In the old adage, April showers bring May flowers. Nobody bothers to mention what May showers bring. Or what you should do if those May flowers turn out to be dandelions or mushrooms. (PSA: Don't eat the mushrooms. They're not the fun kind.)
Normally this post has a bunch of eye-popping big numbers that basically write themselves, but for the first week of May our flowers kinda wilted on the scoreboard. If it felt like all the games were 4-2 or 5-1 or maybe as high as 7-5, that's because they were. During the entire week we had only two teams score more than 10 runs, and yes, we're getting to them. But we saw this "fall" in scoring beginning with the very first game on Monday.
Busch Light
We like to joke that players are creatures of habit, and those orange jugs aren't filled with coffee, so when you throw a noon start on a Monday into the schedule, nobody's awake and nothing happens. There are a few more of these in 2022 as a result of rescheduling the first week of the season, and a random home game got added to the Busch Stadium schedule before the teams went west to Kansas City on Tuesday.
The one person who appeared to be awake at 12:30 on a Monday was Paul Goldschmidt, who greeted Zack Greinke with a 1-out solo homer in the bottom of the 1st. And then we all go back to sleep. Sure, there are a few baserunners here and there, but never more than one per inning, and the three batters who do make it to second base, all get stranded there. Goldy's homer ends up being the only score in the game before we all board the bus to head to Kauffman. It's the fourth time the Cardinals have won a 1-0 game at the current Busch Stadium via solo homer; the others were by Marcell Ozuna (September 3, 2019, vs San Francisco), Matt Adams (June 13, 2014 vs Washington), and Carlos Beltran (June 13, 2012, vs White Sox). The last time St Louis had such a 1-0 game with the homer coming in the 1st inning was on July 27, 2014, at Wrigley Field, when Matt Holliday took Kyle Hendricks deep.
Ah, but if you combine those? The Cardinals had not won a 1-0 home game on a 1st-inning home run since Ernie Orsatti hit a round-tripper off the Phillies' Ray Benge on August 24, 1928.
So by Wednesday the wagon train has found its way to Kansas City, and here we are with yet another noon start. At least one team is finally getting used to this. Royals starter Kris Bubic... is not. Walk, walk, home run. Nolan Arenado became the first Cardinals batter to crank a 3-run dinger as the team's third batter of a game since Matt Adams did that in Washington on September 5, 2018. And while Albert Pujols did make an out, Bubic would leave two batters later and get charged with a fourth run when Tyler O'Neill hit a triple. He's the first Royals starter to give up 4 runs and get 1 out in a home game since Mark Redman did it against Detroit on September 23, 2006.
After hitting that triple in the 1st, O'Neill would go on to homer in the 9th and put the final nail in a 10-0 thumping. Matt Carpenter was the team's last batter to homer and triple in the same interleague game, doing so in Seattle on June 26, 2016. And the 10-0 final was the Cardinals' largest-ever regular-season shutout in an interleague game. They did, however, beat the Tigers by an 11-0 count on October 9, 1934, to claim that season's World Series trophy.
That 10-0 cross-Missouri game was somewhat interesting, but Wednesday was the one day this week that it got upstaged. Among the other teams to score 10 runs that day was the Angels... except they couldn't be bothered to do it in the conventional 9-inning fashion. Nah, they decided to give up a go-ahead homer to Xander Bogaerts in the bottom of the 8th at Fenway, then re-tie the game on Jared Walsh's single in the top of the 9th. Oh hey look, it's time for Free Runner Land again. Which just means Taylor Ward's 2-out homer in the 10th is worth an extra run. But then the floodgates open. Mike Trout single. Shohei Ohtani draws a walk. And eventually Walsh cranks a 3-run homer to blow this thing open and give the Angels a 10-4 lead. The last time the Angels hit multiple homers in extra innings of the same game was August 1, 2012, when Chris Iannetta and Albert Pujols both went deep off Joe Nathan of the Rangers. And Walsh became the team's first batter with a RBI hit in both the 9th and 10th innings of a game at Fenway since Vernon Wells did it on August 23, 2012.
Although the Red Sox also scored their free runner in the bottom half to make the final score 10-5, Wednesday marked the first time the Angels had dropped a 6-spot in any extra inning since doing it in Baltimore on August 16, 2009.
On Thursday there was no late drama as the teams played another of those weird weekday afternoon games where nobody's awake. Or should we say, the Red Sox weren't awake. Shohei Ohtani blew strikes past them the entire afternoon, becoming the fourth pitcher in Angels history to allow 0 runs and 0 walks while striking out 11 in a road game. Andrew Heaney (September 9, 2018), Dan Haren (May 24, 2012), and Jered Weaver (June 19, 2010) are the others.
