We take you to Pittsburgh for a little bit of both starting and finishing. On Tuesday the Pirates got an early RBI double from Erik Gonzalez, then managed all of 1 run off Adbert Alzolay, which might have been more except for your everyday 9-4-3-5 out-stretching by Adam Frazier. Stephen Brault, meanwhile, held the Cubs to only 2 hits of their own, although he did plunk multiple batters along the way, the first Pirates pitcher with that weird combination since Wandy Rodriguez also did it against the Cubs on April 3, 2013. All that would go down the drain when Anthony Rizzo hit a 2-run homer, the first tying or go-ahead dinger the Cubs have hit in the 8th or later at PNC Park since... Anthony Rizzo took Jeanmar Gomez deep on April 2, 2014. He's the first Cubs batter to hit two such homers there.
Jacob Stallings then proceeded to hit the Pirates' first walkoff homer against the Cubs in over 2 years, since Adam Frazier took Brandon Kintzler deep on August 19, 2018. It was also Pittsburgh's first (and only) one of the regular season; there were 12 teams who didn't hit one in our shortened little mini-season.
Wednesday's game seemed to duplicate Tuesday's-- just a few innings earlier. Anthony Rizzo, as the second batter of the game, homered to put the Cubs up 1-0. Leadoff batter Adam Frazier tied things up on the fourth pitch from Kyle Hendricks, marking the first time the Pirates had hit a walkoff homer in one game and a leadoff homer in the next since Al Martin and Carlos Garcia did it on September 12 & 14, 1993.
And before we could finish looking that up, Ke'Bryan Hayes had taken Hendricks deep also, the Pirates' first back-to-back homers to start a game since Jose Tabata and Neil Walker against Cincinnati on September 20, 2013. And we can only hope that the cardboard cutouts made it to their seats in time for these three homers. Because that was it. Hendricks and Trevor Williams both settled down and didn't allow another run. Frazier ran into another out at third base. Cameron Maybin had 2 doubles and a steal, joining Rafael Palmeiro (April 24, 1988) as the only Cubs in the modern era to do that IN Pittsburgh. But when Ian Happ struck out to end the game with the tying run at second, we had the first (and only) game this season where both teams scored in the 1st inning and neither one scored again. The last such game at PNC was against the Padres on August 9, 2014. And more notably, those back-to-back'ers to start the game? In franchise history (1882), the Pirates had never led off a game with two homers and then failed to score again after that. (And they won!)
Meanwhile, Monday's series opener ended with less of a bang than a whimper. The Pirates didn't have a hit in the last 3 innings, so pinch-hitter Jared Oliva couldn't exactly have done much about the 5-0 deficit with 2 outs in the 9th. But he could make his major-league debut, and why not in a spot where there's no pressure? Sure enough, struck out looking. But his little piece of history is that he's the first Pirates player to make his MLB debut in the form of a game-ending, pinch-hit strikeout since Leo "Red" Nonnenkamp did so against the Giants on September 6, 1933.
Mistakes By The Lakes
Up the road in Cleveland, on the other hand, the cardboard cutouts had most of the night to get to their seats. (Isn't it nice that they stay for the entire game? And aren't constantly climbing in and out of the rows because their kids want nachos or something? Maybe they'll renew next year.) Their local Tribe was taking on that other team from Chicago, and while the late-arriving cutouts would have missed Jose Ramirez's 3-run homer on Monday, they had some chances to make up for it. That Monday dinger propelled the Indians to an otherwise-uneventful 7-4 win, and was also the third one Ramirez has hit as the team's third batter of a game (meaning the first two batters must also reach). Carlos Baerga and HOF'er Earl Averill (5x) are the only others in team history with three such homers.
On Tuesday, however, the cutouts really could have just shown up for the free runners in extra innings rather than bother with the first 9. The Indians (Cesar Hernandez) and White Sox (Jose Abreu) traded solo homers and got stuck in a 1-1 slog that wasn't even really a pitcher's duel (wait for that one). Finally in the 10th it started to get exciting, and the only two words you need to know there are "Angel Hernandez". The umpire that Twitter loves to hate threw out multiple people for yelling about a questionable check-swing, but apparently it did the trick. Adam Engel immediately triples home the free runner, just the second time in the past 100 years that the Sox have had a go-ahead three-bagger against the Indians in extra innings. Alex Rios had the other on May 8, 2012. Engel later scores, and then the Indians score their free runner to set us up at 4-3 with two outs. Hernandez takes a walk to put the winning run at first base. So with our third "mound visit" of the inning, it must be time to bring in Jose Ruiz. He gets five pitches into Jose Ramirez's at-bat and requires yet another mound visit. And clearly that was the most helpful advice ever, because the very next pitch ends up amongst the cardboard cutouts in right field for a 3-run walkoff homer.
