 16, 1989) when he would go on to hit for the cycle and Toronto won 15-8. They wouldn't stage another comeback like that... would they?

In the 6th, Rowdy Tellez homers. Gurriel homers again after his walkoff single in Game 1. Two errors by the infield. Hector Neris wild-pitches in the tying run, and Tellez immediately clears the other two runs such that the Jays have matched the Phillies' 7-run inning and now lead. This gets Thornton out of a loss, the first Jays starter to give up 6 runs, not finish the 1st inning, and not lose, since Dave Stieb at Boston on June 25, 1990. Thanks to those errors, Neris got both a blow save and a loss despite allowing 0 earned runs and only 1 hit; the last Phillies pitcher to pull that off was (three guesses) Jonathan Papelbon on September 2, 2012. Andrew McCutchen ended up on a dubious list despite his best efforts; he hit leadoff in both games and had multiple hits and an RBI in both. The last Phillies batter to do that was Dave Cash on May 3, 1975, and the last to do it and have the Phillies lose both games was Dick Bartell against the Cubs on July 21, 1934.

As for that 7-run 1st-inning-for-naught, no team had done that and lost since the Royals did it against Cleveland on August 23, 2006. And the last time the Phillies pulled it off was a half-century ago, May 5, 1970, against San Diego. If only they'd had two more innings to try and mount a comeback of their own.


Two Become One Four

The Cardinals, who must play something ridiculous like 55 games in 45 days if they are going to finish the full 2020 schedule, have become very aware of the 7-inning rule. Earlier this week they were stuck playing five games in three days at Wrigley Field, two of those being rescheduled games from Busch Stadium in which the Cardinals were assigned to bat last. In Monday's opener, however, the Cardinals batted first and Brad Miller dropped a 2-run double in the top of the 7th to at least avoid the free runners (and keep Game 2 from starting any later). The Cards' last multi-run go-ahead double in the 7th or later at Wrigley had been by Paul DeJong on July 21, 2017, but Miller's was their first in the last inning (even though it's the 7th!) since Leon Durham flipped a lead against Dick Tidrow on June 28, 1980.

Game 2, despite its 5-4 score, would not be an offensive explosion either; in fact, in neither game did either team have more than 5 hits, the first time that's happened in a doubleheader at Wrigley since July 4, 1963, against the Mets. But the explosions that did happen were of the home-run vartiety: Brad Miller hit two even though St Louis lost, the first Cardinals batter to do that at Wrigley since Ryan Ludwick on April 17, 2009. Ludwick, later that year (July 12), was also the previous Cardinals batter to homer in one game of a DH at Wrigley and double in the other, as Miller did on Monday. The game-winner in this case would come from David Bote, he of the walkoff grand slam two seasons ago. This one wasn't quite as dramatic since it came in the 6th inning; in fact the cardboard cutouts showed basically no emotion in response. But still it was the Cubs' first lead-flipping pinch-hit homer against the Cardinals since Darrin Jackson took Ken Dayley deep on August 14, 1988. It also put an exclamation point on the spoiling of a combined no-hitter; Wilson Contreras, who was on third, had just recorded the Cubs' first hit of the game three batters earlier. That marked the first time in Cardinals history that their first four pitchers of a game (it's a doubleheader, so pitching by committee) had all worked at least 1 inning and allowed 0 hits.

After an uneventful "throwback" 9-inning game on Tuesday, the Cubs and Cards were back for two more on Wednesday, and it was Matt Carpenter who decided to nail our two themes together. Because what's a 7-inning game without a grand slam, and what's a grand slam unless it's in the 1st inning and you're the fourth batter of the game. Obviously the fourth batter is the first one who can possibly hit a 4-run homer, and Carp became the first Cardinal to do that in a road game since Todd Zeile in Philadelphia on July 28, 1993. That also meant that when Ian Happ led off the home half with a homer, they were already trailing by 4 runs; Happ was the first Cubs batter to do that since Brant Brown against the Phillies on June 18, 1998.

Kolten Wong, the leadoff batter for St Louis, would manage to score 4 runs which is no easy task in a 7-inning game. He ended up as the first Cardinals batter in the modern era with a double, a hit-by-pitch, a stolen base, and 4 runs scored in any game, and the first to score 4 runs while having only 1 extra-base hit (the double) since Skip Schumaker in 2008. Josh Phegley hit a 2-run homer in the 7th to make the final score 9-3, but his and Happ's longballs were the Cubs' only hits in the game. They hadn't finished a game with 3 or more runs on 2 or fewer hits since April 14, 1985, against the Expos; the only team to go longer without doing that is the Nats/Expos franchise itself. Aside from that time in 2015 when Cole Hamels no-hit them, that 1985 affair was also the last game where the Cubs had 0 singles, 0 doubles, and 0 triples.

But yeah, still more baseball to be played, the first time Wrigley has seen two doubleheaders in three days since August 31 and September 2, 2002. (We were at the former of these, caused by Darryl Kile's death postponing an originally-scheduled game in St Louis.) Happ promptly became the first Cubs batter to homer in one game of a DH and triple in the other since... Ian Happ did it in May 2018 against the Reds. Since we spent way too long on this, he's the ninth Cubs batter in the modern era to do it multiple times, joining George Altman, Ernie Banks, Phil Cavarretta, Bill Nicholson, Ron Santo, Roy Smalley, Billy Williams, and Hack Wilson.

So the game's only scheduled for 7 innings, and it's tied going into the 7th, and Bote (who has not switched teams between games) hits a 2-run single in the Cubs' half of the final inning at Wrigley. And nothing happens. They keep playing. The cardboard cutouts, while understandably excited, do not jump up and celebrate a walkoff win and stream out into Wrigleyville for cheap beers. That's because this was another of those "home team batted first" games that couldn't be played down in St Louis. They kept playing even though the Cubs now had a 4-2 lead, since the Cardinals hadn't had their chance to bat in the 7th yet. It's worth pointing out that the home team frequently batted first in the early days of the game, partly just out of convention, and partly because there were fewer, lower-quality baseballs involved and the home team wanted first crack at hitting them. But the last instance of a team taking that option was in 1915. And the Cubs didn't move into then-Weeghman Park until 1916. So Bote's go-ahead hit on Wednesday was the first one to occur in the final inning of a Cubs game at Wrigley and not be a walkoff.


We did not intend for this to become a Spice Girls playlist, but sorry not sorry. In keeping with the theme, slam your body down and wind it all around. Intermission!


