If you've been with us for any length of time, and knowing our previous ESPN connections, you know that this blog is based in Bristol, Connecticut. (What gave it away, all the parenthetical mentions of Former New Britain Rock Cats?) And you might have heard we had a tropical storm come ashore earlier this week, which by itself isn't unheard of. New England sticks out into the ocean somewhat weirdly there. But having one of these storms take out the electricity of over half the state in about six hours?, well, that was unusual. According to the power company (and if you'd like some great reading material, seach "Eversource" on your favorite social media page), it did more damage to their "infrastructure" than Sandy in 2012 or Irene in 2011. We have no way to confirm or deny that, obviously. But as we (and hundreds of thousands of others, in several states) waited impatiently for the juice to start flowing again, twice having to do our nightly research and tweetstorm from an alternate site in another state, well, the theme just kinda, um, clicked on.
Three-Pronged Outlet
Before we get deep into this week's tidbits, it never seems to fail that on Mondays a few teams read this post (hey, let us persist in believing this) and think, wow, that's a good idea, we should try that. Because inevitably that weird thing that we just wrote about last weekend happens again. In this case it's the one where we wrote about it not happening. We affectionately call it the Kernels Trifecta, the rare pitching-obscurity whirlwind that consists of a hit batter, a wild pitch, and a balk all in the same game. Last week we mentioned it hadn't happened yet this year. So gosh, thanks Tim Hill.
The Padres hurler unfurled this gem in Tuesday's game with the Dodgers, and speaking of things that have never happened, he did it after Dinelson Lamet took a no-hitter into the 6th inning, finally leaving after Cody Bellinger and Corey Seager hit back-to-back singles. Hill was summoned in the 7th, promply giving up an RBI double to A.J. Pollock, and then throwing the wild pitch to send Pollock to third before getting out of the inning. Bellinger led off the 8th with another single, got balked to second, and then as his last official act on the, um, hill, Hill plunked Matt Beaty to complete the trifecta. The last Padres pitcher to do it had been Chad Gaudin at Arizona on May 25, 2009; before that the only ones in team history were Bob Tewksbury (1996) and Juan Eichelberger (twice!). Beaty was also the third Dodgers batter to get hit with a pitch in Tuesday's game, a first for that team against San Diego since Mark Grudzielanek, Paul Lo Duca, and yes-the-pitcher Kevin Brown took said abuse on April 15, 2001.
Battery, Back Up
We also spent a lot of time last week reviewing the odd call that is catcher's interference. Tyler Heineman might want to spend some more time reviewing it, because he committed it again.
Heineman wasn't the focus of last week's post given that Pedro Severino pulled it off twice in an inning, but before that Heineman had also been called twice, once in the Giants' second game of the season against the Dodgers, and again three days later against the Padres. So when it happened again on Tuesday, with Daniel Murphy of the Rockies at bat, Heineman became the first Giants backstop cited three times in a season since Hector Sanchez in 2012. (Yes, the Giants had only played 12 games to that point.) Before Sanchez it was Tom Haller in 1965.
Meanwhile, in Cleveland on Wednesday, Nick Senzel of the Reds picked up where he left off in 2019, channeling his inner Jacoby Ellsbury to get the call against Sandy Leon. Senzel was among last year's league leaders in CI awards after managing to get it three times in a week, and twice in the same game, last August. With Wednesday's free base, Senzel moved past Johnny Bench in Reds history with his sixth award, trailing only Edwin Encarnacion (8) and Pete Rose, who had 19 with Cincinnati and was the all-time MLB leader until Jacoby Ellsbury passed him a few years ago. Oddly enough, Encarnacion also got a CI call against the Indians earlier this year, except that he's now with the White Sox. That was July 29 with Beau Taylor behind the dish; Taylor and Leon are the first Cleveland teammates to commit the infraction at home in the same year since Einar Diaz and Pat Borders in 1998.
Power-Saver Mode
Oh yeah, about that Reds/Indians game on Wednesday. "Pitchers' duel" might not be the best phrase; while starters Mike Clevinger and Tejay Antone only allowed only 2 hits each, they also walked 4 and only struck out 4. It was more along the lines of the teams taking all the "O"s to spell "Ohio" and forgetting to leave any for "offense". Cleveland managed just 4 hits, all of them singles, and somehow won the game. That was mainly because the Reds got just four runners to second base, two of them on back-to-back walks, and one because of that catcher's interference call. For the Indians it was the first time they'd had 4 or fewer hits, no extra-base hits, and won a game since June 21, 2015, a 1-0 festival with the Rays. They also had only 4 hits in Tuesday's game (and also won), plus did it again on Friday against the White Sox. All told Cleveland collected 5 hits or fewer in nine of its first 15 games this season, joining the strike-shortened 1972 Brewers as the only teams in the live-ball era to get out of the gate so slowly.