Ramirez had another walkoff homer against the White Sox on May 8 of last year; Jason Giambi and Carlos Santana are the only other Clevelanders to hit two against them. And it is tricky to hit an extra-inning walkoff homer with your team trailing, since it requires giving up run(s) in the top half. Sure enough, the Indians have only one other such homer in their history against Chicago; Frank Robinson hit it off Terry Forster on June 11, 1976. And Jose Ruiz-- mound visit notwithstanding-- got a blown save for his trouble (but not the loss because the winning run was already on first). Since saves became an official thing in 1969, only one other White Sox pitcher has blown one by giving up a walkoff homer to the first batter he faced: Addison Reed in Boston on July 19, 2012.
Wednesday looked a lot like Tuesday, except this one was a pitcher's duel between Lucas Giolito (of "threw a no-hitter a month ago") and Shane Bieber (of "not if but when"). They became the third opposing starters in Progressive Field history to strike out 10 and allow 2 or fewer runs; Carlos Carrasco and Detroit's Kyle Lobstein did it in 2014, and Chuck Finley matched wits with Esteban Loaiza of the Rangers in 2000. Both their decisions would get wiped out when Yoan Moncada led off the 8th with a triple and Abreu drove him in.
This is, of course, just setting up another walkoff homer, this time by fourth outfielder Jordan Luplow who didn't even play the first two games of the series. He and Ramirez gave the Indians their first back-to-back wins via walkoff homer since Josh Bard and Karim Garcia hit them against Seattle on August 23-24, 2002. For the White Sox, it was their first pair of losses via walkoff homer since Bobby Kielty and Mark Kotsay of Oakland did them in on June 1-2, 2004.
Eight Is Enough
After finishing that series with the Cubs, the Pirates also made their way up I-76 to Cleveland for their final three games of the regular season. And on Friday, two of the things we love to hate-- no-hitters and excessive walking of people-- collided once again in the form of Mitch Keller. You can't really blame Cleveland for not being troubled to get a hit; why swing if the guy can't find the strike zone? But Keller walked the first three batters of the game, the first Pirates pitcher to do that since James McDonald against the Padres on August 22, 2012. He then walked Francisco Lindor again in the 3rd. And the 5th. Lindor stole a base along the way, duplicating a feat of his from June 20, 2018, against the White Sox. The only other Indians leadoff batters to have 0 hits, but 3 walks and a steal, in two separate games are Alex Cole, Jack Graney, Dick Howser, Kenny Lofton, and Grady Sizemore.
But by the time we get through the 5th, Keller is at 98 pitches and eight walks-- yet still with a no-hitter intact. And Derek Shelton can't reasonably let him go any further. He thus becomes the first pitcher for any team to walk 8 but allow 0 hits in an outing since Brandon Morrow of the Jays did it on April 26, 2014. There have only been two other Pirates pitchers in the modern era to post that line, but both of them finished their no-hitters. One of them probably even remembers it; they are Cliff Chambers in 1951 and Doc Ellis's infamous no-no in 1970. And if this feels vaguely familiar with regards to Keller, it's because it was only last Saturday that he did the same thing against the Cardinals. That game didn't have all the walks, but once again Keller went 6 innings, didn't allow a hit, and got pulled after 84 pitches so that Sam Howard could not only blow the no-hitter, but the save as well. Want to guess how many other pitchers have ever had consecutive starts of 5+ innings and 0 hits allowed? If we told you the answer is one, you might get it-- none other than Johnny Vander Meer himself.
However, even though Keller's gone, we still have a situation on Friday, which Delino DeShields breaks up by bunting for a hit in the 7th inning. (Unwritten rules!) But it's 3-1 going to the 9th and Chris Stratton returns for a second inning on the mound. Jordan Luplow doubles home a run. DeShields swings away and ties the game with another hit. And then with 2 outs and 2 strikes, Cesar Hernandez ropes one just fair down the right-field line for a walkoff double. It was the first walkoff double the Indians had ever hit against Pittsburgh, and of course it also gave them three walkoffs in four days. The last time they did that was May 17-20, 2013, against the Mariners.
There would be no fourth walkoff for the Indians on Saturday, as they instead ran into the buzzsaw that was Joe Musgrove. Musgrove hasn't reached Jacob deGrom levels of futility, but he does suffer from a Pirates offense that hit just .220 this season, third-lowest in the majors. So Musgrove managed to strike out 7, 8, sometimes 10 batters in most of his starts this season, but also give up 2 or 3 runs and eat a loss. In fact, last Sunday against the Cardinals, he allowed 0 runs on 3 hits, struck out 10, and got a no-decision when the bullpen lost a 1-0 lead. On Saturday against Cleveland he put up the exact same stat line, thus becoming the first Pittsburgh hurler in (at least) the live-ball era to do it in consecutive games. This time, finally, he won, because Ke'Bryan Hayes and Colin Moran also showed up.