And even though Thursday's game was scoreless through 6 innings-- again lending credence to our theory that nobody's awake yet-- the Angels came alive and connected for 8 runs off the Sawx bullpen in the final 3 innings. Tanner Houck got hit with 7 of them, plus a wild pitch, plus a hit batter, becoming the first Boston reliever to do that since Marv Grissom against Cleveland on June 25, 1953. Of those 8 runs, Jared Walsh again drove in 4 of them with a homer in the 7th and a 2-run single in the 8th. The last Angels batter to have 4+ RBI in back-to-back games was Mike Trout on either side of the 2019 All-Star break, and the only other to do it at Fenway was C.J. Cron on July 1 and 2, 2016.
And that 8-0 final? That was the second-largest shutout the Angels had ever recorded at Fenway Park. The one that tops it was by an 11-0 score... and it came 11 years earlier to the day, on May 5, 2011.
So back to Wednesday and that upstaging of a 10-0 Cardinals game. And even a 10-5 Angels game. We're going to take you to Milwaukee, where the Brewers are having a little fun. We'll concede that they did fall behind 2-0 early on. Kolten Wong remedied that with a leadoff homer, the first Milwaukee batter to hit one with the team trailing since... Kolten Wong did it on September 24 of last year against the Mets. Gerardo Parra (both in 2015) turns out to be the team's last player to do it twice.
Ah, but then things get Rowdy. Tellez comes to bat in a tie game in the 3rd. Not only does he untie it, he unloads the bases and suddenly it's 6-2. The teams trade sac flies in the 5th before Rowdy comes up again. With Andrew McCutchen on base ahead of him yet again, Tellez cranks a 2-run shot and it's 9-3. Christian Yelich gets in on the fun with a 2-run single to chase Buck Farmer out of the game. McCutchen then greets Hunter Strickland with a double and it's 13-3.
In the 9th we turn to Lucas Sims for mop-up duty and, well, here's how that went. Walk. Single. Walk. RBI groundout. Strikeout. Walk. Bases-loaded walk. Which means we are now turning to right fielder Matt Reynolds to get the last out of the game. Which he eventually does, but not before McCutchen and Tellez strike again and score all those runs that Sims left out there. They became the third set of teammates in Brewers history to each have 4 hits and 4 RBI in the same game, joining Luis Urias & Jace Peterson from last August, plus Darryl Hamilton & Scott Fletcher in 1992.
But Rowdy Tellez took it one (or four) steps further. He didn't just drive in 4 runs, throw on that grand slam and he drove in eight of the Brewers' final tally of 18, matching the most they've ever scored at their current ballpark. But the last 8-RBI game by a Milwaukee batter came from Joe Adcock against the Giants on July 19, 1956. Yeah, that's the Milwaukee Braves. The Brewers and Marlins had been the two active franchises who'd never had a player do it. Your move, Fish.
Now, one thing we haven't mentioned is which team the Brewers are doing this against. Because by now you've probably heard something about the Cincinnati Reds, and what you heard is probably not good.
Vladimir Gutierrez started this escapade on Wednesday and actually made it to the 5th inning despite giving up that slam to Tellez. He was the first Reds pitcher to give up 8 hits, 2 homers, 2 walks, and hit 2 batters since Jackie Collum also did that against the Milwaukee Braves on June 30, 1953. But for Gutierrez it wasn't much of a fluke. He's pitched in five games so far this season. He's 0-5. Not even 0-3 because he left a tie game, or the offense bailed him out, nope, lost all five games in which he's appeared. The only other Reds pitcher in the modern era to pull that off to start a season was Joey Jay in 1963. As for Lucas Sims and all those walks, he's the first Reds hurler to allow 5 runs on only 1 hit since Ryan Dempster did that at Coors Field on April 30, 2003.
Unfortunately Gutierrez isn't the only Reds pitcher taking a bunch of losses. Let's jump to the series finale on Thursday, where the Reds actually pieced together 3 runs on 4 hits against Adrian Houser in the 1st inning. Hunter Greene, like most of his teammates, not used to pitching with a lead. So naturally, four batters later he doesn't have one anymore.
