"Get 'em on, get 'em over, get 'em in." You've probably heard that extremely-watered-down version of basic baseball strategy, but it's still one of the tenets that drives managers to set their lineup the way they do. You want players who are good at getting on base to bat first, because then there's something for the power hitters behind them to do. This week, however, a bunch of those guys at the top decided to just do everything themselves.
What better way to lead off a whole post about leading off, than with the two teams in the exact middle of MLB's alphabetical list? Miami and Milwaukee led off the week with a 3-game series, and by Tuesday the Brewers' offense finally made an appearance. In Monday's opener they were blanked 8-0 but did collect 8 base hits, all singles. Three of those came from Kolten Wong, his fourth straight multi-hit game after posting 3, 2, and 2 in a series at Wrigley Field last weekend. The last Brewers leadoff batter to put together four straight multi-hit games was Scooter Gennett back in June 2014.
On the other side of that same boxscore we find Marlins rookie Jazz Chisholm who matched Wong with 2 hits and also tacked on 2 stolen bases. The last Marlins leadoff batter to do that against Milwaukee was Dee Strange-Gordon on September 8, 2015. The 8-0 final was the Marlins' second-largest shutout ever against the Brewers, but it still fell 50% short of their record 16-0 escapade from two seasons ago. Despite the loss, Corbin Burnes became the fifth pitcher in the live-ball era to strike out at least nine batters in each of his first five games of a season. Shane Bieber extended his own streak to six games on Friday; the others are Nolan Ryan in 1991, Randy Johnson in 1999, and Pedro Martinez (9 games) in 1999.
Since getting shut out didn't seem to be working too well, Craig Counsell opted to give Wong a day off and elevate Tyrone Taylor to the leadoff spot on Tuesday. And all he did was collect 3 hits and 3 RBI to lead the Brewers to a 5-4 win. Taylor is the first leadoff batter in Brewers history to have that line against the Marlins. And being that the Brewers have been in both leagues over their history, it leaves only four teams-- Oakland, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, and Washington-- against whom they haven't done it.
Cedric The Entertainer
Elsewhere on Monday, the Yankees and Orioles started a four-game series at Camden Yards, and Cedric Mullins started the series by launching Deivi Garcia's second pitch onto the terrace in right. Mullins also had a leadoff homer against the Yankees on September 4 of last season; he and Brady Anderson are the only Orioles to hit two against the Yankees at OPACY.
Garcia lasted just 4 innings, and when Lucas Luetge appeared on the mound for the 5th, Mullins greeted him as well. This time it was the first pitch that ended up down the right-field line for a double. And when Justin Wilson takes the hill for the 7th, guess who his first batter is. This time Mullins waited five pitches before mashing another home run to center. The last Orioles batter to hit 2 homers and a double in the same game, all to lead off an inning, was Mark Trumbo against the Dodgers on July 6, 2016. But he did it batting fifth. In Orioles/Browns history, Mullins is just the third leadoff hitter to have 2 homers and a double, all of which also led off an inning. And all three did it at Camden Yards-- Roberto Alomar on July 25, 1996, and Brady Anderson on April 26, 1994. As for leadoff hitters with 2 homers against the Yankees, Mullins is just the third to do that in franchise history, following Willie Tasby in 1959 and Jackie Brandt in a 5-5 tie game in 1961.
The Orioles would salvage a split in the Yankees series thanks to Thursday's sac-fly-off by (who else?) Cedric Mullins. He's still hitting in the leadoff spot, but alas, he did not hit the walkoff to lead off an inning (which is now possible thanks to the free-runner rule). Even so, the last #1 batter to hit a walkoff sac fly for the Orioles was Brady Anderson again, off Bill Sampen of the Royals on September 15, 1992.
And Brady Anderson fans, this is your week. Because the O's headed to Oakland for the weekend and escaped with a 3-2 win on Friday thanks to back-to-back homers from Mullins and Austin Hays in the 3rd. While they didn't do it to lead off the game, it was the first time the Orioles' #1 and #2 batters had both homered in a game in Oakland since-- yep, these two again. Brady Anderson and Roberto Alomar on September 9, 1998.