The Pirates' #2 and #3 hitters teamed up for back-to-back hits in the 1st and 4th inning, and Moran's second hit was a 3-run homer to make him the first Pittsburgh designated hitter ever to have 4 RBI in a game. He joined Pedro Alvarez, Casey McGehee, and Jason Bay as the only Pirates to do that in Cleveland. Hayes, meanwhile, doubled and scored without Moran's help in the 3rd, leaving him with 4 hits and 2 doubles as he prepared to lead off the 9th inning. Yep, first pitch. A fifth hit and third double, which combination had never been done by a Pirates batter in an interleague game. The only others with 5 hits were Warren Morris in Kansas City in 2000 and Brant Brown at Detroit in 1999. And even though no Pirates batter had done 5-and-3 in interleague play, Hayes was the first Pittsburgher to do it in any road game since Willie Stargell erupted in a 20-10 game in Atlanta on August 1, 1970.
And for being so close together, the Steel City and the Forest City don't really play each other all that much. Still, though, you'd think there'd be one lopsided game in 24 seasons of interleague play to this point. And you'd be wrong. To find another 8-0 shutout by Pittsburgh over Cleveland, you have to return to the days when they both had National League teams. Yep, those great Cleveland Spiders teams-- one of which (not the famous one) dropped an 8-0 decision at Exposition Park on July 28, 1894. The U.S. President at the time? Grover... Cleveland.
Nothing like a mention of the president to take us to Washington, where talk about endings and people departing from buildings seems to be all the rage lately. But at least Yadiel Hernandez didn't have any issues departing Nationals Park. Like many players, the 32-year-old rookie (you read that right) had bigger issues leaving Cuba; Hernandez was one of a group of players for the Cuban national team who defected in 2015 while on a barnstorming tour in North Carolina. After three years in the Nationals' farm system, he finally got his big-league debut earlier this month, and in the second game of Tuesday's doubleheader with the Phillies, it was time for another breakout.
The Nationals had already won the first game 5-1 with Austin Voth and Aaron Nola technically both getting credit for complete games. Thanks to the 7-inning quirk, Nola became the first Phils hurler to give up 5 runs and yet still finish a "complete game" since Curt Schilling gave up 5 runs in the 9th and got walked off by the Mets on May 23, 1999. In the second game, however, the Phillies were trying to piece together 7 innings' worth of pitches from their bullpen, and the Nationals quickly took a lead in the 3rd when David Phelps faced three batters and let all of them score. No Phillies pitcher had done that against Washington since Mike Adams on May 2, 2014. The Phillies, however, chipped away and tied the game on an overturned call in the 6th. Off we go to extras, even though "extras" in this case still only means the 8th inning. The Phillies score their free runner on an error, but Daniel Hudson escapes a further jam after walking two more batters. That leaves the Nats down 1 and with the tying run already out there at second. No better time for Yadiel to hit his first major-league homer.
Since the team moved from Montreal, they've hit just two other extra-inning walkoff homers when trailing, and we can personally vouch for one of them. On June 29, 2008, Ronnie Belliard doinked one off the left-field foul pole in the bottom of the 12th to beat Baltimore. And 24 days before that, Elijah Dukes hit one in the 10th to beat the Cardinals. The Expos had two such homers, by Spike Owen in 1989 and Jerry White in 1980. Hernandez also hit the first extra-inning walkoff homer for the Washington incarnation of the team against the Phillies, plus their first one ever by a designated hitter (which makes sense since they never had a DH at home until this year). As an aside, we send some love to Trea Turner and Juan Soto, who both recorded a stolen base in both games of Tuesday's doubleheader, the first Nats/Expos teammates to do that since Marquis Grissom and Delino DeShields (that's Senior) on June 5, 1992. But Soto hasn't yet hit a walkoff homer. Hernandez-- 10 years his senior-- just did. And according to Stats LLC, he's the oldest player in MLB history to hit a walkoff for his first major-league homer.
The Nationals and Phillies finished out that series on Wednesday with a game that fits into the other category of "big endings"-- the kind that doesn't have any drama and is best described as "piling on". "Big" in the sense of just padding the stats. We'll put Bryce Harper in charge of that, given that he's already single-handedly beating the Nationals by the time we get to the 6th inning. Harper has already notched his 21st career multi-homer game, and ninth at Nationals Park, but of course the circumstances for this one were a bit different than the first eight. This time Harper is in the third-base dugout as a member of the visiting team. Only Ryan Zimmerman (12) has more multi-homer games on South Capitol Street, but Harper is just the third batter to do it both for the Nationals and against the Nationals, joining Matt Adams and Daniel Murphy. He's also already become the third Phillies DH with a multi-homer game, after Phil Gosselin in the opening series of this season and Ricky Ledee at the Metrodome in 2004.
So borrowing a page from what other teams used to do to them, the Nationals finally just start walking him. Intentionally. With the score up to 4-1 in the 8th, Kyle McGowin uncorks a wild pitch that opens up first base, so yeah, put him on. That's the second IBB of the game for Harper, putting him in some elite company already. Intentional walks were first split out by the leagues in 1955, and only one other Phillies batter has had two of them and two homers in the same game-- Mike Schmidt in the famous 23-22 game at Wrigley Field in 1979. And while Harper didn't add to the damage, Jean Segura eventually singled in both runs to make it 6-1.