Four Scores And Seven Innings Ago

So after that five-games-in-three-days special with St Louis, the Cubs had their first batch of "rivalry" games with those pesky South Siders. And in the first one on Friday, Jon Lester wasted no time giving up four homers to stake the White Sox to an 8-0 lead before being pulled in (of course) the 4th inning. The Sox hadn't pounded four homers in the first four innings of a game in Chicago since, well, four years ago (June 25, 2016) at their own place. Lester was the first Cubs pitcher to surrender four dingers in a game since Yu Darvish did it against the Giants exactly a year earlier. And they hadn't had someone give up 8 runs and 4 homers in a home game since Jeff Samardzija against the Angels on July 10, 2013.

However, a weekend in Chicago isn't complete without fireworks of some kind, and the Sox brought another load up from 35th Street on Saturday. Luis Robert began the scoring with a homer in the 2nd, just as he had done in Friday's game. And we sat on a fairly mundane 2-2 score until Jose Abreu-- who also hit one of the homers on Friday-- took the lead with another shot in the 6th. That made he and Robert the first Sox teammates to each homer in the same back-to-back games at Wrigley since Joe Crede and Jim Thome both went deep on July 1 and 2 of 2006. In the 8th, Abreu greeted Rowan Wick with another homer, making him the sixth batter in Sox history with back-to-back multi-homer games. The rest of that list is Matt Davidson (April 2018), Carlos Quentin (2010), Joe Crede (2008), Greg Norton (1999), and Zeke Bonura (1934).

And in the top of the 9th, why the heck not. Just for good measure, Yasmani Grandal-- who also went yard on Friday-- did so again, just so new Cubs pitcher Duane Underwood wouldn't feel left out somehow. That meant that Robert, Abreu, and Grandal all homered in back-to-back games, something no White Sox trio had done since Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, and Harold Baines against Milwaukee on May 25-26, 1996. And we haven't even figured out that note when guess who's hitting behind Grandal. Jose Abreu deposits his third homer into the bleachers to become the first player in White Sox history to hit five dingers in a two-game span. It also gave him 4 RBI in back-to-back games, the first Sox batter to do that on the road (not that they went very far, but still) since Magglio Ordoñez in St Louis on July 16-17, 1999. And a meaningless early single also meant that Abreu was the first Sox batter with a 4-hit game that included 3 homers since Tim Raines did that at Fenway on April 18, 1994.

All good things, including this section, must come to an end, and the Red Line was running on its Sunday schedule for the series finale. The 2-1 Cubs win wasn't terribly worth writing home about, except that guess who had the "1" for the White Sox. Yep, that's Jose Abreu with a 2nd-inning solo shot. That made him the third AL batter to homer in three straight games at Wrigley in the same season, and two have been from the South Side. Jermaine Dye did it in May 2005, while then-Ranger Rafael Palmeiro went deep in three straight in June 2002.


Slam Some Busch
(PSA: There are multiple reasons you should not do this. Save yourself.)

Meanwhile, back in St Louis, the Cardinals did finally return to Busch Stadium for a weekend series with Cincinnati. And after giving up a non-walkoff go-ahead single at Wrigley on Wednesday, they hit a walkoff single at their own place on Thursday. Given that they're in the same division and (usually) play each other 19 times a year, Kolten Wong's game-winner wasn't anything noteworthy. It was the play that preceded it which caught our eye. That's because Raisel Iglesias entered with a 4-2 lead, allowed four straight batters to reach and make it 4-3 with bases loaded, then balked in the tying run. Since saves became an official thing in 1969, he was the first Reds pitcher ever to blow one in such fashion, and the first to give up 3 runs on 1 out in the 9th (balk notwithstanding) since J.J. Hoover in April 2014.

As entertaining as balks can be, Friday's game turned on yet another grand slam, which is why this section is here. (There's a method to our madness.) With the Cardinals holding a 2-0 lead in the 6th, Harrison Bader booted a fly ball by Eugenio Suarez which should have ended the inning. Famous last words. A walk and a hit batter later, the bases are loaded for pinch hitter Matt Davidson. Yeah, the same Matt Davidson who hit four homers in two games for the White Sox just a couple years ago. So of course he did. It was the Reds' first lead-flipping grand slam since Wily Mo Peña in the 7th inning against the Pirates on June 25, 2004. And they hadn't hit such a slam on the road since Hal McRae took Jerry Reuss deep at the Astrodome on June 1, 1972.

Those 4 runs would be all the Reds needed for a 4-2 win, and it turns out (like the Cubs before them), Davidson would have one of only 2 hits for the team in the game. Eugenio Suarez led off the 2nd with a single that at least got it off no-hitter watch. Turns out it was just the second game in the modern era where the Reds scored 4+ runs on no more than 2 hits. The other was May 7, 1949, at Braves Field, and may have had something to do with the 8 walks they got that day. Meanwhile, because of the error, Genesis Cabrera (who really should be a starter if you think about it, but we're not the ones making these decisions), got tagged with 3 unearned runs and the loss despite not giving up a base hit. Since earned runs were adopted by the National League in 1912, he's the second Cardinals pitcher to allow 0 hits, 0 earned runs, strike out at least 2 batters, and still get charged with a loss. Dan Griner did that, also against the Braves (but at Fenway while they borrowed it for renovations to their own stadium), on July 9, 1915.


Grand Old Party

Is there a better section header on the day before the start of the Republican National Sort-Of-Convention? There was of course all kinds of turmoil surrounding where that convention would be held, and then if at all, and either way, neither Charlotte nor Jacksonville has a major-league team. (Yet. Buffalo says hold my beer.) So we'll flash back to the previous RNC, in 2016, an event that forced the Cleveland Indians to go 15 days without a home game coming out of that year's All-Star break since it was held at the basketball arena next door.

That's a long way of getting us to Progressive Field on Friday, but Isaac Paredes of the Tigers was likely flashing back to his own journey as he watched his first major-league homer sail over the fence. (Paredes was signed by the Cubs originally and was sent to Detroit along with Jeimer Candelario in exchange for Alex Avila.) But since you know the theme, you may already know that Paredes' first homer was of the 4-run variety, and that it flipped a 5-3 Indians lead into a 7-5 Tigers lead in (of course) the 4th inning of that eventual Detroit victory. It gave the Tigers their first 7-run inning in Cleveland since September 4, 2014, and it also gave them their first win against the Indians in 21 tries dating to last April. That was three wins shy of the all-time record for defeating the same opponent; the Orioles beat the Royals on 23 straight occasions across the 1969 and 1970 seasons.

