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.