Twin Peaks
But Wednesday was the day that really got us pondering this "leadoff" theme. The first pitch of the day was thrown at 1:12 pm in Cleveland. The second pitch of the day was propelled back into the Cleveland sky by Byron Buxton, the Twins' first leadoff homer in Cleveland since Max Kepler on August 26 of last year. Then #2 batter Josh Donaldson stepped up and mashed one the other way. The Twins hadn't gone back-to-back to lead off a road game since Danny Santana and Brian Dozier in Toronto on June 9, 2014. And they'd never before done that in Cleveland, not even as the Senators playing at League Park.
Nelson Cruz broke the streak by drawing a walk. But then Jorge Polanco started a new one by sending yet another Logan Allen pitch into the outfield seats. That's three homers in the first four batters, the second time in Minnesota history (1961) that the team pulled that off. Jacque Jones, Christian Guzman, and David Ortiz all went yard at Comiskey on August 19, 2002. For his part, Allen gave up two more hits in the 2nd and got yanked, thus becoming the second pitcher in Indians history to give up 6 runs and 3 homers while getting no more than 4 outs. Early Wynn did that against the Yankees (and then got bailed out by his offense) on September 12, 1950.
Allen, however, did not get bailed out by his offense. Actually the offense pretty much bailed entirely. The hit that knocked Allen out of the game was a Buxton double as the Twins had already batted around. He added singles in the 4th and 6th, and then in his final at-bat in the 8th, blooped a double down the left-field line for his fifth hit of the game. No Twins leadoff batter had dropped a 5-hit game since Danny Santana in Chicago on August 3, 2014. And the last Twins batter to have 5 hits in Cleveland-- from any spot in the order-- was Lenny Green who did it on July 16, 1961, the team's first season being based in Minnesota.
Though Cruz had just 2 singles in Wednesday's affair, he matched Buxton on Saturday by hitting his eighth home run of the season. In Twins/Senators history, only two other sets of teammates have had 8 homers each through the team's first 25 games: Jimmie Hall and Bob Allison in 1964, and the great duet of Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti in 1987.
With apologies to that Marlins/Brewers series which was ending at the same time, we're skipping over it to get to the third game of Wednesday's slate, this one a getaway special at Chavez Ravine. The Reds apparently got away before the game even started, and it feels strange to be celebrating the achievements of a team that lost 8-0. But, well, here we are.
Jesse Winker tends to be the leadoff batter for Cincinnati, and let's just say he had a week. On Monday night the Reds and Dodgers were tied 3-3 after regulation, which means we "get to" invoke the free-runner rule and plop Alex Blandino at second base. Two pitches later, the Reds are up 5-3 after Winker hits one of our now-infamous leadoff 2-run homers. It was the first time any Cincinnati batter had hit an extra-inning homer at Dodger Stadium since Eduardo Perez took Mark Guthrie deep on May 6, 1997... and the first of the multi-run variety since Johnny Bench homered off Mike Marshall on August 6, 1974.
So (wink, wink) what does Winker do when leading off Tuesday's game? Yep, blasts the very first pitch to right-center for a 1-0 Reds lead. That was the fourth leadoff homer the Reds had ever hit at Dodger Stadium; Winker joined Barry Larkin (May 1, 2002 off Hideo Nomo), Thomas Howard (September 9, 1996), and Chris Sabo (May 30, 1991) in that little club. His reward? Getting bumped down to the second spot against Clayton Kershaw on Wednesday and giving Nick Senzel the leadoff honors instead.
Senzel opened the game with a little roller to left that went for a single. Promptly stole second as well but didn't score. In the 3rd, a soft liner to the same spot for another single. In the 6th an infield single, once again to the left side and actually fielded by the third baseman. One more solid single the other way in the 8th, and Senzel has gone 4-for-4, except they're all singles, he drove in zero runs because nobody was ever in scoring position, and he never scored a run himself because Winker and Nick Castellanos below him went a combined 0-for-8 with 5 strikeouts. So Senzel earns a couple dubious places in Reds batting lore. He's their first leadoff batter to have 4 hits and a steal in a loss since Pokey Reese also posted that line at Dodger Stadium on April 14, 2000. But not scoring a run after doing all that? Even less likely. The Dodgers blew up for 6 runs in the 8th and won Wednesday's game 8-0. That was the Reds' largest shutout loss at Dodger Stadium since another 8-0 on September 19, 1978. But that also made Senzel the second Reds leadoff batter in the live-ball era to have 4 hits in a game where the team got shut out. The other was Frank Baumholtz in St Louis on April 20, 1948.