As for Paredes, he was the 10th player in Tigers history whose first career homer was a grand slam, the previous being Brennan Boesch on April 30, 2010. He hit the fifth slam by a Detroit batter at Progressive Field, joining Victor Martinez (2011), Edgar Renteria (2008), Dmitri Young (2005), and Carlos Peña (2003). Unfortunately Paredes' other at-bats were not so prolific. In addition to the slam, he struck out three times, another thing that only four other Tigers batters have ever accomplished. Those "lucky" few are Brandon Inge (2009), Dan Gladden (1993), Darrell Evans (1986), and Jim Northrup (1968). And the only other player in MLB history to have that stat line (a grand slam and 3 strikeouts) in any of his first four MLB games was Roger Maris-- for the Indians in Detroit-- on April 18, 1957. (Additional fun fact, none of Maris's record-breaking 61* homers in 1961 were slams.)

Cleveland starter Adam Plutko duplicated the feat of giving up 7 runs and 2 homers to the Tigers without finishing the 4th inning-- a "feat" last accomplished by Ubaldo Jimenez nine years earlier to the day.


Four On The Floor

Sometimes it's the power of 4 hits, or 4 RBI, or 4 runs at a time on a slam, but sometimes it's the power of four different players working together. And sometimes it's a little bit of both. We take you to Coors Field on Wednesday, where you know there's going to be an offensive outburst if you just wait long enough. So it was 1-1 going to the 5th when Carlos Correa led off with a go-ahead homer for the Astros, and Kyle Tucker then ended up with a triple when Charlie Blackmon jumped for his fly ball at the wall and couldn't make a play. In the very next inning, Tucker came up again and greeted Jeff Hoffman with a more-traditional triple past Garrett Hampson in center. He thus became the 24th player in Astros history with a multi-triple game (the last being Jose Altuve in May 2017), but just the fifth to hit them in consecutive innings. The others on that list are Billy Hatcher (1989), Craig Reynolds (1985), Jerry DaVanon (1975), and Joe Gaines (1964).

As they tend to do at Coors, the floodgates would open as the Astros ran up 10 more runs in those next 4 innings, sending us to the 9th with a score of 11-3. So why wouldn't Tucker come up again with 2 outs and-- no, not triple again. This time he put one over the fence, so he couldn't really stop at third even if he wanted to. (He actually probably could. There's no rule against it, as long as he just stays on third and doesn't "abandon his effort" to run the bases. These are things we think about.) But anyway, that made Tucker the fourth player in Houston history to homer with 2 outs in the 9th and the team already up by 8 runs, joining Yordan Alvarez last August, Josh Reddick in 2017, and Jim Wynn in 1969. More notably, it made him just the third player ever to have a homer, 2 triples, and 4 RBI batting 7th or lower. The others were both Yankees: Elston Howard in 1960 and Bill Dickey in 1930. Tucker snuck in a single as well, the first Astros batter with 4 hits and 4 RBI batting 7th or lower on the road since Carlos Corporan in New York on April 29, 2013.

But 13 runs do not (usually) come from one player. Correa, batting above Tucker, had 3 hits and 3 RBI including that homer that started it all. Number-8 batter Adam Jones chipped in 2 hits and 2 RBI. And way at the bottom was Martin Maldonado who homered for the Astros' first run way back in the 3rd. If you add up the bottom four spots in the boxscore, you get 11 total hits-- the first time the Astros had done that since August 3, 2010. You also get 10 of their 13 RBI in the game, the first time the bottom four had done that since September 20, 2007, in a game where J.R. Towles drove in 8 by himself. And only once before in Astros history had their bottom four combined for both 11 hits and 10 RBI-- June 7, 1967, in a 17-1 victory in St Louis.

One more "4" out of that game: The Rockies turned four double plays. On defense. And still gave up 13 runs. They hadn't pulled that off since May 6, 2015, against the Diamondbacks.


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Dane Dunning & Casey Mize, Wednesday: First game ever where both starting pitchers made their MLB debuts and both struck out at least 7 batters.

⚾ Jacob Stallings, Saturday: First Pirates #9 batter with 2 hits, 2 runs scored, and 3 RBI in a home game since Dave Clark against the Cubs on July 2, 1996.

⚾ Shane Bieber, Thursday: First pitcher in Indians history to win his first 5 decisions of a season and strike out 8 or more batters in all of them.

⚾ Tim Anderson & Yoan Moncada, Monday: Second time this year White Sox have started a game with back-to-back homers. Last season where they did it twice was 2001.

⚾ Wilmer Flores, Wed-Thu: First Giants batter with a homer and 4 RBI in back-to-back games since Barry Bonds at Dodger Stadium, April 2-3, 2002.

⚾ Niko Goodrum: Sunday: First Tigers batter with 2 extra-base hits, 2 walks, and a stolen base in the same game since Bobby Higginson against the White Sox, September 28, 2004.

⚾ Zack Greinke & Antonio Senzatela, Tuesday: Second opposing starters in live-ball era to each throw 8+ scoreless innings and allow 0 walks and a max of 3 hits. Other pair was Ron Guidry (Yankees) & Jon Matlack (Rangers) on April 10, 1980.

⚾ Giants, Saturday: First time leading off a game with three straight walks since F.P. Santangelo, Rich Aurilia, and Barry Bonds did it against the Reds on July 23, 1999.

⚾ Carlos Santana, Tue-Wed: Second Cleveland batter ever to have a homer and 3 RBI in consecutive games in a National League park. David Justice did it in Milwaukee on June 5 and 6, 2000.

⚾ Harrison Bader & Dylan Carlson, Sunday: First game in Cardinals history where their #8 and #9 batters both had 2 hits, a homer, and 2 RBI.

⚾ Max Fried, Friday: First Braves pitcher to start a season 4-0, where all 4 wins were starts where he allowed 0 or 1 run, since John Smoltz in 1999.

⚾ Austin Barnes, Tuesday: First Dodgers starting #9 batter with 2 hits, 2 runs scored, and a stolen base in a game since pitcher Don Newcombe on September 19, 1956.

⚾ Triston McKenzie, Saturday: Second pitcher to make his MLB debut with the Indians and strike out 10+ batters. The other is only Luis Tiant on July 19, 1964.

⚾ Kyle Tucker, Wed-Thu: Second Astros batter ever to triple in back-to-back games at Coors Field. Ricky Gutierrez did it on September 9 and 10, 1997.

⚾ Ross Stripling & Justin Dunn, Monday: First game in Dodger Stadium history (1962) where both starters gave up 6+ runs, 2+ homers, and didn't get past the 3rd inning.

⚾ Mookie Betts, Sunday: First Dodgers batter in (at least) modern era to have 2 homers and 2 stolen bases in the same game.