But back to the Reds and Indians. Back in the early days of baseball Ohio saw its share of teams (go Columbus Solons!), but the "I-71 series" (sorry, Louisville) only plays out a few times a year anymore since they're in different leagues. And not at all before interleague play in 1997. So Cincinnati's 0-on-3 from Wednesday? Well, that was the first time the Reds had been shut down that hard by a Cleveland team since September 18, 1897. That, of course, was not the Indians, it was the Spiders, who featured a 212-win (at the time) pitcher by the name of Cy Young. And all he did that day was throw the first of his three no-hitters.
"Reevaluating Outage"
So on Thursday guess what the Reds do again. While the Indians are battering them for 13 runs, Cincinnati is once again throwing up a 0-on-3 against Carlos Carrasco and some friends of his. It was the seventh time in the live-ball era that the Reds had gone 0-on-3 in back-to-back games, the previous being in April 2018 at Milwaukee. But it was the first time the Indians had held the same team to 0-on-3 in consecutive home games since May 6 and 7, 1972, against the White Sox.
Oh yeah, those 13 runs. Ten of them came in the bottom of the 7th when Jose De Leon couldn't get find that pesky strike zone. Along the way he issued three bases-loaded walks, the first Reds pitcher to do that in an inning since Steve Delabar also did it in Cleveland on May 17, 2016. The 10-run inning was the first in the majors this year, and the first one at Progressive Field since September 30, 2012. Jose Ramirez collected two homers and a triple, the first Clevelander to do that in a game since Joe Carter at Milwaukee County Stadium on May 15, 1988. Tack on Ramirez's 4 RBI and he's the first since Rico Carty against the newly-minted Seattle Mariners on August 28, 1977.
Ramirez, plus Cesar Hernandez in the leadoff spot, became the third pair of Cleveland 1- and 2-hitters to each have 3 runs scored and 3 RBI in the same game. Coco Crisp and Omar Vizquel did it at Yankee Stadium on August 31, 2004; the original pair was Lou Boudreau and Beau Bell against Washington on May 17, 1940. And that 13-0 final score was the largest shutout win/loss for either team in any interleague game in its history.
Power Surge
On the complete opposite side of the voltage meter, you probably heard something about a 17-13 score between Detroit and Chicago over the past few days. And it's August, so must be time for some football. Yeah, nothing is normal anymore, including that your 17-13 score wasn't in 4 quarters, it was in... 11 innings? Yes, after already playing a 13-10 in the season opener two years ago, the Tigers and Pirates pulled this one off on Friday, shattering the record (by seven runs!) for the highest-scoring game in the 20 years of PNC Park. It looked fairly normal until the 5th inning when the Tigers added four runs and the Pirates responded with three. In the process Steven Brault faced six Detroit batters and got none of them out, the first Pirates pitcher with that dubious line since Ryan Vogelsong managed to do it in a start on September 24, 2004.
Except then (only then?) it gets weird. In the 7th Miguel Cabrera gets plunked. C.J. Cron walks, then three straight singles open the floodgates, which Niko Goodrum later closes with a 2-out double to make this a 12-7 affair. Ah, but turns out pirates will not go down without a fight. (Just ask your average 17th-century mercantile ship. Next time you see one.) Erik Gonzalez bases-loaded double in the 8th and it's 12-9. And with 2 outs and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 9th, Adam Frazier completes the comeback with a home run to make it 12-12. That was the first time the Pirates had homered to tie or take a lead when down to their final strike since Starling Marte took Kevin Gregg of the Cubs deep on July 7, 2013.
