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
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.
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