⚾ Jesús Luzardo, Wednesday: First Oakland pitcher to drop the "Kernels trifecta"-- a hit batter, a wild pitch, and a balk-- since Gio Gonzalez in 2011. First to do it and get a win since Ron Darling against the Angels on August 20, 1991.

⚾ Yandy Diaz, Friday: Second player in Rays history with 3 hits, 2 walks, and a homer in a loss. Fred McGriff did it, also against Toronto, on September 20, 1998.

⚾ Kenta Maeda, Tuesday: First pitcher for any team to throw 8 innings, allow 1 hit, strike out 12, and not get a win since Matt Harvey against the White Sox on May 7, 2013.

⚾ Eddie Rosario, Saturday: First Twins batter to hit a 3-run homer as team's third batter of a road game since Kirby Puckett at Yankee Stadium, July 15, 1995.

Number Crunchers

On the section of our planet where MLB is generally played, it tends to get hot come August. (See very last note, and someone really needs to make sure the cardboard cutouts are staying hydrated.) That means the players get warmed up easier, the balls tend to fly farther, and we get a rash of teams who put up some ridiculous offensive outbursts. We sat at Target Field on the last day of July two years ago watching the out-of-town scoreboard bring tales of a 25-4 game between the Nationals and Mets, thinking oh boy, this is gonna be fun to write about. And it frequently ends up becoming one of our "countdown" posts where various teams fill in nearly every number on your bingo card. (Mixed-metaphor alert!) So this by itself isn't unusual.

What is unusual is for August to come so early in the baseball season. But here we go.


Thirteenage Dream

Last Sunday's post was all about power, and once again, we think maybe a couple teams saw that and said, hey, that's a good idea. In the first game of the new week the Braves visited the Phillies, and the cardboard cutouts were barely in their seats before the fireworks began. Sean Newcomb gave up two singles and a homer to start the game, marking the second time already this year that Bryce Harper has hit a 3-run homer as the Phillies' third batter of a game. The team's only other batter this century to hit two of those in a season was Odubel Herrera, and that was only two years ago. Unfortunately "1st-inning jitters" turned into "2nd-inning we-gotta-get-him-outta-there" after Newcomb gave up another homer, two more singles, and hit Harper with a pitch his next time up. And then on the very first pitch NOT thrown by Newcomb, Didi Gregorius hits a grand slam, the Phillies' first one in the 1st or 2nd inning when they were already ahead by 5 runs since Tomas Perez, also against Atlanta, on September 9, 2003. All told Newcomb would get tagged for 8 runs and 2 homers while getting only 4 outs; no Braves pitcher had reached those lofty numbers since Ed Brandt did it in relief on June 7, 1934.

When Jean Segura followed Gregorius with another homer, it marked the second time in the modern era that the Phillies had cranked four longballs in the first 2 innings of a game; the other was August 6, 2004, at Dodger Stadium. Ah, but just when you thought a 13-1 lead going to the 9th was safe... well, yeah, it is. But Atlanta finally decided to make it interesting and keep the cardboard cutouts watching right down to the final out. Johan Camargo started things with an otherwise-meaningless solo homer, the first time a Braves player had homered in the 9th inning with the trailing by 12 since Johnny Logan at Ebbets Field on June 2, 1955. After Nick Pivetta gave up three more doubles and a sacrifice fly, he became the first Phillies pitcher to surrender 6 runs and a homer while getting only 1 out since Ryan Madson blew a save against the Reds on May 14, 2005. Trevor Kelley then gave up another homer to make the final score 13-8, the first time the Braves had lost a game by that exact count since April 21, 1970.


Sixteen Candles

Quick, name something bloated in Washington.

Okay, your first five or six answers are all funny, but we're of course talking about the inflated numbers on the Nationals' scoreboard. Now, because it's August, none of the important people were actually in Washington, so the first of our big numbers comes from the board at Citi Field. And if you've paid any attention to the NL East the last few years, you know the Nats have a habit of beating up on the Mets. There was a 23-5 game in 2017. In the intro we mentioned that 25-4 game where Jose Reyes gave up 6 runs. There was a 15-0 game just 4 weeks after that one. Last season there was an 11-8, a 12-9, and an 11-10 walkoff where the Mets scored 5 in the top of the 9th and then gave back 7 in the bottom (because Mets). So a little 16-4 almost seems like nothing.

It was quite enough that Asdrubal Cabrera, Juan Soto, and Trea Turner all greeted Steven Matz with homers in the first 3 innings on Monday. That made it 5-0 before the Nats had their big outburst, this time coming in the top of the 5th. Matz gave up two singles and an automatic double before departing; when those runs all scored against Paul Sewald, it made Matz the second pitcher in Mets history to give up 8 runs and 3 homers to the Nats/Expos franchise. Steve Trachsel did it in Montréal on April 7, 2001. And it turns out Matz had also given up 7 hits and multiple homers in his previous two starts, creating the third 3-game streak of same in Mets history. Tom Glavine had such a spell in June 2006 while Dave Mlicki did it in 1995.

Except then there's Sewald's adventure. Single. Double. Single. The ever-helpful "mound visit". Single. Hit batter. Single. Sac fly. Long flyout to escape the inning, if "escape" is the right word after your team just gave up 7 runs. Sewald started the 6th (why?) by giving up another single and two walks; he would be the first Mets pitcher to give up 6+ runs while getting 2 outs in a home game since Brandon Lyon also did it against the Nats on June 30, 2013.

Asdrubal Cabrera would round out the Nationals' scoring with another homer in the 7th; he joined Ryan Zimmerman (September 29, 2017) as the only players in franchise history with 2 homers and 2 doubles in the same game. And only five others have had 4 extra-base hits and 5 RBI in a single game; the most recent had been Anthony Rendon in that already-mentioned 23-5 affair against the Mets back in 2017. The trio of Cabrera, Soto, and Turner became the first in Nats/Expos history to each have 3 hits, 3 RBI, and a homer in the same game.

The 16 runs were the most ever scored by the Nats/Expos franchise in a game in New York, and we're including the interleague ones against the Yankees there. The 15-0 game in August 2018 had been the high-water mark. And the only other 16-4 loss (exact score) in Mets history was on September 8, 1998, at Veterans Stadium, a game where Bobby Estalella, Kevin Sefcik, and former Met Rico Brogna all had 2 homers (for Sefcik, the only such game of his career).