Luis Urias, leadoff homer. Three pitches later, Christian Yelich goes yard. It's the sixth time in Brewers history that they've led off a game with back-to-back homers, but only the second such occurrence at home. The other was by Jeff Cirillo and Pat Listach at County Stadium on April 25, 1996. Willy Adames draws a 4-pitch walk and Tellez doubles him home to erase the lead. By the time Greene makes it out of the inning, it's time for Yelich and Adames to bat again in the 2nd. Double. Homer. 6-3. And considering the Reds' outfield had to pitch yesterday, it appears we're leaving Greene out there to get Hunted. Around a pair of strikeouts, Tyrone Taylor and Keston Hiura go deep in the 3rd, the first time in Brewers history they've hit 5 dingers in the first 3 innings of a game. No Cincinnati pitcher had surrendered 5 in any game since Scott Feldman did it at Wrigley on August 17, 2017.
Incredibly, the Reds now manage to stop this waterfall after only 8 runs and cobble together 4+ innings of 1-hit ball from the bullpen. Until Art Warren gets the 8th and gives up another 2-run shot to Willy Adames. Remember how Rowdy Tellez went deep twice yesterday? And no, Adames didn't have an 8-RBI game, but it's only the third time the Brewers have had a multi-home-run player in consecutive games. Jonathan Lucroy and Mark Reynolds did it in July 2014, and Jorge Fabregas and Ryan Thompson teamed up over Labor Day weekend of 2002.
So after losing 18-4 and then 10-5, the Reds ended their trip to Milwaukee having played 25 games this season. You may know how many of those 25 they won, because it's a number that comes up a lot in baseball. Mmmm, no, not nine. Sorry. That would be... three. You've probably seen a lot of lists comparing the 3-22 Reds to the 2003 Tigers (also 3-22) and 1988 Orioles (who of course lost their first 21 in a row). We took it one further. Back in the early days, ties did not count in the standings and were simply replayed as if they had never happened. So we can't give an official list of worst records through 25 games. But we can take those standings pages and find a team's first 25 decisions. And in addition to those two "modern" teams, the only other clubs to lose 22 of their first 25 decisions are the 1894 Washington Senators and the 1882 Baltimore Orioles (neither of whom has any relation to the current teams). But the Reds have some other good company. We expanded the list up to 4-21 through 25 decisions. And the very first team (of several) to limp to that record was the first officially-recognized team in MLB... the Cincinnati Reds of 1876.
Well, at least the Reds can't lose if they don't play, right? (This was among many Reds-related things on the Internet this week, and because this is a family show, we'll spare you most of the others.) Although, to their credit, the Reds were the last holdout who actually tried to play.
Most of the U.S. deals with the occasional pop-up "afternoon thunderstorm" come July and August. A bunch of water falls from the sky at once, hopefully it's over in about a half-hour, it stops as quickly and it starts, and we're back to playing baseball. When a spring jet stream sets up over the Ohio Valley and water just keeps falling for days at a time, well, baseball, we have a problem.
By 11 am on Friday the Yankees had already thrown in a wet towel due to a "threat" of rain eight hours later. That was an hour after the Cubs had given up on their afternoon game. We see more and more teams doing this under the auspices of "convenience for the fans", but really it feels like a calculated move so that they don't have to pay a bunch of stadium workers for 2 hours and then send them home. By early afternoon we had tacked on Cleveland and Philadelphia. Baltimore snuck in at 4:30, right as those same ballpark workers would have been showing up to open at 6:00. So Cincinnati was indeed the last holdout, going so far as to open the gates to a throng of a few hundred loyalists. Although they did post a message that the game would not start on time, there appeared to be a proverbial "window" over Indiana which would have allowed some baseball. Nope. Right at the scheduled start time at 6:40, the Reds announced that the game would not start at all. Can't lose if you don't play.
Count 'em, that's six postponements, matching the most on a single day this century, at least for weather. The last time that happened was April 15, 2018, with the swath of rain just a little farther west (taking out Detroit, Minnesota, and Kansas City as well). The previous occurrence of six postponements was on September 12, 2008, when one storm system took out the northeast at the same time Hurricane Ike was bearing down on Houston. You can also make a case for Hurricane Irene in 2011, when several games were intentionally played early ("pre-poned", we call this) so teams could get out of town before the storm hit.
As for the all-time record, according to Elias, that belongs to the eight games that got washed out on April 12, 1997-- including Detroit, Cleveland, both Pennsylvania teams, both New York teams, and for whatever reason Milwaukee.