At this point on Wednesday, the defending champions would have had to win every remaining game to still make the playoffs, and they're already trailing by 5, so let's just put the final nail in 2020 and move on. Enter Ryne Harper to pitch. Andrew McCutchen doubles again to become the first Phillies batter with a homer and a pair of doubles at either Nats Park or RFK. Bobby Abreu had been the last to do it in a road game against the franchise, on April 23, 2004. But now first base is open again. And we might as well make major-league history-- in multiple ways. First we'll have Ryne Harper intentionally walk Bryce Harper. Obviously we didn't check every surname in MLB history, but it's definitely never been done by Harpers before. But more notably, the third intentional walk to Bryce puts him on a list with Albert Pujols (2013), David Wright (2007), and Claudell Washington (1980) as having 3 IBBs and 2 homers in a game. But none of them scored 4 runs. Cue the Didi Gregorius homer which makes Bryce the first player ever to draw 3 IBBs and score 4 runs in a game (homers or no homers). It's now 9-1 and Ryne is taking one for the team. Andrew Knapp 3-run homer to make it 12-1, and Ryne has now become the third player in Nats/Expos history to give up 6 runs and 2 homers while getting only 2 outs. Gil Heredia did it in 1993 and Gary Waslewski pulled it off in their inaugural season of 1969. The last time the Phillies hit multiple 3-run homers in a 9th inning was in yet another Ricky Ledee game, with Pat Burrell against this same Nats/Expos franchise on July 15, 2002.
It finally takes Brock Holt (and an extremely-rare-in-2020 double-switch!) to get the final out for the Nationals; Holt also ended up pitching an inning last week when the Nats got blown out by the Marlins in the second game of a doubleheader. The only other position player in franchise history to take the mound twice in the same season was second baseman Vance Law who did it in both 1986 and 1987.
And at least there was still one last souvenir to be had by a cardboard cutout before the Nats officially relinquished their chance at repeating. Juan Soto poked an otherwise-meaningless homer to make the final score 12-3 instead of 12-1 (and also destroy a fun note we had ready about it being their biggest win in Washington since 1899). But he became the first "Nationals" batter ever to homer in the bottom of the 9th with the team trailing by 11 runs. The last Expos batter to do that was Fernando Seguignol, and it was his last career homer in Montreal, on July 9, 2000. (Weirdly, he hit 9 more dingers in parts of three seasons after that, but all on the road.)
When it comes to piling on, however, you have to hand it to the Yankees and Blue Jays. We spent the first half of last week's post taking you through 20-6 and then 13-2 and then 10-7. To say nothing of each of them dumping double digits on other opponents several times this season.
They're baaaaack. In this bizarre schedule where the Yankees will play two-thirds of their games without leaving the state of New York, they are back in Erie County for their final four games with the Blue Jays, and we may once again have an abacus shortage. (We'll be fine; we checked, and of course you can buy one on Amazon. And have it tomorrow.) On Tuesday they unloaded on Tanner Roark for 6 runs, mostly in a 5th inning that included four singles, a hit batter, and Roark's eventual exit. He was actually the first Jays pitcher to give up 6 runs and 7 hits to the Yankees without there being a homer in the mix since Pat Hentgen on July 21, 2004. But that by itself probably wouldn't have gotten much notice, and the Yankees are not about to be not noticed.
Chase Anderson strikes out 5 in relief but also gives up 3 more runs, the first Jays reliever to do that in under 3 innings since Joe Biagini blew a save against the Yankees in 2017. No blown saves to worry about here; Wilmer Font makes a bold statement by putting a first-pitch strikethrough the zone (see what we did there?) to every batter he sees, but also winds up allowing 3 singles and 2 runs in the 9th for a final tally of 12-1. And a completely different 12-1 than last week; the Yankees had not scored 12 runs in a game without benefit of a home run since another contest with the Blue Jays 13 years earlier to the day (September 22, 2007, won 12-11). Aaron Judge had 3 hits and 3 runs scored, the first Yankee to do that without homering since A-Rod, eight years earlier to the day against Oakland. And in case the Jays forgot those 20-6 and 13-2 games from last week (they probably didn't), dumping another 12-1 on top of it made it just the second time in Jays history that they'd lost three games to the same opponent by 11 or more. The Red Sox pounded them four such times in 2011. And in the expansion era (1961) since there's been more than seven other teams to play, the Yankees had only beaten two other opponents by 11+ thrice in one season-- the 2011 Orioles and 1996 Angels.
So then we come to Wednesday's game and, mm, yeah, doesn't look like the Jays forgot. Masahiro Tanaka gave up 5 early runs, including his seems-to-be-required-every-game home run to Danny Jansen, but once again that wasn't the big story. Bo Bichette leads off the 6th with a single, after which Gary Sanchez gets called for another catcher's interference violation. He already owns this Yankees record, so we've stopped looking it up, but he also got cited in the series opener on Monday, thus becoming the first Yankees backstop to do it in two different games so close together since Thurman Munson in April 1975. (Francisco Cervelli once did it twice in the same game, hence the weird phrasing.) That was also the Yankees' fourth error overall in the game; this is going to end up being the first game where they scored 1 run and committed four miscues since a 13-inning loss to the Angels on July 7, 2007.