No worries, Winker was back in his usual spot for Sunday's series finale with the Cubs, and all that entailed was a little 13-12 walkoff action. Winker walked, singled, and got hit by a pitch, but after Ian Happ tied the game with an 8th-inning homer, Winker flied out to left to send us to extras. But that also means he's the Reds' free runner in the 10th. And because the Cubs failed to score, Winker wins the game almost immediately when Castellanos singles him in. But count that up. Winker scored 4 runs and only had the 1 hit. He got free passage on all the other trips. And the last Reds leadoff batter to score 4 runs while having just 1 hit... would later become a Hall Of Fame manager for the Yankees. It's Miller Huggins who did it for the Reds in Boston on July 12, 1905.
As for Castellanos, that walkoff single to score Winker was his fifth hit of the day. Scooter Gennett's 4-homer game a few years ago was the last 5-hit, 4-run, 4-RBI outing for the Reds, but it's been 90 seasons since a Cincinnati batter had an extra-inning walkoff for his fifth hit of a game. That was last done by Ernie Lombardi, again in Boston, on May 7, 1932.
Later in Wednesday's slate of games we also find the Nationals experiencing the "charm" of Dunedin, Fla., since neither Buffalo nor Toronto is ready to accept the Blue Jays and their opponents back quite yet. So picturing the Nats' charter bus pulling into the parking lot of the VFW post across the street, and all the players sprinting across Douglas Avenue in between cars, gave us a little chuckle because we did this ourselves on a Florida State League tour a few years ago.
Trea Turner was unfazed by the minor-league throwback and the "capacity crowd" of 1,274. He delivered singles in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th innings before upping that to a double in the 6th. His last at-bat in the 8th resulted in a swinging strikeout, or he could have joined Buxton in the 5-hit club. Instead Turner, Buxton, and Senzel gave us the first day on which three different road teams saw their leadoff batter collect 4+ hits since May 4, 2017, when Cesar Hernandez (PHI), Seth Smith (BAL), and Yunel Escobar (LAA) all did it.
But hey, maybe Turner was over the excitement and bright lights of Dunedin by the time Wednesday rolled around. Because his time to really shine happened the night before. Fresh off the bus from the VFW across the street, Turner launched a leadoff homer to start the first game of the series on Tuesday. Given current circumstances, you can argue about what constitutes a "home park", but this was the first time the Nats/Expos had ever led off a game with a home run in an American League ballpark.
Not done. In his next at-bat, in the 3rd, Turner shoots a home run into the playground of the elementary school that sits beyond left field (we really can't make this up), becoming the second leadoff batter in Nats/Expos history to have 2 homers in an interleague game. Howie Kendrick did it against the Angels on August 15, 2017. Turner would also end up getting hit by a pitch later in the game; he and Tim Wallach (September 4, 1985) make up an exclusive club of Nats/Expos batters to have 2 homers and a hit-by-pitch in a loss.
A loss, you say? Yeah, we buried the lead on this one. Because while Turner was busy homering twice, Vlad Guerrero Jr was busy homering three times, including a 3rd-inning grand slam that landed on the same playground while the kids were still fighting over Turner's home-run ball. The only other grand slams hit by Toronto against the Nats franchise both came when it was the other Canadian entry in MLB. Brad Fullmer (July 6, 2001) and Tony Batista (June 11, 2000) both recorded slams at SkyDome against their dome-mates from Montréal.
The slam also helped the 22-year-old Vlad Junior collect 7 RBI in Tuesday's game, making him the third-youngest player in history with a 3-homer, 7-RBI game. Cubs great Ron Santo did it on June 28, 1961, and none other than Lou Gehrig had such a game on July 23, 1925, while a mere 8 days younger than Vlad.