All was not lost for the Mets, however; on Wednesday Brandon Nimmo-- who had actually homered on Monday with the Mets trailing by 13 in the 9th-- decided to homer several innings earlier and led off the game with one. Problem: The Mets were already trailing by 3 after Juan Soto went yard in the top half. Michael Conforto was the last Mets batter to hit a leadoff homer with the team already down 3, and that was also against the Nationals in April 2017 (not the 23-5 game). The Mets would actually overcome Soto's homer and take a 5-3 lead against Anibal Sanchez, who made some dubious Nationals history himself. By giving up 6 hits, 4 runs, and taking a loss in each of his first three starts this year, Sanchez joined Carl Pavano as the only pitchers in franchise history to do that; Pavano's string followed his return from bone-chip surgery in 2001.

The Mets would tack on 5 more runs in the 6th for an 11-6 final, with Nimmo, Conforto, Pete Alonso, and Dom Smith each chipping in 2 hits, 2 runs scored, and at least 1 extra-base knock. That was only the second time in Mets history that four players did that in the same game; five batters had that line in a 15-2 thumping of the Dodgers on July 25, 2015.

After leaving Queens, the Nationals made a stop in Baltimore on their way home, and they brought those runs with them. (PSA: Usually it is not a good idea to bring the runs with you on a road trip, but we digress.) Once again, Friday's game was a fairly quiet 6-1 affair until the Nationals blew up for nine more runs at the end. Cabrera homered again. Yan Gomes became the first "Washington Nationals" catcher ever to triple and double in the same game; Einar Diaz did it for the Expos on April 30, 2004. Six of those runs came off Cody Carroll, who joined Jason Berken (2011) and Alan Mills (1997) as the only Orioles relievers to give up 6 earned in an interleague game.

And this is one of those games we can't write a whole lot about, because no one player broke the meter. It was a group effort wherein all nine Nationals starters had at least one hit and at least one run scored. The last time a Washington team did that against Baltimore, it was the Second Senators (now the Rangers) on May 11, 1962. Following a recurring nerve injury which shut down Stephen Strasburg for at least 10 days and likely longer, Erick Fedde worked 5 innings in relief and gave up only 2 hits, the first Nationals pitcher to do that since Tomo Ohka in their first season (May 17, 2005).

The 15-3 final score on Friday, combined with the 16-4 in Queens on Monday, marked the second time in franchise history that the Nats/Expos had dropped 15+ runs in two road games in the same week. The others both happened in the same series in April 2017, and yes of course it was at Coors Field.


Like We're Still Seventeen

When there's a 16-4 and a 13-8 happening farther down I-95, Monday's 16-hit outburst by the Rays at Fenway Park doesn't do much to the radar. It was only the second time Tampa Bay had collected 16 hits there without any of them being a home run; the other such game was a 12-2 win on September 19, 2001. And since the Rays weren't playing longball, they ended up with three players-- Kevin Kiermaier, Manuel Margot, and Austin Meadows-- who each had a double and at least one stolen base. That had only happened once before in Rays history as well; Carl Crawford, Delmon Young, and Melvin Upton did it in Oakland on April 27, 2007.

On Tuesday, Mike Brosseau opened the scoring with the Rays' seventh leadoff homer at Fenway Park; Yandy Diaz had their previous one on April 27 of last year off David Price. Brosseau would add a double his next time up, becoming the first of those seven Rays to hit a leadoff homer and then add another extra-base hit later in the game. However, it was the 7th inning when the scoreboard operators had to start scrambling for some higher number cards. Manuel Margot, Brandon Lowe, and Hunter Renfroe all doubled to spark the Rays' first 6-run inning at Fenway since May 14, 2017. Austin Brice gave up 5 of those runs, the first Sox pitcher to do that against the Rays while only getting 2 outs since Craig Breslow on May 25, 2014.

Still, though, the numbers were only building toward later in the week. Unfortunately for Zack Godley, he was on the wrong end of several of them on Wednesday, giving up 2nd-inning homers to Brandon Lowe and Willy Adames, another to Yoshi Tsutsugo in the 3rd, and finally departing the game after the first three batters of the 4th reached base as well. Godley would get tagged for 10 hits, 8 runs, and 3 homers, becoming the first Boston starter with those numbers since Steven Wright in 2018. Amazingly, though, Wright did it and got a win because the score was 14-10. Before Wright it was Tim Wakefield in 1998. He got a win too; his game was 13-12. The last Sox starter to hang those totals and actually get the loss was Tom Bolton on June 27, 1991.

Ryan Weber would inherit the 8-0 deficit and end up pitching the rest of the game, the first Bostonian to throw 6+ innings in relief since John Burkett against the Cardinals on June 11, 2003. That was Pedro Martinez's first game back after a muscle strain, and plus the Red Sox had a 9-run lead by the time Burkett came in, so why not let him go. J.D. Martinez did make some of the cardboard cutouts happy by launching a grand slam in the 8th to make the final score "only" 9-5. The last Boston hitter to hit a slam that late in a game with the team trailing by 7 or more? That's Carl Yastrzemski on May 18, 1969, the only grand slam the Red Sox ever hit against the Seattle Pilots.

All this is, of course, building to Thursday's series finale, and let's just hope the scoreboard folks didn't put those "5" and "6" cards too far away. Because for this little festival they'd need them both. The "2" over "3" in the 1st inning was bad enough, but when Hunter Renfroe and Brandon Lowe went back-to-back in the 3rd, we used up our "5" card and the Rays led 7-3. Marcus Walden trotted out to the mound for the 6th, in a game that's already 10-5 by this point, and let's just say Walden was not terribly serene.

Renfroe greeted him with another homer to become the fifth player in Rays history with a multi-homer game at Fenway. Lowe did it last June; the others are Evan Longoria (2015), Carl Crawford (2006), and Jonny Gomes (2006). Willy Adames then tripled off the bullpen wall and would finish the game as the second Rays player with a single, double, triple, and 2 RBI in a game at Fenway; Rocco Baldelli, who would later play for the Red Sox briefly, is the other (2004). Walden would end up surrendering 6 runs without recording an out, joining Mark Melan�on in 2012 as the only Red Sox relievers ever to do that. Mike Zunino's 3-run homer, the final straw against Walden, made him the first Rays #9 batter with 4 RBI in a road game since J.P. Arencibia did it in Baltimore on September 1, 2015.

Despite a proposed rules change which will ban position players from pitching, there's still an exception for games with at least a 6-run margin. Yeah, we got that. It's 16-5 by now. So for the 9th, shortstop Jose Peraza doesn't make it all the way to shortstop. He climbs the mound instead and promptly gives up three straight base hits. Well, two base hits and one liner that hits Peraza square in the kneecap. So... um... do we have a backup position player to pitch for the original position player? If you guessed that's not a question that gets asked very often, you'd be right; the only other game in Red Sox history where two position players pitched was in Washington on October 3, 1913, when outfielders Harry Hooper and Duffy Lewis both made the only mound appearances of their careers.