Then: Single, single, walk, hit batter, and back-to-back doubles by Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette again. Eight runs in the inning for a total of 14 and their largest win over the Yankees since a 14-0 shutout on September 4, 2001. Combined with the 20-6 game, it was the first season where the Blue Jays scored 14 and allowed 14 against the same opponent since the 2014 Red Sox, and the fourth time they've done it against the Yankees (2001, 1987, 1977).
Your Toronto Star of the game (that should be a thing; get on that, newspaper) was Danny Jansen who not only hit that homer off Tanaka, he hit another one in the 8th off backup catcher Erik Kratz (yeah, we got there) and was the plunk-ee on that hit-by-pitch in the 6th. He ended up with 4 hits, 3 runs scored, 3 RBI, and 2 homers... batting 9th. Travis Snider, on September 15, 2009, had been the only Jays #9 batter to have a multi-homer game against the Yankees. Only one other Jays #9 had posted 3 extra-base hits to go with the 3 scored and 3 driven in, and that was J.P. Arencibia's memorable MLB debut in 2010. And in MLB's modern era, only four #9 batters have ever collected 4 base hits and been hit by a pitch in the same game, and two of the other three are pitchers since they generally used to bat there. Jack Scott of the Giants (1926) and Carl Erskine of the Dodgers (1950) make up that list along with Cleveland shortstop Tom Veryzer in 1978.
There are undoubtedly baseball "purists" out there who consider this special 16-team expanded postseason a tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Lenny Bruce, however, is not afraid. Feeling pretty psyched, in fact. Let's just hope it doesn't start with another earthquake. Intermission!
Error Apparent
On Friday the Yankees re-celebrated Derek Jeter's last home game (the one where, of course, fantasy became reality (eye roll)) by inviting Jeter back to the Bronx some 6 years later. It really had nothing to do with the last game, it's because Jeter is now CEO of the Marlins, and they were the Yankees' final opponent of the regular season. It was also the anniversary of the death of their star pitcher Jose Fernandez, which made for even more synergy when the Marlins had a chance to clinch their first playoff spot in 17 years with a win. The Yankees defense decided to help them out a little bit, although really all they needed was Garrett Cooper's 3-run homer in the 1st. That was just the second homer of its kind the Fish had ever hit in the Bronx; Mike Lowell went deep off "El Duque" Orlando Hernandez on July 13, 2000.
Gary Sanchez made up for yet another catcher's interference call by hitting a leadoff single in the 8th with the Yankees trailing 3-2. You will recall that Sanchez already committed a CI on both Monday and Wednesday, making him the first catcher for any team to do it three times in five days since Vic Roznovsky of the Cubs in September 1965. Sanchez was then lifted for a pinch runner to allow the Yankees to tie the game, but his catching replacement Kyle Higashioka didn't fare much better. His attempt to catch Monte Harrison in an extra-inning rundown hit Harrison in the back and allowed him to scamper back to third safely; he promptly scored on Jesús Aguilar's sac fly. That was the third go-ahead sac fly the Marlins had ever hit in extra innings of an interleague game, after Derrek Lee (2002) and Todd Zeile (1998), both at Tropicana Field. That was also the Yankees' fourth fielding error of the day, and yes, they did that on Wednesday also. The last time the Yankees had a pair of 4-error games within a week of each other was in May 1985. Friday was only the third time in Marlins history they had scraped together 3 hits in an extra-inning game and won it; the others were both 1-0 affairs, against the Nationals in 2010 and at Atlanta in the next-to-last game of 1999.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Marlin
So the Marlins are in the "postseason", altered though it may be, for the first time since 2003. You might remember how that turned out for them. Miguel Cabrera does. That was his rookie year with the Marlins, and he's the only member of that World Series team who is still playing. Heck, as of today, he's the only one who's not eligible for the Hall of Fame; A.J. Burnett retired in 2015 and with the 2020 season now concluded, he's served his 5-year waiting period.
Even at age 37, and with most of his stardom having come in Detroit and not Miami, it turns out Miggy can still rake. And not just the leaves in his yard. He can rake some baseballs out of yards too, and he made a couple stops on that tour this week. In the Tigers' final game in Minneapolis on Wednesday, he came to the plate in the 6th and decided something needed to be done about the 6-0 deficit Detroit was facing. Might as well start by cutting it in half. 3-run homer. Jake Cave would hit his second homer of the game for the Twins in the bottom half, which didn't seem important at the time-- until Miggy comes back up in the 9th with two runners on and Sergio Romo trotting in from the bullpen. Miggy could make the last out, give Romo the save, and we'll all go grab dinner and hang out somewhere. Oh, right. Guess we'll hit another 3-run homer instead. This is where Cave's homer matters, because Jeimer Candelario did make that last out and the Twins still won 7-6 instead of Miggy tying the game. But that's a pair of 3-run homers, equals 6 RBI, in a game where the Tigers scored 6 runs. Only one other player in team history has driven in every run on the scale of 6 or more; Hank Greenberg had a 3-run homer, a solo shot, and a bases-loaded double to single-handedly beat the Yankees 7-4 on September 14, 1946. Wednesday was the fourth time Miggy's had 6 RBI in a game for the Tigers, one more than Greenberg and now trailing only Charlie Gehringer (7x) and Cecil Fielder (6x). He was also the first Tigers batter with 6 RBI in a loss since Craig Monroe against the Angels on August 23, 2003.