Turner was not quite done with his leadoff escapades for the week. In Saturday's 7-2 win over the Marlins, he stole both second and third in the 4th inning, unnecessary because the Marlins couldn't stop walking people and he'd have scored on Josh Bell's double anyway. But it did give Turner his 14th game as Nationals leadoff hitter with at least 2 hits and at least 2 steals. That broke a tie with Marquis Grissom for the second-most such games in franchise history. It's gonna be a while until we update the list again, however: Tim Raines did it 59 times.
Astro-Not
After the Nationals left Dunedin it was time for the Braves to mosey down I-75, and this time George Springer was waiting for them. Yeah, that same George Springer, whom you've never known as not-an-Astro, is well, not an Astro. He signed with Toronto in January and missed the first few weeks of the season with a quad injury. But one thing is the same as it was in Houston-- he (so far) always bats leadoff. And on Saturday it was just like old times as Springer hit his first two non-Astros homers in Toronto's 6-5 win. One difference from the Houston days, at least for now, is that Springer is the designated hitter until he's fully back from the injury. He's certainly not the first Jays DH to bat leadoff; Curtis Granderson did it regularly. But Springer is the first Jays DH to bat leadoff and hit 2 homers in a game. The last player to do it for any team was Austin Meadows for that other Pinellas County team, the Rays, on April 12, 2019.
Springer's leadoff heroics were needed to overcome one swing from Christian Pache of the Braves, who bats at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. His 2nd-inning grand slam was just the second ever by a Braves #9 batter in an interleague game; the other belongs to Johan Camargo on June 19, 2018. That's also the only other Braves slam against Toronto.
You don't usually expect your #9 batter to mash grand slams. You do expect them, especially if they're pitchers, to occasionally lay down a bunt to move some runners over for those leadoff guys. Pache wound up doing both on Saturday, something no Braves #9 had accomplished since Glenn Hubbard at Houston on June 20, 1983. Pache's slam ended up removing some potential RBIs from Atlanta leadoff batter Ronald Acuña, but he still managed to be the team's first #1 to homer and double against Toronto since Jordan Schafer did it on May 28, 2013.
And all this gets wiped away when Randal Grichuk singles home free runner Santiago Espinal for the walkoff win in the 10th. Given that the teams are in different leagues and MLB doesn't deem them a "rivalry", the Braves and Jays don't play each other too often. So there's been only one other walkoff single in Toronto history to beat Atlanta. But you may remember what it is-- Candy Maldonado's walkoff to win Game 3 of the 1992 World Series.
We're going to use Raimel Tapia as a jumping-off point. Colorado's leadoff hitter certainly had a big game on Saturday, but so did a bunch of his teammates. The Rockies piled up a 14-6 win against Arizona, and right away you plop a Coors Field asterisk on this one. But what if we said this wasn't at Coors? Nope, this one tied for the most runs the Rockies have ever scored at Chase Field, matching a 14-7 tilt on August 6, 2005. Tapia collected 4 hits and scored 3 runs despite none of the hits being for extra bases; no Rockies leadoff batter had done that since Charlie Blackmon on July 30, 2017. Trevor Story, batting right after Tapia, would become the first Rockies batter at any position to score 4 runs in a game in Phoenix. Below that, Ryan McMahon drove in 4 runs (mostly Tapia and Story) without scoring any himself, the first Rox player to do that in a road game since Todd Helton at Fenway Park on June 13, 2007.
By the 8th the Diamondbacks are sending Matt Peacock to the mound in the rookie's sixth big-league appearance. He'd been charged with only 1 earned run in the first five combined, so what could go wr-- oh. Well, nothing if you don't count turning a 7-5 game into a 14-5 blowout, thanks largely to a grand slam by Dom Nuñez. The aforementioned Charlie Blackmon (last August) and Charles Johnson (April 2004) are the only other Rockies to hit a slam at Chase Field, and Peacock is the first reliever in D'backs history to give up 7 earned runs while getting only 1 out. (T.J. McFarland in 2017 and Armando Reynoso in 2000 did it in starts.)
