BF=R+O+LOB
No, it's not one of those semi-amusing brainteasers like "88 K on a P". Although it can be brain-teasing at times if you count/add wrong. You see, that thing is one-half of the equation for proving a baseball scoresheet. Think about it, every Batter Faced either makes an Out at the plate or reaches base. If they reach, their objective is to score a Run. Some of them do. If they don't, it's because they either made an Out on the basepaths by some means and were removed, or they got Left On Base at the end of the inning. Thus, BF=R+O+LOB. You can often hear us mumbling a version of this at the end of games, such that if the #3 hitter made the last out, "36 and 3 is 39, 39 up, 27 down, 5 scored, 7 left." Yep, checks out. Start the car.
(88 Keys on a Piano, if it was still bugging you.)
However, you see that hits are nowhere in that equation. That means it's possible to have a no-hitter ("NH") even though runners reach base through other, non-hit means like a walk or, oh, let's just say a dropped third strike. Some of them might even score and end up in that "R" addend instead. (Ervin Santana was the last to have this happen, throwing a 3-1 NH in July 2011.)
It's also possible to face 27 batters in a game (we're assuming 9 innings here) without it being an NH. We call this a Faced Minimum (FM) and it's a special category of its own that's actually more rare than a no-hitter. It means that one or more batters got hits but then got retired on the base paths. (If any of them scores, your equation is busted, so an FM must also by definition be an SHO.) The last one of these is still by Arizona's Josh Collmenter in 2014, who gave up 3 hits and retired all of them on double plays. In the live-ball era, the means (as in, averages) for number of each in a season are 2.13 NHs but only 0.49 FMs and 0.19 PGs.
In other words, looking down the hierarchy of pitching achievements, a perfect game (PG) must be both an NH and an FM, because nobody reaches base. However, the converse is not true. Just because a game is both an NH and an FM, doesn't means that it's also a PG.
Want proof? Look no further than Wednesday in Seattle. Where John Means (you didn't think those italics were accidental, did you?) of the Orioles retired the first seven Mariners batters. Number eight, Sam Haggerty, swung at a ball in the dirt, which then skittered away from Pedro Severino and allowed Haggerty to scamper to first. Okay, someone reached base, perfect game over, no-hitter still going. BUT very next pitch, Haggerty caught stealing second. No-hitter still going. Faced Minimum back in play. And you know the rest.
Means retires 19 more batters in order to complete a game that is arguably as close to perfection as possible without actually being one. It even confused MLB's algorithm to the point that "perfect game" was displayed on the alerts as late as the 8th inning. But no. Means does get credit for both an NH and an FM... but not the 24th perfect game in history. But this is stranger than if he had thrown a PG. And here at Kernels we love strange.
The last game that was both a no-hitter and a faced-minimum, but not also a perfect game, was by Edinson Volquez of the Marlins on June 3, 2017. He walked two batters and retired them both on double plays. The last pitcher to pull this off without walking anyone was Terry Mulholland of the Phillies on August 15, 1990; his lone baserunner reached on an error and was then also retired on a double play. But of all the ways to reach first base and break up the PG? An uncaught third strike? Of course not. Following close on the heels of Madison Bumgarner's non-no-hitter a couple weeks ago (because the game was only scheduled for 7 innings), John Means threw the first game in major-league history that would have been a PG except for that third-strike wild pitch. If only they hadn't changed that rule in the 1850s.
When is a no-hitter not a no-hitter? (Go ahead, Madison Bumgarner fans, let it out.) According to MLB, when it's not a complete game of 9+ innings. So allowing no hits through 9 still doesn't merit the gold star if, say, the game is a scoreless tie. Rich Hill knows a little something about that. So does Henderson Alvarez. So after an 83-minute rain delay, Wade Miley took the hill for the Reds in Cleveland on Friday and blew through the first 9 batters. Then 12. Then 15 and yet another "perfect game" alert goes out. That would quickly flip in the 6th when Nick Senzel made an errant throw to allow Amed Rosario to reach. But that's still not a hit. Neither is the walk later in the inning. Meanwhile Zach Plesac has given up 3 hits for the Indians but none of them scored either. Neither pitcher blinks in the 7th or the 8th. Heading to the 9th that "BF" (batters faced) number above is at 26 for one team and 27 for the other. Five total baserunners, neither of Cleveland's coming on hits.