Now we are in extras, and as we always said in the minor leagues, you have a feel for which games really need the free runner and which ones don't. (More on that in a moment.) It's 12-12. This one doesn't. They're sorta scoring at will here. And sure enough, both teams score their free runner in the 10th, but nobody else, so the new rule has no effect anyway. The Tigers score their free runner in the 11th, which would have been enough, but just in case, let's have Niko Goodrum hit another double and drive in two more insurance runs so that we don't have to keep this game going. Which it didn't. But that 11th-inning hit made Goodrum the first Tigers batter ever to have a 5-RBI game in Pittsburgh, and the second Detroit leadoff man to drive in 5 runs but score 0 himself. Curtis Granderson did that against Cleveland on May 26, 2006. One of those runners, Victor Reyes, scored 4 times despite hitting 7th in the batting order, the first Tigers batter to do that in a road game since Craig Monroe did it the day before Granderson's feat.
Meanwhile, Erik Gonzalez collected 4 hits and 6 RBI for the Pirates-- who, as you may have forgotten by now-- ended up losing the game. Darnell Coles (1987), Rickie Zisk (1975), and Roberto Clemente (1967) are the only other Pittsburgh hitters to do that in a loss. Combined with Phillip Evans, they are the second set of Pirates teammates ever to have 3 hits and 4 RBI each in the same loss; George Grantham and Gus Suhr did it against the Phillies on September 16, 1930.
Now as for that final score, the Pirates had not put up 13 runs in a loss since a 15-14 defeat to the (yes) Brooklyn Dodgers on July 23, 1951. It was the fifth interleague game in MLB history (including one in the 1993 World Series) where both teams scored at least 13 runs; the previous one of those was between Seattle and San Diego on June 2, 2016. And the last 17-13 score in the majors? Why, that was only last year, but a world away (on several different levels now): It was the Yankees/Red Sox game in London where both teams scored 6 runs in the 1st. Before that it last happened at Coors on June 28, 2000.
Extension Cord
So remember how you can tell that some games need the extra-inning rule and some don't? Not long after the Tigers and Pirates did their thing on Friday, we hit another game that mercifully did need the rule, and here's a shocker, it involves the AL West again. We take you to Oakland (speaking of football again), where Houston and the A's are knotted in a 1-0 snoozefest until Robbie Grossman deposits a solo homer in the bottom of the 7th. Yep, here we go. In fact this division is so good at not scoring that, even after both teams pulled the predictable move of bunting their free runner over to third on the first pitch, they combined for three strikeouts and a grounder to third so as to not score either one. The 11th looked promising when Matt Chapman led off with a single. Winning run on third, nobody out. Yep, three strikeouts. Chapman would ground out to end the 12th, once again with the winning run having moved over to third. Finally Alex Bregman comes through in the 13th with a double to score the Astros' free runner, and maybe this will end?
Eh, apparently the A's heard the proverbial trash can from the other dugout and decided they might want to finally score too. It helped that Houston countered by sending Cy Sneed, who we still think sounds like the evil villain in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and naturally that tying run involved a questionable tag play at third base as well. Tony Kemp would intervene with a walk-- his third of the game, and the Astros may know a little something about this. Kemp came up in our postings frequently when he was with the Houston club because he would do strange things out of the #9 spot in the order. Like, say, walking three times. No Oakland #9 batter had done that since Eric Sogard against the Twins on August 9, 2014. And no #9 for any team had posted 3 walks and a sacrifice bunt since Francisco Cervelli did it for the Yankees on September 11, 2010.
But then Marcus Semien came through with a walkoff single to give the A's the 3-2 win and end our Friday night of baseball. The last time Oakland had a walkoff win in the 13th inning? Why, that was on August 16 of last year. Also in the 13th inning. Also against Houston. Also by a 3-2 score. Want to take a guess who was on the mound for the Astros? Mm-hmm,
And back to Austin Allen and his game-tying hit with 2 outs in the 13th. Oakland hadn't had either a tying or walkoff single when trailing in extra innings since Bruce Maxwell ruined Jim Johnson's night for the Braves on July 2, 2017. They hadn't had one in the 13th or later since Adam Rosales against the Angels on April 29, 2013. And Allen's hit also came with 2 outs and 2 strikes. As for the combination of "13th or later" and "down to final strike", that hasn't happened for Oakland in the era of full pitch counts starting in 1988. The only such hit in their history that might qualify (we couldn't find a contemporary report to confirm or deny) was by Gene Tenace on August 10, 1972, against the White Sox. Like Allen, Tenace tied the game in the 13th. Unlike Semien, the A's did not score again, and the teams played four more innings before the game was suspended by the old American League curfew. It wasn't until the next night that Joe Rudi hit the latest (by inning) walkoff homer in Athletics history, with 1 out in the 19th.