All this just allows Wyatt Mathisen to make history. He would wind up pitching the 9th after Asdrubal Cabrera had to get the team out of the 8th. That's just the second time the D'backs have used two position players to pitch in the same game; Daniel Descalso and Alex Avila did it in July 2018, and that one was at Coors Field. But Mathisen began the game in left field like usual. A six-way switch for the pitcher in the 5th inning brought him to first base. When Cabrera took the mound, Mathisen moved to replace him at third. And then of course Mathisen finishes the game on the mound himself. They're not in order, but if you're scoring at home that's positions 1/3/5/7. And excluding those famous "all nine positions" stunts, he's the first player in MLB's modern era to have all those monikers in the same game.
If you are in fact scoring at home, you noticed a few unusual things about the Phillies' week. So let's take a tangent through that real quick. Monday's score was Rhys Hoskins 2, Cardinals 1. And not only did he score both runs, he drove them both in. Hoskins was the first Phillies batter with a multi-homer game in St Louis since Ryan Howard on June 13, 2008. And more notably, he was the first to win a game for the Phillies solely using multiple solo homers since Howard did that too, in Cincinnati on May 14, 2006 (hitting a pinch-hit homer to tie and then a go-ahead in the 12th).
On Tuesday the Phils mustered basically as many hits as Hoskins had by himself the day before. They collected only 3, which leaves the Angels as the only team to have at least 4 hits in every game so far this year. Yet they still mysteriously scored 2 runs thanks to a sac fly, an error, a stolen base, and a couple well-timed groundouts. The last time Philadelphia had only 3 hits in St Louis but still scored 2 runs was June 27, 1991, when Mickey Morandini came through with a 9th-inning double.
We jump to Thursday when the Phillies lose the series finale on what we affectionately call a bounce-off. David Hale uncorked a wild pitch to bring in free runner Tyler O'Neill who had moved up to third. The Phillies last committed an extra-inning bounce-off on August 31, 2006, when Aaron Fultz did it to lose to Washington. The Cardinals had not received one since May 27, 1999, when Eric Davis scored on a wild pitch by the Giants' Jerry Spradling.
The extra innings on Thursday were set up by Matt Carpenter's lead-flipping pinch-hit homer, the Cardinals' first such dinger against the Phils since Luis Alicea took Mike Williams deep on June 10, 1994. Carpenter would go on to hit another 3-run pinch-hit homer on Friday against the Cardinals, making him just the third player in the modern era with 3- or 4-run pinch-hit homers in consecutive games. Curt Motton did it for Baltimore in May 1968, and Red Sox great Joe Cronin hit them in both games of a doubleheader on June 17, 1943.
The Phillies, meanwhile, faced the Mets on Friday, and you know the play we're getting to. It's the 2nd inning and Chase Anderson is, well, chasing a pitch. With the bases loaded. Not the best time for James McCann to let the ball bounce off of him and go all the way to the dugout. But it's the 2nd inning, the Mets can surely overcome that, right? Right?
Final score: Phillies 2, Mets 1. With both runs unearned and both scoring on the passed ball following that strikeout. The last time the Phillies won a game without an RBI was in Roy Halladay's perfect game on May 29, 2010. Their only run that day (which was all they needed) came on a Marlins error. But as for "all the runs scoring on a strikeout", that's a little trickier. We found one other such Phils win in the live-ball era, on May 7, 1940, at Wrigley Field. Cubs catcher Al Todd dropped strike three and had to throw down to first to retire the batter, except threw the ball into right field instead. That, however, was another 1-0 game. What about multiple runs, everyone in the Twitterverse wondered?
Again, not quite the same thing because of a passed ball, but we take you to September 11, 1996, in Cleveland. Kenny Lofton at third, Jose Vizcaino at first, and a 38-year-old Julio Franco at the plate. With two strikes Vizcaino breaks for second. Franco whiffs. Rex Hudler, by now with the Angels, sees that Lofton is going to try and make a delayed steal out of this, so he cuts off the throw and tries to force Lofton back to third. Lobs the throw right into the dugout. So not only is Lofton awarded home, but Vizcaino, who had pulled into third behind him, also gets another base due to the dead ball out of play. Two runs on a strikeout, the only runs they scored in the game, and the Indians wound up winning that contest 2-0.