Plesac, however, is at 112 pitches and does not have the pesky "NH" to worry about, so out comes Emmanuel Clase for the 9th. And in support of the no-hitter going on across the way, Clase proceeds to throw a "no-outer". (Well, at least for himself. A single-pitcher no-outer would theoretically never end without either a forfeit or a weather event, in which case it wouldn't count anyway because it didn't go 5 innings. But we digress.) Two singles, an error, a balk, and another single later, the Reds have their lead and only now does Miley really only need 3 outs for the NH. Clase became the first Indians pitcher to give up 3 runs while getting 0 outs-- and also commit a balk along the way-- since the great John Rocker did that at Texas on August 11, 2001.
Of course you know that Miley got those 3 outs in the 9th, and at 53 minutes to midnight, finished off the 309th officially-recognized no-hitter in MLB history. But of those 309, only two have been thrown by one Ohio team against another. Granted there are only two teams now, but the 19th century sported several incarnations of Cleveland and Cincinnati squads, plus multiple clubs in Columbus and Toledo. Miley's cohort in Buckeye-blanking is none other than Cy Young, then of the Cleveland Spiders, whose "cannon ball speed" no-hit the Reds on September 18, 1897.
With Means's effort on Wednesday, we've already had four official no-hitters (plus MadBum) in the first five weeks of the season. Only once before in MLB history have there been four NHs even by the end of May, and that was in 1917 when the fourth one happened on May 6. Well, sort of. In Ernie Koob's outing for the Browns the day before, the official scorer had originally ruled in favor of a lone hit for the White Sox. After the game he was "persuaded" to think about it, and the next day went to the park and retroactively awarded Koob the NH, the only such case that we know of. Guess what happened just hours later at the same park: Bob Groom threw another no-hitter for the Browns, the fifth one of that season. Five no-hitters by the first week of May, you say.
Minnesota Mining And Manufacturing
(You older folks may remember that this is the original name of the company now known as 3M. Means, Miley, and...)
You can't spell Sean Manaea without "Means". While Wade Miley was busy finishing off his NH on Friday, and we're still scrambling for notes about it, look at what's happening out in Oakland. Manaea has set down the first 15 Rays batters in order. And then 18. And this one really does earn the "perfect game" alert, even while you're still clearing the alerts about Miley. A walk to Randy Arozarena starts the 7th so at least that's over with. There's never been a day with both a no-hitter and a perfect game, although we did come very close once. On May 18, 2004, while Randy Johnson was throwing his PG in Atlanta, Jason Schmidt of the Giants threw a complete-game 1-hitter at Wrigley Field with the only hit on a 5th-inning infield bouncer.
But there have been two days in MLB history with multiple no-hitters. And it turns out the Reds were involved in one of those days, and the A's were involved in the other. On April 22, 1898, Ted Breitenstein of Cincinnati and Jim Hughes of the Baltimore NL team that would get disbanded a year later threw the 37th and 38th recognized NH's in history. And you might remember June 29, 1990, when Dave Stewart (Oakland) threw one in Toronto and was followed just a few hours later by Fernando Valenzuela tossing his only career NH at Dodger Stadium. Here is also where we point out that Manaea already has one career NH (April 21, 2018), and that Friday was the 2-year anniversary of Mike Fiers tossing the 300th NH in history-- against the Reds! You can't make this stuff up.
But, depending on whether you're rooting for this to happen or against, Mike Brosseau is your pro-/an-tagonist. He took the third pitch of the 8th inning for a clean double to right-center. And two pitches later, Mike Zunino dumps in an RBI single that actually ties the game and takes Manaea out of even getting a win. He's the first Oakland pitcher to allow 2 hits, strike out 10, and not get that precious "W" since Mike Oquist did it against Toronto on September 10, 1997. And in the last 6 years, only three Oakland pitchers have even had the 2-and-10 line in any game. We hinted at one of them-- Sean Manaea in the no-hitter from 2018. The third one... is also Sean Manaea, in a 3-1 win over Detroit on September 8, 2019.
Even if Manaea didn't win, and we didn't get no-hitter number 310 (yet), the A's did end up winning on a walkoff solo homer by Seth Brown. The only other Oaklanders to hit one of those against Tampa Bay were Ryon Healy and Olmedo Saenz, and they both did it against Colomés (Alex in 2016 and Jesús in 2001, respectively).