Rudi's mark would stand for 40 years until Brandon Moss homered with 2 outs in the 19th against the Angels on April 29, 2013. Look familiar? It's the game from the last paragraph where Rosales tied it in the 13th.
In the spirit of Gene Tenace (and in the Nationals/Orioles game from Sunday), we're going to suspend your post for a moment and let you recharge. You may choose either Alternating or Direct. It's timely for that earthquake in North Carolina this morning too. Intermission!
Start Me Up
Seems Marcus Semien must have been perusing our notes about him and Gene Tenace and the suspended game from 1972 (again, let us persist in believing this), because he decided to pick up on Saturday as if Friday's game had never ended. On the sixth pitch from Framber Valdez, Semien connected for his first home run of this shortened season, and the seventh leadoff homer of his career, all with the A's. He's got a ways to go to catch Rickey Henderson, whose 43 leadoff homers are the Oakland record, but it was just the second one the A's have ever hit against Houston. Coco Crisp (who is second to Rickey with a mere 15 leadoff homers for Oakland) hit one off Brad Peacock on April 5, 2013.
More notably, since the A's left Philadelphia in 1955, no player on their team has ever hit a walkoff anything in one game and then led off the next game with a home run. We couldn't find any Philadelphia A's to do it either, but enough play-by-play is missing from the early years that we couldn't disprove it for sure.
And the Tigers weren't quite done lighting up the scoreboard either. After that 17-13 jamboree in Pittsburgh on Friday, they decided to see how many of the city's three rivers they could hit with baseballs. And by the time Saturday's 1st inning was over, they had succeeded-- one for each river plus another for the Detroit River back home. Niko Goodrum upped his two doubles from Friday into a leadoff homer, the second one the Tigers have ever hit in Pittsburgh. Leonys Martin began that 13-10 game from two years ago with a dinger. Except five pitches (and a Jonathan Schoop single) later, Miguel Cabrera had homered to make it 3-0. Then C.J. Cron. Then that always-helpful "mound visit". Mmm, yeah, about that. Very next pitch, Jeimer Candelario home run. Count 'em, four dingers in the first five batters of the game, just the second time in MLB history that's happened. The Orioles did it against Houston on August 19, 2016 (and then promptly gave all 5 runs back the next inning because Orioles). The Tigers hadn't hit four homers in any inning since June 1, 2013, in Baltimore, and hadn't done it in a 1st inning since Al Kaline, Bill Freehan, Mickey Stanley, and Ed Brinkman all connected in Cleveland on July 29, 1974.
Apparently figuring this game was already lost, the Pirates mysteriously left Derek Holland in despite the four 1st-inning homers. He gave up three more singles in the 2nd, but then did settle down until JaCoby Jones greeted him with another tater in the 6th. That made the Tigers the first American League team ever to homer five times in a game in Pittsburgh (any stadium), and PNC Park is the first NL stadium not named Wrigley Field in which Detroit's done it.
Goodrum and Schoop both promptly doubled again to put Holland out of his misery, having given up 13 hits, 9 runs, and 5 homers. He's the first pitcher in Pirates history to hit the 13 and 5 numbers in the same game, and the first for any team since Sean O'Sullivan of the Royals had a meltdown at Texas on May 28, 2011. The last Pirates hurler to give up 13 and 9 was Bob Friend at Wrigley on May 2, 1954; he "only" allowed 4 homers-- and won because the game was 18-10!
Power Rangers
(It had to be done. Sorry.)
No, this will not be an entire section about the Texas ballclub, mostly because they didn't do very much this week. In fact they might want to consider restoring that open-air place across the street, because in the opener at Globe Life Field against the Rockies, neither team collected more than 4 hits. Then on Saturday against the Angels it happened again. Twice in seven games. Know how many times that happened at the old place, in 2,106 total games it hosted over 25 years? That would be three.
However, it was Wednesday in Oakland where the Rangers, and specifically Shin-Soo Choo, found us our section header. Before the cardboard cutouts had settled into their seats, Choo lofted the first pitch of the game from Sean Manaea into left-center for a 1-0 lead. Choo is already creeping within reach of Ian Kinsler's team record of 29 leadoff homers (he has 25 now), and he's rotated the active leaderboard with George Springer and Charlie Blackmon for a few years now. (At the moment, they're all exactly tied with 36.) But it's the fact that it's the first pitch of the game that makes this one special. Obviously that means the team hitting it must be on the road, and as mentioned earlier, we only have complete pitch-count data back to 1988. But Choo has now hit nine of those first-pitch-of-game dingers, and Wednesday's gave him the all-time (known) record for such a thing. Alfonso Soriano hit eight of them. Springer is the only other active player with five.