The Mets: Now in their 60th season of finding creative ways to lose.
"Start Me Up" is overdone. Let's go all-in on '60s throwback. It ain't the title of our post for nothing. Rev those engines. Intermission!
(Lead)off-Topic
Lastly, we are obliged to include some "bonus material" whenever some game just goes bonkers on a Sunday. Doesn't fit what we've already written several thousand words about, but here we are. Remember way at the beginning how Miami and Milwaukee are 15 and 16 if you alphabetize your MLB teams by city? Well the Dodgers are right above the Marlins at 14, so suddenly we're back at The Park Formerly Known As Miller for Sunday's clash between Los Angeles and Milwaukee. Mookie Betts, the leadoff hitter for the Dodgers, is referenced above because it makes for a fun link. Otherwise he did absolutely nothing. In fact the top four in the Dodgers order were relatively tame, a combined 6-for-21 with 0 RBI. Instead we have Matt Beaty in the 7-hole, who starts the scoring with a bases-loaded single in the 1st. A.J. Pollock then destroys the scoring with a grand slam. In the 2nd, Betts leads off again with a groundout but three batters after him single to load them up again. Now it's Beaty's turn to unload them with another grand slam. The Dodgers had never before in their history hit slams in both the 1st and 2nd innings of the same game.
And they're only halfway done. Beaty drives in 2 more runs in the 4th and finally knocks Alec Bettinger out of the game. You know Bettinger. The kid from UVa who was the Brewers' 10th-round draft pick in 2017 and who is, oh by the way, making his major-league debut. Shelled for 11 earned in his first trip to a big-league mound. Since earned runs were made official in 1912, only one other pitcher has pulled that off, Arnie Muñoz of the White Sox in 2004. No Brewers pitcher had given up 11 earned since Randy Wolf in Pittsburgh on July 21, 2010. And despite getting 12 outs, Bettinger didn't record a single strikeout in his debut either. The only pitcher in the modern era to drop 11 total runs (earned or unearned) but 0 K in a debut was one Hanson Horsey of the Reds on April 27, 1912. (That's a week after Fenway Park opened.) Horsey only ever pitched in that one game in his MLB career, although he was kept in the Reds bullpen for a few weeks before being sent back down. Horsey did, however, still end up with a life in baseball; he became an umpire for nearly 25 years until his death in 1950.
Back in Milwaukee, however, the Dodgers still aren't done with the onslaight. Beaty's already up to 7 RBI but now Jordan Zimmermann is on the mound for the 6th. Will Smith doubles, Chris Taylor gets plunked, and now it's Pollock's turn to follow with another 3-run homer. He joines Austin Barnes (2017), Cody Ross (2006), Darryl Strawberry (1991), and Gil Hodges (1949) as the only Dodgers to hit both a 3-run homer and a 4-run homer in the same game. But that gives Pollock 7 RBI as well, he and Beaty are the first Dodgers teammates ever to have 7 each in the same game. The last time any team did it was in the famous "30-To-3 Game" in Baltimore in 2007; Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ramon Vazquez both drove in 7 for the Rangers. Pollock would tack on the Dodgers' 16th and final run in the 8th with a double, creating the first teammates to combine for 15 RBI in a game since Adam Duvall and Freddie Freeman in "The 29-To-9 Game" between the Braves and Marlins last September.
And if you're wondering, the record for the most RBI by any two teammates in the same game is 18. Remember Ernie Lombardi of the 1932 Reds from earlier? Whose fifth hit of the day was an extra-inning walkoff just like Nick Castellanos? By 1944 he was with the Giants. And on April 30 of that year, he logged 7 RBI against the Dodgers but played second fiddle to Phil Weintraub who posted one of just four 11-RBI games in MLB history.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Red Sox/Mets, Wednesday: First 9-inning game in MLB's modern era (1901) that ended with a 1-0 score and saw both teams strike out at least 15 times.