Snell Game
And those are the ones you heard about. The ones that blew up your phone with no-hitter (and errant "perfect game") alerts all week. But pitchers are complex beings. (This sounds like a Trevor Bauer quote, we're not sure.) Their stat lines are even more complex. It's not just about hitting or not hitting. There's lots of other stuff mixed in there like walks and strikeouts and hit batters and those always-lovable balks. In the right combinations, they like to just jump out of the boxscore and make you say, huh?
Blake Snell, now of the Padres, gave up 1 hit to the Giants on Friday. That sounds good. Until you notice that he also walked 6 batters, threw 95 pitches, and didn't get out of the 5th inning. The last San Diego hurler with the "1 hit, 6 walks" line was Jarred Cosart against the Brewers on August 1, 2016. But miraculously those 95 pitches also included 5 strikeouts. And Snell is the first one in team history to do the combination of 1 hit, 6 walks, and 5 K.
Snell wasn't even the one who got the loss in that game. That honor fell to Keone Kela, who had his own unique line. Tasked with facing Austin Slater to start the 7th, Kela gave up a home run. Then he left. Pierce Johnson came to replace him. No Padres pitcher had given up a homer to the only batter he faced, and gotten the loss for it, since Buddy Baumann on August 6, 2017.
June Bugged
Despite having "June" in his name, Jakob Junis of the Royals really isn't a fan of that month. In 2018 he lost all five starts he made in that month, with an ERA of over 7. In 2019 the troubles started earlier, in May. He's got one career win in June, and it was the first start of his career where he went 5+ innings. So now he's in the Royals' bullpen where he can throw some long relief. On Monday that took the form of 42 pitches against the Indians. Problem: He still only got 5 outs.
Junis cruised through the 6th but then gave up a leadoff single to Cesar Hernandez in the 7th. Then a fielder's choice, a walk, a strikeout, a home run by Eddie Rosario, another single, and another homer (Josh Naylor). Turning a 3-3 tie into an 8-3 deficit which the Royals never crawled out of. He was the first Royals pitcher to give up 5 runs and 2 homers while getting 5 outs in a home game since Brooks Pounders did it on July 10, 2016. And he's the team's first reliever to do that and take a loss, home or road, since Jeff Twitty against the Rangers on August 28, 1980.
(Added bonus: On Wednesday Junis blew a save by giving up an 8th-inning homer to Jose Ramirez, also the first of those in his career.)
If you thought you would get through this with only one Brooks Pounders note, c'mon man. The pitcher whom Junis relieved on Monday was Daniel Lynch in his major-league debut. Lynch did fine aside from committing a balk in the 2nd inning. The last Royals pitcher to commit a balk in his MLB debut? Why, of course that's Brooks Pounders-- five days before that other 5-run game mentioned above. (The only others to do it are Archie Corbin in 1991 and Bob McClure in 1975.)
Then, however, there was Lynch's second MLB appearance, on Saturday against the White Sox. That... did not go so well. Chicago rode him for an 8-run 1st inning that culminated with #9 batter Danny Mendick hitting a 2-run homer. Only one other Sox #9 batter has homered in the 1st inning, Jim Essian on May 1, 1977. The Sox last hung a "snowman" in the 1st on April 21, 2002, against the Tigers, and hadn't done it on the road since June 18, 2000, at Yankee Stadium.
As for Lynch, well, it'll probably get better. But still we must point out that the last pitcher, for any team, to give up 8 runs and get 2 outs in either of his first two big-league games, was Fred Hutchinson of the Tigers on May 2, 1939. And like Junis before him, the pitcher who relieved Lynch also gets a note. Kris Bubic went 5⅔ innings-- that's 17 outs-- while allowing only 1 hit. (The Sox had an 8-0 lead, why swing?) The last Royals reliever to throw that much 1-hit ball was Marty Pattin against the Red Sox on July 23, 1978.
Shohei Ohtani of the Angels has been trying to be that two-way player. He can hit and he can pitch and in the American League you really don't need someone to do both. He gave up the pitching part for over 2 years after blowing out his elbow and needing Tommy John surgery in late 2018. But here we are, trying this two-way experiment again. On Wednesday that involved the pitching part as the Angels hosted the Rays.