But before Choo did it on Wednesday, Joc Pederson of the Dodgers and Cole Tucker of the Pirates started the week by both hitting first-pitch-of-game homers on Monday. There was one instance of two on the same day last season (August 31 by Kevin Newman and Josh VanMeter), but none for almost 3 years before that. Pederson's shot came at Petco Park and was just the second one ever hit there after Michael Taylor of the Nationals did it on June 19, 2016. And Tucker hit the third such homer at Target Field since it opened in 2010; Ronald Acuña (last August) and Adam Jones (2016) have the others.
We also can't leave any discussion of leadoff homers without dropping Fernando Tatis Jr in here. After Pederson hit his leadoff dinger at Petco on Monday, the Padres were still there hosting the Diamondbacks on Friday. At which point Tatis hits the first pitch from Luke Weaver for a homer. Since it's the home team, it doesn't qualify in the first-pitch-of-game category, but it did give him seven leadoff dingers for his career, tying the 21-year-old with Chris Denorfia and Quilvio Veras in the Padres record book. Only Will Venable (10) has more. And after Arizona goes 1-2-3 in the 2nd, Jake Cronenworth strides to the plate to lead off San Diego's half. And he too hits the first pitch from Weaver over the right-field wall. In that same population of pitch-count data since 1988, the Padres had never before homered on the first pitch of both the 1st and 2nd innings of the same game. It does happen, however; Charlie Blackmon and Raimel Tapia of the Rockies did it last year.
On Saturday the Padres were at it again, and this time Tatis displayed his great plate discipline by waiting for the second pitch from Chris Paddack to slam one to left field. It's still true that only Will Venable has more leadoff homers in Padres history, but Tatis now sits alone in second place. In an extremely eerie coincidence-- to the point where the Padres' Twitter account suggested the "Twilight Zone" music was playing-- the dates of those two games were August 7 and 8. Guess what Tatis did on August 7 and 8 of last year. Yep, hit leadoff homers in back-to-back games, this time against Seattle and then Colorado. And no, we could find no other instance of any player doing this on the same two dates in consecutive years.
He still wasn't done. Tatis hit a second solo shot in the 8th inning of Saturday's game. In the 3-2 loss, that made him the fourth player in Padres history to hit multiple solo homers accounting for all the team's runs in a game. The others on that list are Hunter Renfroe (2018), Wil Myers (2016), and Ken Caminiti (1996). And Tatis had a similar game last year on July 7 (not August 7) where he hit a leadoff homer and then a second one later in the game. The only other player in Padres history to do that twice is Brian Giles (both games in 2007).
On Sunday Tatis did not hit another leadoff homer; this time he waited until the 2nd inning. That gave him a 4-game homer streak, the first since Hunter Renfroe did it two years ago... on the exact same dates (August 5-7-8-9)! The only 5-game streaks in team history belong to Adrian Gonzalez (2009) and Graig Nettles (1984).
No, instead he watched Manny Machado and Wil Myers take Madison Bumgarner deep in the 1st inning as the Padres connected for six total dingers in the first three frames. Machado, hitting behind Tatis, hit another one in the 2nd to become the first Padres batter to go deep in both the 1st and 2nd innings of the same game since Ryan Klesko did it in Milwaukee on May 26, 2002. That effectively ended MadBum's afternoon and solidified his place as the second D'backs pitcher ever to give up 4 homers in a game in San Diego. Rodrigo Lopez did it on July 17, 2010.
And while they are not the first team to homer six times in the first three innings of a game, the Padres are the first team to hit two or more homers in each of the first three innings.
Power Walking
In our collection of favorite statistical oddities last week, we neglected to mention one other great boxscore phenomenon that always catches our eye. There are plenty of players who never get an official at-bat even though they're in the box. Usually it's late-game defensive replacements who never bat. Sometimes it's a pinch hitter who draws a walk and then sits down. In National League games, it used to be the relief pitchers when they'd double-switch in and out. It is, however, the very rare player who lasts the entire game, usually four and sometimes five plate appearances, but never gets credit for an at-bat. It's a complete-game 0-for-0, meaning every appearance ends with a walk, a hit-by-pitch, a sacrifice, one of the handful of things that doesn't count against the batter either way (see also: catcher's interference!). We hadn't had one of those in the majors yet this year either, and just as we were noting Tim Hill's "pitcher trifecta" and Tyler Heineman's third CI call of the year on Tuesday, Max Kepler popped in with, what else, 0-for-0 in the Twins' 7-3 win. As leadoff batter against the Pirates, Kepler walked four times and also hit one of the Twins' three sacrifice flies in the game. That left him 0-for-0 with 2 runs scored and 1 RBI, to say nothing of stealing a base as well.