Position player number two is catcher Kevin Plawecki, who like Peraza had doubled earlier in the game. That created the weird boxscore phenomenon that two "pitchers" had doubled for an American League team in the same game. And again, if you thought maybe that hadn't happened since back in the days when they batted regularly, you'd be right. Dave McNally and Dave Leonhard both doubled in a game for the Orioles on July 14, 1972. Our final score of 17-8 was the first such score in Rays history. And the Fenway scoreboard handlers hadn't needed that combination as a final score since May 27, 1957, against the Yankees.


Where The Buffalo Roam

The Toronto Blue Jays spent a lot of time looking for a home for this season, but after finally settling on their triple-A affiliate's park in Buffalo, N.Y., they have wasted no time finding home. Home plate, that is. Or home runs, if you'd prefer. Tuesday brought us the first major-league game played in Buffalo since September 8, 1915, just before the end of the short-lived Federal League. That final game was a 5-4 win over the visiting Baltimore Terrapins. And the more things change, the more they stay the same. That very next game in Buffalo, on August 11, 2020? Final score 5-4-- this time, however, on a walkoff single by Travis Shaw, whose last game in Buffalo had also been in '15. That's 2015 when his Pawtucket (R.I.) Red Sox visited the Toronto farm club in exciting triple-A action and Shaw went 1-for-11 in the series.

This time, however, Shaw has the claim of hitting the third walkoff anything for the Jays against the Marlins; Edwin Encarnacion homered on June 9, 2015, and Shannon Stewart hit a 10th-inning double on June 8, 2001. And Shaw's walkoff was only made possible because Francisco Cervelli, in the top of the 9th, hit just the fourth game-tying 3- or 4-run homer in Marlins history when the team was down to its final out. John Baker took Brian Wilson of the Giants deep on August 20, 2008, and Gary Sheffield had the other two back in the mid-90s.

Ah, but Buffalo's real number-crunching games would wait until later in the week. On Wednesday Brian Anderson got things started for Miami with a 3-run 1st-inning homer, joining Hanley Ramirez (2011), Cliff Floyd (2001), and Mike Lowell (2000) as the only Marlins to hit one of those in an American League park. Nate Pearson opened the 3rd by giving up two singles and two walks before leaving the wheels to come completely off; an error, a passed ball, and a steal of home later, it was 8-0.

Oh sure, the Jays clawed their way back into this, while also using up Sahlen Field's supply of 2's. Teoscar Hernandez, 2-run homer in the 3rd. Rowdy Tellez, 2-run homer in the 4th. The aforementioned Travis Shaw, 2-run homer in the 5th. Danny Jansen, yep, 2-run homer in the 6th. The Marlins have added 3 more runs of their own, which means that when Shaw and Bo Bichette go back-to-back in the 8th, we have stumbled our way to an 11-11 tie. Shaw became just the second player in Jays history to have a multi-homer game against the Marlins; the other is Jose Canseco on June 10, 1998. And Bichette's 8th-inning homer was actually his fifth hit of the game; he was the first player in Jays history with 5 hits and 2 stolen bases in the same game. Tack on the homer, and no player for any team had done that since Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates on May 14, 2010.

But hang on a minute. The game's still tied. Somebody is going to score 11 runs and lose, which we'll get to in a minute. That would be settled by Magneuris Sierra's 2-run single in the top of the 10th, aided of course by the free runner starting at second. (Oddly, NOT the first time Buffalo has seen THAT; the minors have had that rule for three seasons now.) Only four other Marlins players had connected for a go-ahead, multi-run single in extra innings: Isaac Galloway (2018), Garrett Jones (2014), Omar Infante (2012), and Devon White (1996). And when the Jays couldn't even advance their free runner in the bottom half, we landed on the first 14-11 final score since April 28, 2017, at the opposite corner of New York where the Yankees beat the Orioles by that count.

It also means Toronto lost the game despite scoring 11 runs and, oh yeah, hitting seven homers. Only four teams in MLB history have pulled that off, and the Blue Jays were actually on the winning end of the previous such game. That was a 10-8 win (for them) over the White Sox on June 25, 2016. The Tigers are both of the other teams to do it, turning the trick in 2004 against Boston and 1995 against those pesky White Sox again. Remember Bo Bichette's 5 hits, 2 steals, and a homer? No player had done that in a game his team lost since Pete Rose on July 26, 1973. In fact five different Toronto batters had multiple hits with at least one homer. Only one other team has ever lost a game where they did that: Cleveland in a 14-inning festival with the Rangers on July 20, 1994.

As for the Marlins, they had never before allowed 11 runs in an interleague game and won it, nor had they done it in any road game regardless of opponent. Flashing back to 1915 again, Miami was the first team to score 14 runs in a major-league game in Buffalo since the Federal League's Pittsburgh Rebels beat the Blues on August 7 of that year. But the last time both teams scored at least 11 runs in a game in Buffalo? Turns out that never happened in the two seasons of the Federal League's existence. For that you have to go back to a different short-lived offshoot, the Players League, which also had a team based in Buffalo. The Bisons-- the name under which today's triple-A team still plays-- defeated the Boston Reds by a 21-13 final... on August 1, 1890.

It's hard to do a post about numbers and leave this one out. Especially when there was even a lawsuit a few years back about it. Unforunately you will probably not be able to get a plumber for the price of a dime. Intermission!


Twenty-Five Or Twelve To Four

With this season's bizarre schedule, Miami and Buffalo Toronto only play four games, two in each city, meaning that by Friday it was Tampa Bay's turn to come to town. So Toronto is not playing in Toronto, and Tampa Bay does not actually play in the body of water that is Tampa Bay. Thank goodness the Marlins finally moved into the city of Miami proper. Yes, Tampa Bay, that same team that just dumped a 17-8 on the Red Sox the night before. From the "shoulda saved some of those runs" file, the Rays would not be a factor in this one, aside from Brandon Lowe being their first batter to hit a 2-run homer as the second batter of the game since Tommy Pham did it exactly a year earlier. Instead, for all their earlier rumblings about not liking Buffalo's park, the Blue Jays are starting to like Buffalo's park. (The very large net that protects Oak Street from left field, eh, it may not like them so much.)