Again, the good news? Ohtani only allowed 1 hit. The bad news? Six walks. The really weird news? Seven strikeouts. The combo of 1 hit and 6 BB kinda makes sense if a pitcher just can't hit the strike zone, so why would you swing? But 7 K on top of that? It's a tad illogical, and of course it's the type of thing we just have to delve into. The last Angels pitcher with that line? It's only Nolan Ryan against the A's on April 21, 1979. Three of those walks went to Joey Wendle, who joined Wil Myers (2013) and Fred McGriff (1999) as the only Mariners cleanup batters to draw 3 BB in a game.
In other Angels pitching news, Alex Cobb had thrown the previous game on Tuesday, in which he struck out 8 and allowed just 2 hits. The problem was behind him. The Angels made 4 errors, their first time doing that at home since September 2015, including two of them with 2 outs in the 1st. Randy Arozarena stole second later in the game and went to third when Max Stassi lobbed the ball into center. So Cobb got charged with 2 runs-- and the loss-- even though both scores were unearned. Only one other pitcher in Angels history has allowed 2 hits, 0 earned runs, struck out 8, and lost. And it's a guy who also knows something about no-hitters-- Nolan Ryan against the Royals on July 31, 1972.
Sometimes it's not one pitcher that puts up the interesting line, it's a group effort. Michael Fulmer started Tuesday's game in Boston, and it was clear early that he just didn't have it that day. Not only from the pitching side, but his own throwing error led to a couple of unearned runs in the 1st inning. Three straight singles made it 4-0 with only 2 outs, and Fulmer made an early exit. He was the first Tigers starter to give up 4 runs and not get out of the 1st since Matt Boyd did it against the Royals on September 25, 2016.
Alex Lange got that last out of the 1st, but then he coughed up 2 homers in the 2nd as well and got pulled. It's the first time the Tigers had their first two pitchers both allow 3 runs while getting 2 outs since Dan Petry and Bill Scherrer did that in Oakland on June 2, 1986.
Down in St Louis, Thursday was a good day for a walk. The high was a very nice 69° (we checked this), a little cloudy but no rain and not bad for the first week of May. The Mets agreed. And John Gant was happy to show them around downtown. After Pete Alonso reached on an error in the 5th, Gant delivered three straight walks to force him all the way around (and tie the game). Kodi Whitley inherits the bases loaded, and he will also guide the Mets on a walking tour. Another one to James McCann to force home a second run. Three innings later it's Tyler Webb who takes two Mets for a walk, then allows a bloop single to load them up again. Jake Woodford, 5-pitch walk to force home a third Mets run.
They did score once more to deprive us of some factoids here, but the Mets ended up taking 11 free passes, the first 9-inning road game where they'd done that since August 13, 2008, in Washington. It was also the fifth road game in Mets history where three of them came with the bases loaded. And the previous such game was a 24-4 beatdown in Philadelphia in 2018 with two of them issued by outfielder Roman Quinn. If you skip over that, you have to go to September 22, 1997, against the Marlins, where all of them came in a 6-run 3rd. It was exactly a year before that when the Cardinals last issued three bases-loaded walks in a game; Danny Jackson did them consecutively against the Reds. As for three different Cardinals pitchers giving up BL walks in the same game? That was last done by John Martin, Jeff Lahti, and Doug Bair against the Dodgers on May 6, 1983-- 38 years earlier to the day.
We were completely sure we had used this title once before, or at the very least for a section header, but we couldn't find it. So we will act as though this is an original movie and not one of several mediocre sequels. Intermission!