No Twins leadoff batter had done the complete-game 0-for-0 since Chuck Knoblauch had 4 walks and a hit-by-pitch against Oakland on September 11, 1996. Ignoring the 0-for-0 part, Kepler was the second player in Twins/Senators history to record 4 walks and a sac fly in the same game; the latter were split from sac bunts into their own category in 1954. The other player to do it was Doug Mientkiewicz against Kansas City on May 15, 2003. And 4 walks plus a stolen base hadn't happened in Minnesota Twins history (1961) until Kepler did it on Tuesday. The last batter to do that for the franchise in a single game was Eddie Yost, also against Kansas City (but that's the A's!) on September 10, 1955.
Combine it all-- 4 walks, a steal, and a sac fly-- and only four other players have ever done it in the same game. Mike Trout (2018), Jose Valentin (2005), and Dusty Baker (1974) each pulled off the 0-for-0 trick as well, while Lou Brock managed to also have 4 at-bats in a 17-inning game with the Phillies on September 13, 1974.
Circuit Breaker
It's been said that the most exciting play in baseball is a triple, but few things energize the fans like an inside-the-park home run. (Especially this season, we say the more IHRs the merrier, because we don't need the cardboard cutouts fighting over a ball that actually leaves the field. Somebody's gonna get creased, or end up in the recycle bin, it's just not pretty.) This week saw the first two of this young season, and on back-to-back days for the first time since last June. We take you to Phoenix on Wednesday, where the Diamondbacks' game with Houston starts innocently enough. Lance McCullers sets down the D'backs the first time through the order, which would also become kind of a theme for Arizona this week. Ketel Marte breaks up that threat with a leadoff single in the 4th. And then the proverbial wheels fell off. Kole Calhoun sends a frozen rope off the slanted wall in right field, which rebounds past George Springer, and allows him to circle the bases. It would go down as the 15th inside-the-park homer at Chase Field, second-most in the majors of any ballpark since it opened in 1998. (Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium has 21.) The Diamondbacks have hit 17 IHRs in their history, both at home and away; that also trails only Kansas City (20) and Philadelphia (19) over that span. In fact the aforementioned Ketel Marte had their previous IHR exactly 1 year and 1 day earlier against the Nationals.
But then Christian Walker double. David Peralta triple. Stephen Vogt double. Marte, who led off the inning, gets another hit to finally knock McCullers out of the game. Calhoun greets Nivaldo Rodriguez with another single. By the time this is all over the D'backs have their first 9-run inning since August 27, 2017, against the Giants, and Calhoun has become the first of those 17 Diamondbacks ever to have an inside-the-parker and another hit in the same inning. Arizona would cruise to a 14-7 win (look, another football score!) and record the second game in team history where all nine starters had at least 1 hit and at least 1 run scored. The other was on July 17 of last year at Texas.
Calhoun would also treat the cardboard cutouts to a walkoff win on Thursday after Stefan Crichton blew the save and allowed a 2-run homer to Alex Bregman in the 8th. Only Carlos Lee (September 4, 2010, off Aaron Heilman) had hit a lead-flipping homer in the 8th or later for the Astros at Chase Field, but that Houston team did not have Ryan Pressly to blow the save right back. Pressly faced four batters in the bottom of the 9th and didn't get any of them out, culminating with Calhoun's walkoff double to score both Tim Locastro and Nick Ahmed. It was the fourth such hit in Diamondbacks history to occur when they were trailing; Calhoun joins Paul Goldschmidt (2014), David Dellucci (2002), and Hanley Frias (1999) on that list.
But elsewhere on Thursday, we still have another inside-the-park homer to clean up. That one came off the bat of Milwaukee's Christian Yelich, and was the seventh IHR at the current White Sox park. Byron Buxton of Minnesota had the prior one there on October 2, 2016. Robin Yount had the Brewers' only other IHR in Chicago (and we're including Wrigley here), on September 13, 1988 at the original Comiskey Park.