On Thursday the Tigers find themselves in Kansas City, and the good news is that other players besides Miggy scored and drove in runs. The bad news is that they still lost again. But Cabrera did have a 5th-inning homer that at least temporarily tied the game. And that made him the first Tigers batter with a homer and 3 RBI in back-to-back games where Detroit lost both of them since Tony Clark did it against Baltimore in September 1996. Willi Castro also chipped in 3 hits, 3 RBI, and a homer; he and Cabrera were the first Tigers teammates to do that in a loss since Juan Encarnacion, Bobby Higginson, and Joe Randa all had that line in an epic 17-16 game on September 14, 1998. And Thursday's line was the 58th time Miggy had collected 3 hits and 3 RBI in a game for the Tigers. That ties the great Gehringer for the most in team history, and is one more than Harry Heilman (though Heilman does have more if you retroactively apply the RBI rules before 1920).
For all of Miggy's efforts, the Royals won that Thursday game 8-7 after Sal Perez started things with a 3-run homer as the team's third batter of the game. He hit one of those against Cleveland in August 2018 too; George Brett and Amos Otis are the only other Royals batters to do it multiple times. After that it became The Adalberto Mondesi Show (while this sounds like a neat programming concept, the title is a little clunky). Being one of the runners ahead of Perez's homer in the 1st was only the start; Mondesi finished off that game with 4 hits and 2 steals for the third time in his Royals career. Only Willie Wilson (6x) has done it more often. Tack on 2 runs scored and 2 RBI, and you have a line that's only been posted by two others in team history: Amos Otis (1978) is one of those as well, along with Hal McRae in 1980. Mondesi would add 3 hits and 2 steals in Friday's win over Detroit at well, becoming the first player in Royals history to do that in back-to-back games.
Although The Adalberto Mondesi Show took over from The Sal Perez Show on Thursday, it did get quite a lead-in from Wednesday's series finale against the Cardinals. In that one Mondesi scored 3 runs, but that was mainly because he was batting ahead of Perez, who connected for a 2-run homer in the 1st and a 3-run homer in the 3rd against Carlos Martinez. That's 2 homers and 5 RBI against the Cardinals, which had been achieved by only one other Royals batter-- Kendrys Morales on May 22, 2015.
Annnnd that list lasted all of 4 innings. The Royals quickly knocked Martinez out of the game in the 6th; he would join Brad Thompson (2007) and Mark Petkovsek (1997) as the only Cardinals pitchers to give up 8 earned runs to Kansas City. Yep, eight. Martinez hurt himself and left the game after one pitch to Franchy Cordero, and broadcasters always cite that rule about "as much time as he wants to warm up". That's not actually true; it's up to the umpire to decide when he's ready and order the game resumed. Maybe Todd Tichenor should've given him two more warmups. Because that's how many pitches it took for Cordero to launch a 3-run homer off Seth Elledge. And when he came up in the 7th and launched another homer off Kodi Whitley, we unbelievably had Royals franchise history. Cordero and Perez became their first teammates ever to hit 2 homers each in the same home game, whether at Kauffman Stadium or the old Muni downtown. The Royals were the only active franchise never to have teammates do that in a home game, and then only the cardboard cutouts got to watch it happen. Cordero and Perez also became the second teammates in Royals history to have both 2 homers and 5 RBI each in the same game. Obviously the other one happened on the road, by Brian McRae and Mike Macfarlane in Detroit on July 14, 1991. And since by now you know that we like dropping these little asterisks about teams moving, there was one instance of two Kansas City players having multiple homers at Municipal Stadium. But they were for the Athletics-- Jim Gentile and Nelson Mathews against Cleveland on August 30, 1964.
You know, the Athletics. One of the few franchises (quick, name the other two) to have called three different cities home over the years. Not only did they give us a couple fun Kansas City notes this week, but they were playing their own games down at Dodger Stadium, and that's not completely unfamiliar territory either. Even if you disregard interleague play, remember that the "California" Angels had to borrow that stadium for their first four years. And thus the Kansas City Athletics made plenty of trips there from 1962-65.
Tuesday's series opener was nothing special unless you count the A's striking out 13 times, and not even against Clayton Kershaw or Walker Buehler. Trevor May and five relievers combined to do that to them, but it wasn't the first time the A's had whiffed that many times at Chavez Ravine. The other, as you might have guessed, was against the Angels on September 4, 1965, their next-to-last game there until interleague play with the Dodgers started in 1997.
Ramon Laureano broke a 4-4 tie in Wednesday's game with a 9th-inning homer that would have mathematically clinched the division even if the A's hadn't been scoreboard-watching and known that the Astros had already lost. But Laureano's blast was the first go-ahead homer the A's had ever hit that late in a game at Dodger Stadium. The previous "record holder" had been by Olmedo Saenz, actually against the Dodgers, with 2 outs in the 8th on June 9, 2000.