Philling Up On Brews
Speaking of Roman Quinn, he was not in the Phillies' lineup Thursday, having been placed on the injured list earlier in the day with a cut on his finger. (We can't make that up, either.) Closest we can get is that Quinn Wolcott was calling balls and strikes. Mostly strikes. Lots and lots of strikes. Zack Wheeler and Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff combined to throw 221 pitches, 153 of them for strikes. (That's a very nice 69%, and we know you don't "call" the ones that are put in play, but you get the point.) Both teams at least got a hit by the 3rd, so we could cross one problem off our list, but it would be the bottom of the 7th until either of them scored. That's when Alec Bohm happened upon a home-run ball from Woodruff to give the Phillies all they would need. Woodruff took his leave and Angel Perdomo gave up another run in the 8th while Wheeler kept, um, wheeling and dealing. In fact, that 3rd-inning hit that he did allow, got erased on a double play. Which means suddenly Wheeler finds himself 2 outs from that rare "Faced Minimum" that we started the post with. Lorenzo Cain cuts into the chances by hitting a single. But still he can get doubled off. Then Avisail Garcia singles. He's batter number 27. They now have to both get picked off somehow before #28, Kolten Wong, can put a ball in play. Nope. Wong flies out to left, Daniel Vogelbach pops up to end the game, and Wheeler settles for facing 29 batters and stranding 2. But that's still nothing to sneeze at. No Phillies pitcher had thrown a 9-inning shutout in 29 batters since Zach Eflin on July 22, 2016. And the last to do it with 8+ strikeouts was Cole Hamels in his no-hitter 363 days before that. The last Phillies pitcher with such a game against "Milwaukee" was Jim Bunning. Not his perfect game (which was against the Mets). The following year (September 14, 1965) he allowed 2 doubles to the Braves and stranded both runners.
As for Woodruff, he took the loss on the basis of that 1 run. But he also gave up only 2 hits and struck out 11 Phillies. No pitcher in Brewers history had done 2-and-11 and lost. Even ignoring the hits, only one other has done 1 run, 11 strikeouts, and a loss: Yovani Gallardo against the Mets on July 1, 2009.
We know Coors Field can destroy some pitching lines. Vin Scully famously quipped that you don't need an official scorer there, you need a Certified Public Accountant. On Tuesday German Marquez was the one needing a lot of ledger entries as part of a snow-induced doubleheader with the Giants. Here's how that started: Double, single, single, single, walk, single, groundout barely upheld via replay, double, strikeout, walk, pitching change after 10 batters. Jhoulys Chacin, inheriting the bases loaded, then promptly gives up a grand slam. And four pitches later, another homer to Buster Posey for the Giants' first 10-run 1st inning since June 29, 1967, when they went on to beat the Cardinals 12-4 at the "new" Busch Stadium (then in its first full season).
Brandon Belt, who hit that grand slam, was also responsible for the Giants' first run after Mike Tauchman's leadoff double. That gave him 5 RBI in one inning, a feat not achieved by a Giants batter since Juan Uribe did it at Wrigley Field on September 23, 2010. And thanks to those pesky rules, it's basically impossible for the first three batters to hit a grand slam in the 1st inning. The only time it can happen is if the team bats around. And thus Belt was indeed the first player in Giants history (1883) to "Belt" a 1st-inning grand slam from the top third of the order.
As for Marquez, he became the second starter in Rockies history to give up 8+ runs while getting only 2 outs. Kip Wells pulled that off in another Coors Field special against the Dodgers on July 21, 2008. But really making Tuesday special, is the fact that there had never been a 10-run 1st inning at Coors Field since it became the majors' bandbox in 1995. Oh sure, the 2nd and 3rd and 8th and basically every other inning, yeah. But never a 10-run 1st. That eliminates one more spot on our bingo card; the only inning left to never see 10 runs scored in it at Coors is the 6th.
You know you wanted the list.
— Doug Kern (@dakern74) May 4, 2021
1st: SF, May 4 2021
2nd: COL, Apr 13 2000
3rd: COL, Jul 26 2015
4th: ARI, Jun 21 2017
5th: COL, Apr 27 2012
7th: COL, Jul 12 1996
7th: WSH, Apr 27 2017
8th: COL, Jul 30 2010
9th: ATL, Apr 18 1999
9th: SD, Sep 12 2004
Just like that 1967 game, the Rockies would eventually hit a grand slam of their own to make the final score 12-4. That came off the bat of Raimel Tapia, and was the first slam in Colorado history to be hit with the team trailing by double digits. Troy Tulowitzki (September 15, 2008, off SD Wade LeBlanc) was the last Rox batter to hit one while down by 9.
Now remember this is a doubleheader. And while no pitching lines were terribly harmed in the making of this one, the Rockies rallied for 6 runs in the 7th, culminating in a 3-run walkoff homer by Charlie Blackmon. He also hit a walkoff homer while the Rockies were down to their final out on April 19, 2019, against the Phillies, joining Todd Helton as the only batters in team history to do it twice. But meanwhile, guess who homered in the 1st inning again. Yep, Brandon Belt. He of the grand slam and 5 RBI in the first game. Last Giants player to homer in the 1st inning of both games of a DH? Well say hey, that's none other than Willie Mays at Houston on May 22, 1965.