For more boxscore fun, however, that inside-the-parker was the only thing to come off of Yelich's bat on Thursday. He did foul off three pitches, two of them right before the home run. But in his other five plate appearances, he drew four walks (on only 19 total pitches) and then struck out swinging in the 9th. And if you thought a homer and 4 walks might be an interesting line, you'd be right; before Thursday it had never been done by any Brewers player. (As for "last in majors", Robinson Chirinos of the Astros did it last June, and we're still trying to figure out why.)
We waited all weekend for someone to do something interesting related to stolen bases so we could drop this song into a section header. Steal three or four of them. Steal home. Whatever. Didn't happen. Unless you count that "slick slide" on Ketel Marte's inside-the-parker we linked earlier. So just enjoy. Bonus dance break!
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Freddie Freeman, Sunday: First Braves hitter in modern era to both complete a cycle (June 15, 2016) and miss the cycle by the single.
⚾ Victor Caratini, Thursday: First Cubs batter whose RBI broke up a shutout of 13-0 or worse, with 2 outs in the 9th, since Arnold "Jigger" Statz at Brooklyn, August 10, 1922.
⚾ Corbin Burnes, Saturday: Third pitcher in Brewers history to strike out 8 and allow 1 hit in a relief appearance, joining Josh Hader (naturally) in 2018 and Mark Knudson in 1991.
⚾ Tyler Chatwood, Thursday: First Cubs starter to give up 11 hits, 8 runs, and not finish the 3rd inning, since Greg Maddux on August 5, 1988.
⚾ Mookie Betts, Friday: Third game this year with both a homer and a double. Last Dodgers batter to do it 3x in team's first 14 games of a season was Duke Snider in 1953.
⚾ Pablo Lopez, Tuesday: Second pitcher in Marlins history to allow 0 runs on 2 hits and strike out 7 in his first appearance of a season. Other was Kevin Brown on Opening Day 1997.
⚾ Mitch Moreland, Sunday: First Red Sox batter whose second homer of the game was a multi-run walkoff since Kevin Youkilis against the Cardinals, June 22, 2008.
⚾ J.A. Happ, Wednesday: First Yankees starter to issue 6 walks and not make it to the 4th inning since Scott Kamieniecki at Chicago, May 12, 1996.
⚾ Michael King, Saturday: First Yankees starter to give up 1 hit, but walk 5 and take a loss, since Steve Adkins versus Texas, September 12, 1990.
⚾ Rico Garcia, Thursday: First Giants pitcher to face 3 batters, have all of them score, give up a home run, and throw a wild pitch along the way, since Hal Schumacher against the Cardinals, August 28, 1933.
⚾ Jose Abreu, Monday: First tying (not go-ahead) homer hit by White Sox in 7th or later in Milwaukee since Frank Thomas off Ricky Bones, April 19, 1994.
⚾ Pat Valaika & Pedro Severino, Saturday: First Orioles teammates with pinch-hit homers in the same game since Wayne Gross & Larry Sheets against Cleveland, August 12, 1985.
⚾ Jarrod Dyson, Thursday: First Pirates starting #9 batter to steal two bases in a game since pitcher Rip Sewell at Boston, August 15, 1943.
⚾ James Paxton, Sunday: First Yankees pitcher to strike out 11+ but also give up multiple homers since David Cone did it in Detroit on June 23, 1997.
⚾ Stephen Piscotty, Tuesday: Hit Oakland's second walkoff grand slam in 12 days (Matt Olson in the opener). Last two teams to do it that quickly were the 2017 Blue Jays (Steve Pearce hit two by himself) and then the 1952 Red Sox.
⚾ Xander Bogaerts, Friday: First Red Sox cleanup batter with 3 walks and a stolen base in a game since Mike Greenwell at Texas, July 25, 1988.
⚾ Andres Gimenez, Sunday: First player in Mets history with 3 hits, 3 runs scored, and a stolen base in game where he batted either 8th or 9th.
⚾ Miguel Del Pozo, Monday: Second Pirates pitcher in modern era (1901) to face 3+ batters, walk all of them, and also throw a wild pitch. Al McBean at the LA Coliseum, July 16, 1961.
⚾ Ben Gamel & Luis Robert, Thursday: First game in MLB history where both leadoff batters had 0 hits and at least 4 strikeouts.
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