And Thursday the A's were facing Walker Buehler, so that record of fanning 13 times didn't exactly last long. For just the fifth time in their history-- all three cities-- the Athletics struck out 16 times and mustered only 3 base hits; those other games came against Corey Kluber (2017), David Wells (1997), Sam McDowell (1968), and a 17-year-old Bob Feller (1936). Sean Murphy did become the first A's #9 batter ever to homer at Dodger Stadium, which they had never done during the Angels years (and the pitcher would have batted in interleague games before 2020). Murphy also earned the distinction of being the first Oakland #9 batter whose solo homer was their only run of a game since Dustin Garneau did that against the Angels-- not at Dodger Stadium, but at their "new" home in Anaheim-- on August 28, 2017.
(The answer we were going for was the Braves and the Orioles-slash-Browns-slash-Brewers. If you said the Dodgers because Brooklyn was its own separate city before being absorbed into New York in 1898, then you have thought way too much about the question and should go read some archived Kernels posts.)
Canha Get A Witness
The A's fared a little bit better when they got back to Oakland on Friday, although as we mentioned, they've already clinched the division, so it's all about second- and third-round advantage now. Mark Canha, who in Wednesday's game became the fourth A's batter (Jermaine Dye, Jim Nash, Jim Gosger) with the obscure batting line of 0 hits but 2 walks and a sacrifice fly, wandered to the plate for the fifth time against Seattle hoping that this one might be more productive than the first four. Canha hadn't done badly-- a double and two walks-- but the catch to this game is that it's an AL West affair. Which means it's perfectly reasonable-- maybe even expected-- that neither team could be bothered to score in the first 9 innings. And when the Mariners did finally score in the 10th, it really had nothing to do with them. The New Rules put a runner on second for them, and then two batters later Sean Murphy committed a passed ball to score him. It would end up being the only game in Mariners history (1977) where their only run came on a passed ball.
Back to Mark Canha, however. Ramon Laureano has already doubled home Oakland's free runner for the tie, and also making this the first game in Oakland in over 5 years where neither team scored in regulation but both teams scored in extras. The Astros traded runs with the A's in both the 10th and 11th on April 24, 2015. But Canha then sent the cardboard cutouts home happy with a 2-run walkoff homer. That was the first one Oakland had hit against Seattle in extra innings since Coco Crisp greeted Hector Noesi on April 3, 2014.
And now for BART's worst nightmare. No, not Bart Simpson, and not even Joey Bart, though he's probably had a few. Bay Area Rapid Transit, who has to get all those cardboard cutouts home after the game. For this reason, in two-team cities, the MLB schedulers very rarely have them both play at home at the same time. At the very least one plays a day game to end a homestand, and the other plays a night game to open a homestand. But Friday we're in doubleheader territory and the Padres are on the other end of the Transbay Tube, such that both parks are hosting games at the same time.
The Giants held on to win the first game 5-4, but once again we have that strange 2020 phenomenon where makeup games are played in their original format even though the site has changed. Since there's no gate revenue to worry about sharing, it doesn't matter who bats first. So Friday's second game, originally scheduled to have been in Petco Park, is played with the Giants batting first. And they seem to be on their way to a sweep when Wilmer Flores hits a lead-flipping homer in the 6th, the first one San Francisco had hit that late in a home game against San Diego since Barry Bonds walked off Trevor Hoffman on June 30, 1995. (Yes, it is still a home game by rule even though the home team is batting first. Look around. Coke-bottle slide. Giant glove. McCovey Cove. Renel Brooks-Moon. It's a Giants game.) Flores's homer was also just the Giants' third hit of the game, which would create the first game where they scored 5 runs on 3 hits since April 19, 1974, at Dodger Stadium. Amazingly there are four other teams (BOS, LAD, MIN, SD) who have gone longer without doing that.
Yeah, they lost. In the bottom of the 7th (remember, doubleheader), Sam Coonrod gives up a single and a walk, and then Trent Grisham smokes just the second-ever walkoff homer for the Padres against the Giants when they were trailing (and not tied). Johnny Jeter hit the other off Juan Marichal on April 19, 1972. You may recall that this phenomenon of getting walked off in your own park happened once before this season, when the Mets batted last at Yankee Stadium back on August 28. But it's the first time it ever happened to the Giants, including suspended games that were finished in the other park, plus those occasional games in the 1890s where the home team would choose to bat first.
It's also worth pointing out that Grisham tripled in the first game, and is the first Padres batter to have a three-bagger in one game of a DH and a four-bagger in the other since Chris James also did that in San Francisco on September 17, 1989. But as for our cardboard cutouts all jamming onto the BART platforms at once, well, Canha's walkoff homer over in Oakland happened Friday night at 9:49. Grisham's happened at 9:52. The only other time Oakland and San Francisco both witnessed walkoff homers on the same day? June 30, 1995. We've already mentioned one of them-- Barry Bonds against the Padres. You've probably heard of the guy who hit one for Oakland that day too. It's Mark McGwire about 15 minutes later to beat the Angels. Who were not still playing in Dodger Stadium.