The save rule, first codified in 1969 and slightly tweaked in the early '70s, loves to give us quirky little nuances that make you say, he got a save for that?!? Taylor Rogers of the Twins entered Monday's game looking to close out a 6-3 win. He gave up a single and a home run. So he closed out a 6-5 win. But it's a win nonetheless, and it does check all the boxes for a save. Rogers thus became the first Twins pitcher to earn a 1-inning save (as opposed to the 3-inning loophole) in a home game, despite giving up 2 runs and a homer, since Joe Nathan did that against Detroit on June 6, 2004.
On Wednesday the Dodgers sent Blake Treinen to the mound with a 3-2 lead against the Cubs. The next inning they sent Dennis Santana to the mound in a 3-3 tie. Treinen gave up an unearned run when the Dodgers tried to turn a double play and threw the ball into right field. Thanks to the free-runner rule, the Dodgers had a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the 10th, but Kenley Jansen wild-pitched the Cubs' free runner to third and then gave up a game-tying sacrifice fly. On to the 11th where Garrett Cleavinger gives up not only a game-tying single, but then a stolen base and a walkoff single to Anthony Rizzo. That's three blown saves in the same game, for just the second time in Dodgers history since the save rule of 1969. And the other such game wasn't in one of those wild postseason adventures the Dodgers have had in the past couple years. It was another "free runner" game, last August 25 against the Giants. Wednesday's game also happened to be the first game where the Cubs struck out 14 times against the Dodgers and still won since August 3, 1997, on a Sammy Sosa walkoff homer.
As mentioned, there is also that weird little 3-inning loophole in the save rule, where the only qualifier is that the closer must pitch "effectively". Whatever that means. It results in stupid things like Wes Littleton getting a save in the famous 30-3 game in 2007. (To be fair, it was only an 11-run lead when he came in.) On Friday, Patrick Sandoval of the Angels entered a 5-1 game in the 6th when starter Griffin Canning got in a jam. (Jam. Canning. We weren't even trying.) Anyway, with two runners on, it would qualify as a save situation in any later inning as well, but Sandoval hung around to finish the game while the Angels went on to score 4 more runs for him. So he got a 10-out save in a 9-2 victory. No Angels "closer" had gotten a 10-out save, with any score, since Jerome Williams at Texas on July 30, 2012.
To The Moon And Back
And finally, one more nod to those pesky pitching lines. We all know the strikeout rate has exploded over the last two decades. Tyler Glasnow of the Rays collected quite the pitching line on Saturday, striking out 11 Oaklanders and allowing just 2 hits. The problem is, both of those hits were home runs-- to Seth Brown and Austin Allen-- and it put Tampa Bay in an early 3-0 hole from which they never escaped. Thus Glasnow got tagged with the loss as well despite settling down for the 4 innings after that. He's the second pitcher in Rays history to allow 2 hits, strike out 11, and still lose; James Shields did it in the next-to-last game of the 2012 season.
But in these days of Three True Outcomes, even 11 strikeouts still doesn't always move the meter. Not on a day when another pitcher also allows 2 hits, fans fourteen, and still doesn't win. If you expected this to have something to do with Jacob deGrom, you'd be right. But for once, he's not the one who did it this week. He's just the most recent, before Max Scherzer dominated the Yankees on Saturday. One of his hits was also an early homer, by Kyle Higashioka. But Scherzer eventually departed in the 8th with a precarious 2-1 lead.
Brad Hand, well, couldn't get a grip. A walk and two singles score the tying run and take away Scherzer's victory. He's the second pitcher in Nats/Expos history to strike out 14, allow 2 hits, and not get a win; Floyd Youmans did it against the Phillies on September 27, 1986. And if there's any pitcher over the last few years who's known for not getting wins, it's deGrom. So the question is not whether he's the last to do it, it's which game. That would be August 26 against the Marlins when Justin Wilson gave up 3 runs behind him.