Rowdy Tellez and Cavan Biggio both homered to tie the game at 3-3 in the 4th. Not a number-cruncher by any means yet. But then the Rays' bullpen got in on the act. Ryan Thompson, leadoff homer to Randal Grichuk in the 6th. After Tellez and Biggio both reached, Aaron Loup gave up a 3-run dinger to Bo Bichette. Teoscar Hernandez homered two batters later... and then again in the 8th, to the point where Mike Brosseau (remember he of the leadoff homer on Tuesday?) had to get the final out. Brosseau did make three pitching appearances last season, including one that lasted 2 innings of a 15-1 blowout, and he thus surpassed catcher Jesús Sucre for the most "PPP" appearances in Rays history. (Brosseau never pitched in college, though he did wander to the mound twice during his days at low-A Bowling Green (Ky.).)

Friday's 12-4 final wasn't notable by itself, but it did mark the first time the Jays had scored 11+ runs in back-to-back "home" games since May 29 and 30, 2011. And those six homers, combined with the seven from Wednesday, made Toronto just the fourth team ever to hit 6+ homers in back-to-back games. The Nationals did it in September 2012, the Angels in June 2003, and the Dodgers in June 1996. It also marked the first time in Jays history that they'd had a pair of 6-homer games in the same stadium in the same season (yes, including Rogers Centre).


Perfect 10s

If you've been with us for any length of time, you know we give the AL West a lot of grief, because an inordinate number of their games end up as unwatchable snoozefests where the score is 3-1 and it somehow still takes almost 4 hours. There are probably cardboard cutouts who enjoy watching these games, but they're impossible to write about when the most exciting stat line is that someone went 1-for-3 with a double and a walk. So imagine our surprise Monday night when the A's and Angels went on a spree in Anaheim (and at least one of teams kept it going for the rest of the week).

If we asked you to name a player on each team, you might get Matt Chapman and Mike Trout. (And honestly, that's about all. You'd probably even get stumped with Angels after Shohei Ohtani and "is Albert Pujols still playing?".) So let's watch their little back-and-forth. Chapman homered in both the 2nd and 3rd innings as the A's hung 5 runs. Trout, meanwhile, has singled twice and scored twice. Chapman then hit a bases-loaded triple in the 4th, the first one ever for the Athletics in Anaheim. (They did hit one against the Angels in 1965, but that was the team's final year borrowing Dodger Stadium before their own place opened.) So now it's already 9-4, and Chapman is the first Oakland batter with 2 homers and a triple in the same game since Mitchell Page did it at Fenway Park on August 29, 1977. He's also the second A's batter ever to have a 6-RBI game in Anaheim, joining... uh... Matt Chapman when he did it on June 30 of last year.

Ah, but release the trout! Two-run homer in the 4th to make it 9-6. Ohtani doubles and scores after that, then hits his own two-run homer in the 6th to knot the game at 9. And Trout for the win, a solo homer in the 8th for our final score of 10-9. He was the first Angels batter with 4 hits, 4 runs scored, and 3 RBI in a home game since Adam Kennedy on May 10, 2002. Combined with Chapman, only one other A's/Angels game has had a player on each side hit multiple homers; Dwayne Murphy and Juan Beniquez matched wits on August 12, 1984, in another game that the Angels won 10-9.

If you think that 10-9 is a pesky theme, in the past 3 years the A's have had four games where they scored 9 or more runs and lost. All of them are against the Angels-- 10-9, 13-9, and 11-9, with three of the four being at The Big A. So at least we can say Tuesday's game did not end 10-9. Instead it ended 6-0 with the A's mustering only 5 hits and striking out 13 times against Dylan Bundy and friends. The last time the Angels put that kind of a shutdown on Oakland (0 runs and 13+ strikeouts) was the final game of the 1976 season when their pitcher was only Nolan Ryan.


I Gott You Babe

So let's get the A's out of SoCal and back north where they belong. A quick hop across the Bay Bridge (which is very rarely quick) brings them to San Francisco for a weekend series with the Giants. And while neither of the first two games involves particularly "giant" numbers, it's worth a mention of what the A's did. Or what Trevor Gott did. Or didn't do. "Gott" it? Good.

Gott, you see, is a pitcher for the Giants, at least still as of this writing, and on Friday he got handed a 7-2 lead in the 9th inning. Not even a save situation. And at least in this game, Chapman would defer to the rest of the A's lineup after making the first out of the inning. Matt Olson solo homer. Walk. Hit batter. Giants try to force Mark Canha at second and he beats the play. And Stephen Piscotty, he of the walkoff grand slam last week, does it again. Now, he can't hit a walkoff because we're on the west side of the bridge, but he can tie the game at 7 and send Gott heading for the clubhouse. Or party tent. Or that big glove in left field. Wherever they go now. No Oaklander had hit two grand slams, at any point of the game, 10 days or less apart since Brandon Moss on May 30 and June 8 of 2014. But Piscotty is the first player in team history to hit two 9th-inning slams in the same season, much less in two weeks. And the only other player in the past 60 years with a game-tying grand slam and a go-ahead grand slam in the same season, both in the 9th inning, was Rondell White of the Padres in 2003.

When Mark Canha drove in Oakland's free runner with a sac fly in the top of the 10th, it gave the A's just their third extra-inning win ever against the Giants on the road. Shannon Stewart had a 2-run single in the 10th back in June 2007, and you've gotta go way back for the other. In Game 3 of the 1911 World Series, the A's got two unearned runs off Christy Mathewson in the 11th to take a 2-1 series lead (they eventually won in 6). And back to Friday, Gott became the first Giants pitcher to give up 5 runs and 2 homers while getting only 1 out since Bob Knepper did that in a start at Cincinnati on September 6, 1979.

Surely Trevor has Gott to do better on Saturday, right? Mmm, no. Once again he gets sent out for the 9th, this time with a 6-3 lead and it is a save situation. Leadoff home run. Again. This time it's Sean Murphy. A few batters later, Trevor has Gott-en two outs but he's also allowed a walk and a double, meaning Canha is up again carrying the go-ahead run himself. Three guesses. Canha's homer was the first 3- or 4-run lead-flipping homer in Oakland history (1968) when the team was down to its final strike in a road game. Eric Byrnes (2003), Mark McGwire (1989), and Dusty Baker (1985) all hit them with 2 outs, but not also with 2 strikes. And while Gott did, um, Gett 2 outs this time, that really only lowers the bar slightly. He still became the first Giants pitcher to give up 4+ runs while getting no more than 2 outs, in consecutive appearances, since Ron Bryant in July 1971.