Gotta wonder if the seagulls were confused by the non-orange team batting last. Probably not. They're just waiting for whatever the cardboard cutouts leave at the
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Braves, Friday: First time hitting a leadoff homer and a walkoff homer in the same game since Marquis Grissom and David Justice against the Expos, June 28, 1995.
⚾ Jacob deGrom, Monday: Fourth pitcher in Mets history to strike out 14+ in a game and get a loss, joining Sid Fernandez (1989), Dwight Gooden (1984), and Tom Seaver (1974).
⚾ Cristian Javier, Thursday: Second pitcher in Astros history to uncork 3 wild pitches, hit a batter, and still get a win. The other, not surprisingly, is a knuckleballer-- Joe Niekro on June 24, 1985.
⚾ Austin Adams and Tim Hill, Sunday: Only two plate appearances of the entire 2020 MLB season by actual pitchers (not a position player in a blowout). In case you had forgotten how these usually end, both struck out.
⚾ Trent Grisham, Tuesday: First Padres leadoff batter with 3 walks and a stolen base in a loss since Rickey Henderson at St Louis, August 29, 2001.
⚾ Mike Trout, Friday: First 3- or 4-run lead-flipping homer for Angels at Dodger Stadium since (yep, here we go again) they were the home team. Willie Smith hit one off the Senators' Alan Koch on June 24, 1964.
⚾ Brandon Belt, Wednesday: First Giants cleanup batter with 3 hits and 2 walks in a home game since Barry Bonds against the Mets, August 21, 2004.
⚾ Andrew Stephenson, Saturday: First Nats/Expos batter with a multi-homer game, where one of them was an inside-the-parker since Sean Berry at Riverfront, August 22, 1993.
⚾ Austin Slater, Tuesday: Third Giants batter in modern era to hit a leadoff homer and then walk 3 times. Andrew McCutchen did it two years ago; the other is Bobby Bonds on June 5, 1973.
⚾ Cedric Mullins, Sunday: Second multi-triple game as #9 batter (also April 8, 2019, vs Oakland). First player to do it twice as a #9 since Giants pitcher Doc Crandall 1910-14.
⚾ Austin Slater, Thursday: First Giants batter to hit into a game-ending double play in extra innings, with the tying run on third, since Chili Davis against the Dodgers, May 1, 1984.
⚾ Raimel Tapia, Friday: First batter to lead off game with a catcher's interference award, and then add 3 hits later on, since Lou Brock on September 14, 1971.
⚾ Max Kepler & Luis Arraez, Saturday: First time Twins' #1 and #2 batters each had multiple doubles in the same game since Ted Uhlaender and Rod Carew against Oakland, July 4, 1969.
⚾ Marcell Ozuna, Tuesday: Became first National League player ever to have multiple 4-hit, 4-RBI games as a designated hitter. His other was September 11 against the Nationals.
⚾ Trevor Bauer, Wednesday: First Reds pitcher to have four 12-strikeout games in the same season since Gary Nolan in 1967.
⚾ Kris Bryant, Sat-Sun: First Cubs batter with a homer and 2 RBI in consecutive games on the South Side since Glenallen Hill, July 10-11, 1999.
⚾ Tzu-Wei Lin, Thursday: First Red Sox position player to give up 4 hits and 3 earned runs while pitching since shortshop Eddie Lake against Cleveland on July 9, 1944.
⚾ Mike Tauchman, Monday: First Yankees batter to hit a 3-run double when down to team's final strike since Willie Randolph in a suspended game against Toronto, September 18, 1980.
⚾ Cardinals, Friday: First time scoring 0 runs in the first game of a doubleheader and 9+ in the second since June 13, 1976, at Cincinnati (0-4 and 12-9).
⚾ Randy Arozarena, Wednesday: First Rays batter ever to have a multi-homer game against the Mets, leaving four opponents (CHC, MIL, PIT, SF) against whom they've never had one.
⚾ Trea Turner, Sunday: Became first player in MLB history to have multiple 7-RBI games while batting second for his team. Also did it April 25, 2017, in a 15-12 Coors Field Special.
⚾ Indians, Thursday: Recorded three pinch hits in the same inning for first time since George Vukovich, Jerry Willard, and Mike Hargrove did it in Milwaukee on August 31, 1985.
⚾ John Means, Saturday: Second pitcher in Orioles/Browns history to allow 1 hit, strike out 9+, and lose. Bobo Newsom did it in 1934, in one of the no-hitters that got taken away by MLB in 1991.
⚾ Rafael Devers, Tuesday: First Red Sox batter to strike out 4 times and ground into a double play in a game they still won since Luis Rivera at Yankee Stadium on September 13, 1991.
⚾ MLB, Sat-Sun: No walkoff wins on final two full days of regular season. ("Full days" excluding tiebreaker and/or makeup games to decide seedings.) Last season in which that happened was 1967.