⚾ Jordan Luplow, Monday: Third batter to hit a multi-run walkoff homer as the first batter of an extra inning (since such a thing became possible last year). Others are Freddie Freeman and Pete Alonso.
⚾ Dodgers, Saturday: First regular-season game where they scored in both the 10th and 11th innings and still lost since August 2, 1930, against the Giants.
⚾ Christian Arroyo, Thursday: First known pinch hitter in Red Sox history to be awarded first base on catcher's interference.
⚾ Ben Rortvedt, Friday: Second player ever to make his MLB debut as Twins/Sens catcher and record a hit, a walk, a run scored, and an RBI in that game. Tim Laudner did it against Detroit on August 28, 1981.
⚾ Shohei Ohtani, Monday: First American League pitcher to collect 3 hits, 2 runs, 2 RBI on offense since Luis Tiant on May 28, 1970.
⚾ Daniel Johnson, Sunday: Second Cleveland batter ever to have a 5-strikeout game in Chicago. Rick Manning did it on May 15, 1977.
⚾ Carlos Rodon, Thursday: Became first pitcher in MLB's modern era to allow 3 or fewer hits, strike out at least 7, and get a win in each of four straight appearances.
⚾ Garrett Richards, Tuesday: Second Red Sox pitcher to strike out 10+ Mets batters in a game, after Pedro Martinez on July 13, 2000.
⚾ White Sox, Saturday: First team to score 7+ runs on 4 hits or fewer since... oh yeah, the Mariners did it last week. First time since at least 1900 that it's been done twice in 10 days.
⚾ Kyle Hendricks, Wednesday: Second Cubs pitcher ever to give up 11+ hits and 7+ runs in a game IN Atlanta. Dennis Eckersley did it at Fulton County on May 21, 1986.
⚾ Kyle Schwarber, Friday: First walkoff homer with the Nationals trailing in the 10th or later since Ronnie Belliard off Baltimore's George Sherrill, June 29, 2008 (we were there!).
⚾ Tigers, Tuesday: First game where they committed 5 errors on defense and won since July 8, 2007 vs Boston.
⚾ Tigers, Thursday: Second time in team history being held to 3 hits in both games of a doubleheader. Other was June 19, 1960, against Baltimore.
⚾ Tigers, Sunday: First time shut out on 2 hits in the Bronx since Doyle Alexander outdueled Dave Roberts on August 2, 1976.
⚾ Rich Hill, Monday: Second pitcher in Rays history to allow 2 hits, strike out 10, and lose. James Shields lost a 1-0 game on a Chris Davis homer on October 2, 2012.
⚾ Kohei Arihara, Friday: First Rangers starter to give up 4 homers and not get out of the 3rd inning since Rick Helling at Fenway, August 4, 2001.
⚾ Chris Bassitt, Thursday: Second pitcher in A's history to strike out 9+ but also hit 3 batters in the same game. Jack Coombs did it against the Senators on June 28, 1911.
⚾ Alex Kirilloff, Fri-Sun: First Twins batter to have a 3-game homer streak inside of his first 11 games played in the majors. Graig Nettles did it in four straight (career games 6-9) in 1968.
⚾ Genesis Cabrera, Wednesday: Second Cardinals pitcher in modern era to record 0 outs, hit 2 batters, and take a loss. Allyn Stout did it in Pittsburgh on September 5, 1932, as a starter.
⚾ Triston McKenzie, Saturday: First Indians starter to give up 5 earned runs on only 1 hit since Bob Feller walked 7 batters in Philadelphia on June 8, 1952.
⚾ Astros, Thursday: First time losing a 1-0 home game on a solo homer since Justin Upton hit one for the D'backs on May 4, 2010.
⚾ Kris Bryant, Monday: Cubs' first grand slam IN Atlanta since Gary Gaetti took Bruce Chen deep on May 21, 1999.
⚾ Zack Godley, Wednesday: First pitcher in the majors this season (finally!) to record a "Kernels trifecta"-- a hit batter, a wild pitch, and a balk in the same game. First Brewers hurler to do it since Ariel Miranda on July 28, 1993.
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