Enter Justin Wilson. No really. Having gone across the Triborough Bridge in the offseason, Wilson is now with the Yankees and he retired the Nationals in order in the top of the 11th. And he ends up getting the win in this game when Tanner Rainey gives up two walks and an infield single for the 4-3 Yankees walkoff. Thanks to interleague play, the Nats and Yankees only meet up about once a year. Some years not at all. And the Yankees had never beaten the Nationals via extra-inning walkoff since they relocated in 2005. To find the last extra-inning walkoff for the Yankees against "Washington" you have to go, well, to the moon and back. It was July 20, 1969-- a 3-2 win on another 11th-inning single, this one by Gene Michael. Not what that game-- or that date-- is remembered for. It's the game that was famously interrupted by Bob Sheppard, and halted for several minutes, to announce the moon landing.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Yankees, Sat-Sun: First back-to-back walkoff wins aganist "Washington" since September 4-5, 1963. (We already had that section above done, and it was too good to disturb.)
⚾ Huascar Ynoa, Tuesday: First Braves pitcher to hit a grand slam since Jaime Garcia on July 21, 2017. (Garcia was the first since Tony Cloninger's famous game in 1967.)
⚾ Kyle Garlick & Jorge Polanco, Friday: Second time in Twins/Sens history that they led off the 1st AND 2nd innings of a game in Detroit with homers. Kirby Puckett & Steve Lombardozzi off Jack Morris, May 2, 1986.
⚾ Reds, Wednesday: First 1-0 win via extra-inning walkoff since an Alex Gonzalez single in the 12th against Cleveland on June 10, 2007.
⚾ Joc Pederson, Sunday: First Cubs batter with 3 hits and 2 RBI in a game he didn't start since Corey Patterson did it in a 17-inning festival in Milwaukee on May 15, 2003.
⚾ Dylan Cease, Tuesday: First White Sox pitcher to have 3 hits on offense since Tom Bradley against Baltimore, May 14, 1972 (before the DH).
⚾ Braves, Wed-Thu: First time having 5 or fewer hits in back-to-back road games against the same opponent, and winning both games, since August 19-20, 1956, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.
⚾ Tommy Edman, Monday: First Cardinals batter to lead off a home game with a triple and then add a double later on since Vince Coleman vs Montreal, April 23, 1989.
⚾ Josh Rojas, Saturday: First known batter in MLB history to be awarded catcher's interference in each of his first two plate appearances in a game.
⚾ Jeimer Candelario, Wednesday: First 3- or 4-run homer for Tigers in extra innings at Fenway Park since Vic Mertz off Mel Parnell on June 11, 1950.
⚾ Whit Merrifield, Sunday: First Royals leadoff batter with 2 hits, a stolen base, and a sac fly in a loss since Willie Wilson against the Angels on June 29, 1979.
⚾ Triston McKenzie, Thursday: Became Cleveland's first regular starter to allow 2 hits but walk 4 in consecutive games since Sam McDowell in 1966.
⚾ Rangers, Tuesday: First time homering in the 9th and 10th innings of the same game since Ivan Rodriguez and Todd Hollandsworth did it at Fenway on August 20, 2002.
⚾ DJ LeMahieu, Friday: First Yankees leadoff batter with 2 homers in a loss since Jacoby Ellsbury at Detroit, August 26, 2014.
⚾ Adrian Houser, Saturday: Became first pitcher to hit 2 homers off the same opposing pitcher in the same season (different games) since Bronson Arroyo off Glendon Rusch in 2006.
⚾ Cedric Mullins, Monday: Second Orioles leadoff batter with homer, double, single in a game in Seattle. Mike Devereaux, May 11, 1991.
⚾ Randal Grichuk, Thursday: Second Jays batter ever to homer, double, and have 5 RBI in a game in Oakland. Darrin Fletcher did it in an 11-0 shutout on August 20, 1999.
⚾ Andrew McCutchen, Tuesday: First Phillies batter to lead off a game with a homer, and then homer again his next time up, since Jimmy Rollins at Pittsburgh, August 25, 2009.
⚾ Austin Brice, Saturday: First Red Sox reliever to hit 3 opposing batters in the same game since Jim Willoughby at Minnesota, June 11, 1976.
⚾ Jack Flaherty, Friday: Became first Cardinals pitcher to win his first 6 decisions of a season, while striking out at least 5 in each game, since Bob Gibson in 1965.
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