But Bryant didn't do that in back-to-back team games, just back-to-back games that he appeared in. We couldn't find any Giants pitcher ever to pull that off; the last one to do it for any team was Victor Marte of the Royals on July 26 and 27, 2010. (Marte was promptly sent to triple-A Omaha after the second game and didn't come back the rest of the year.) And while we're throwing out Giants/A's World Series factoids, Murphy and Canha hit Oakland's third and fourth home runs of that game after starter Kevin Gausman gave up two of his own. And only once before had the A's ever hit 4 homers in a road game with the Giants-- October 27, 1989, at Candlestick Park. That's right, the World Series game that was delayed 10 days by the Loma Prieta earthquake.

So then just when Gott had shaken things up enough, he, uh, Gott the honor of sitting patiently through Sunday's series finale. And watching the rest of the Giants bullpen have the same meltdown. Sunday's game was only 2-2 when Logan Webb was curiously replaced in the 5th inning, although he was already at 88 pitches. Pinch-hitter Chad Pinder greeted Wandy Peralta with a 2-run homer. And then two more singles, a Mark Canha triple, and a walk later, Wandy is out and it's Dereck Rodriguez's turn. And all he does is surrender a 3-run homer to Stephen Piscotty, he of the grand slam on Friday. All told the A's would put together a 9-run 5th inning, their largest frame ever in a National League park (besting the 8 they hung at Wrigley last August). Peralta would get charged with 5 runs and 0 outs recorded, the first Giants pitcher to pull that off since Julian Tavarez in Phoenix on August 2, 1999. Marcus Semien would homer for the icing on that 9-run inning, meaning Rodriguez got tagged for 4 runs (actually 5) and 2 dingers as well. Look familiar? It's what Trevor Gott did on both Friday and Saturday. And we couldn't find any instance in Giants history of any relievers having such an outing in three straight games. The last time any team did it was by Kelvin Marte, Jeff Locke, and Tony Watson of the Pirates in September 2016.

Piscotty would tack on a 2-run double in the 6th to give him 5 RBI, joining Josh Donaldson (2012), Keith Ginter (2005), and Eric Byrnes (2004) as the Oaklanders to do that in San Francisco. Pinder stayed in the game and doubled in the 9th, just the fourth player in A's history with a pinch-hit homer and another extra-base hit later on. Derek Norris is two of the other three, plus Bob Johnson in 1934. And that Pinder double came off Tyler Heineman, who you may remember from our earlier discussions about catcher interference. Yep, he's a catcher. Or at least he was for the first 8 innings of Sunday's game. And that made him the second Giants player in the modern era to both catch and pitch in the same game, after Frank Bowerman made his only career appearance on the mound... against the Pirates on September 23, 1904.


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Chadwick Tromp, Monday: Fourth time this season (already!) that the Giants have been tagged for catcher interference. Most for them in a season since 1965. The other 29 teams combined have been called seven times.

⚾ Dodgers, Saturday: First-ever extra-inning win in Anaheim. Leaves four current teams against whom they've never won an "overtime" game on the road: Baltimore, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Texas.

⚾ Yuli Gurriel, Friday: Second player in Astros history to homer and triple in the first 2 innings of a game. George Springer did it in another 9-run frame against the Royals on June 24, 2016.

⚾ Mike Yastrzemski, Wednesday: Giants' first leadoff triple in Houston since Darren Lewis off Mark Portugal (. The Man.), April 20, 1992.

⚾ Willy Adames, Sunday: Hit first "extra-inning" home run in major-league history prior to the 10th inning (thanks to adoption of minor-league doubleheader rules that make them 7 innings now).

⚾ Joey Gallo, Tuesday: 2 walks and 2 HBPs for his second career complete-game 0-for-0. Other was July 9, 2017; he is the first in Rangers/Senators history to do it twice.

⚾ Adam Frazier & Gregory Polanco, Thursday: First Pirates batters to lead off the 1st and 2nd innings of a road game with homers since Gary Redus & Lloyd McClendon at Atlanta, July 29, 1991.

⚾ Whit Merrifield, Wed & Sat: 28th and 29th career leadoff doubles (to start game), tying and then passing Willie Wilson for team's all-time record.

⚾ Freddy Peralta, Monday: With Corbin Burnes two days earlier, Brewers are second team this century to have multiple pitchers in same season strike out 8+ in a relief appearance. Other pair is Glendon Rusch & Angel Guzman of the 2006 Cubs.

⚾ White Sox, Sunday: Second time in team history hitting back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers. Other game was August 14, 2008, by Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez, and Juan Uribe against the Royals.

⚾ Hunter Pence, Tuesday: First Giants batter to have a 3- or 4-run pinch-hit homer, stay in game, and get another hit later, since Candy Maldonado at Atlanta, September 27, 1987.

⚾ Marlins, Wed-Fri (Jon Berti & Eddy Alvarez): First team to steal home in back-to-back games since Bob Hamelin & David Howard did it for the Royals on May 22 & 23, 1996.

⚾ Sandy Leon, Saturday: Second catcher's interference infraction of the season, first Cleveland backstop to commit two since Victor Martinez in 2006.

⚾ Chris Paddack & Luis Perdomo, Thursday: First Padres teammates ever to give up 3+ homers each in the same game.

⚾ Austin Hays, Tuesday: Orioles' first extra-inning inside-the-park homer since Glenn Davis at Cleveland, October 1, 1992. First extra-inning homer of any kind they'd hit in Philadelphia since Tom Upton off Dick Fowler of the Athletics on July 15, 1950.

⚾ Gerrit Cole, Friday: Became first Yankees pitcher to give up at least 1 homer in each of his first five starts of a season, but not lose any of them, since Whitey Ford in 1962.

⚾ Tim Anderson & Eloy Jimenez, Wednesday: Second time in White Sox history they led off a road game with back-to-back homers. Ray Durham & Jose Valentin hit them in Kansas City on July 4, 2000.

⚾ Evan Phillips, Sunday: First pitcher in modern era (1901) to walk 4 batters, hit a batter, throw a wild pitch, get 3 outs or fewer, and somehow not give up a run.

⚾ Nick Ahmed, Mon-Wed: 3 hits and 3 RBI batting 9th in back-to-back games. Only other National League player ever to do it twice in a season was Cubs pitcher Don Cardwell in 1960.

⚾ Clint Frazier, Saturday: Third Yankees batter ever with a 5-RBI game against the Red Sox hitting 8th or 9th. Francisco Cervelli (2010) and Al Downing (1966) both did it at Fenway.

⚾ Diamondbacks, Friday: Listed an "official gametime temperature", with the roof open, of 113°F. Hottest known entry in MLB history. There have been two 109° games, the more recent in Arlington on August 26, 1988.

But it's a dry heat.