Several of those same teams, including both New York combatants, got rained out again on Saturday, meaning you went three days without seeing the best-in-AL Yankees and two days without the best-in-baseball Mets. (The Brewers finally caught them by actually playing games, but still.) If you're thinking it might have been a while since that happened, well, remember that pretty much every team had a bunch of games moved due to "protocol" during the summer of 2020. So that was a non-starter. But the Mets probably didn't mind hanging out and watching their Thursday game on repeat.
The Mets and Phillies play each other a lot. They're in the same division and it's only about a 2-hour ride between them, depending on how many toll-evading back roads you want to take. They've already played three separate series this year. So the Phillies are familiar with Taijuan Walker by now. In fact, his first start of the year was when he hurt a shoulder and went on the injured list for nearly 3 weeks. He got activated just in time for the second Mets/Phils series. Which was last week. Rotations being what they are, guess who gets the first game of the third Mets/Phils series. Walker winds up being the first pitcher in Mets history whose first 3 starts of a season all came against the same opponent.
Perhaps that's why they tagged him for 7 runs, including back-to-back homers from Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos. Harper would also double later in the game, and now that we are in the new era of "universal DH", he's recorded half the instances where a Phillies DH would homer and double in the same game. He also did it April 17 in Miami; the others are Andrew McCutchen in 2020 (also a "universal DH" season) and Nick Williams against the Angels on August 3, 2017.
We'll just jump ahead, because Starling Marte does the only damage against Aaron Nola with a solo homre in the 6th. So it's 7-1 with James Norwood coming to the mound with a decent leash. Which he proceeds to wrap around a tree. Single, 2-run homer, double, liner to second, single. 7-3, two on, suddenly a save situation for Corey Knebel. We still think Norwood should get a "blown hold" for this. It's our new stat for when you are not in a save situation, but the pitcher after you is. But we digress. Because you know we wouldn't be writing about this game if Knebel went gently into the Philadelphia night. Infield single. Strikeout. There's still hope. J.D. Davis, pinch-hit double, the Mets' first one of those against the Phillies with 2 outs in the 9th since John Valentin on July 2, 2002.
And then Brandon Nimmo finds center field for the Mets' first game-tying single when trailing by multiple runs and down to their last out since Asdrubal Cabrera hit one in Miami on April 16, 2017. It's still only tied, however. So may he who sent across the first run also send across the last one. Starling Marte doubles home Nimmo and the Mets have rallied for 7 runs in the 9th. The last time they recorded that high a number in that high an inning was April 6, 2002, in Atlanta, when they scored 9 in the 9th for an 11-2 win. Eight of those runs came off John Smoltz, the only relief appearance of his career where he allowed more than 5.
However, we're in Philadelphia. So Marte's double to complete the comeback is not a walkoff. Edwin Diaz-- who has had a few shaky saves of his own during his time with the Mets-- still has to get 3 outs. Which he does, on 14 pitches with batters not even making contact on 12 of them. And now we have that 19th Mets win for (temporarily, at least) the best record in baseball.
And the last time the Mets trailed by 6 runs in the 9th and ended up winning? That was September 13, 1997, when they trailed the Expos 6-0 at Shea. After the Mets loaded the bases, Ugueth Urbina gave up a 3-run double to Carl [expletive] Everett (whoops, sorry, wrong Carl Everett game] to send the game to extras. The Mets then won on Bernard Gilkey's walkoff homer in the 11th.
We admit, no-hitters are impressive and can occasionally be somewhat fun (if we're not trying to dig through 12 other games at the same time). But there's been over 300 of them now. There were nine last year, plus two "unofficial" ones thrown in 7-inning doubleheaders. And with deference to "Seinfeld", it's hard to write about nothing. (Though somehow every Sunday we pull it off.) Sometimes "falling" just short of a no-hitter is much more interesting. We all remember The Rich Hill Game. The Marwin Gonzalez Game. The combined one a few weeks ago, which we'll call The Bobby Dalbec Game because he broke it up in the 10th (with a triple!). Do you remember The Spencer Turnbull Game? No? It was less than a year ago.
Daniel Norris technically started a combined no-hitter for the Cubs in the night game of the doubleheader caused by Friday's rainout. Problem was, he needed 32 pitches to get 4 outs, and that was after walking the first three batters of the 2nd inning. So no, he did not give up a hit. He did, however, give up 3 runs because Hanser Alberto drew another walk from Keegan Thompson, temporarily giving the Dodgers 1 run on 0 hits. One of the tenets of our nightly no-hitter watch, learned from Andy Hawkins and Ervin Santana, is that just because they've scored a run, doesn't mean they have a hit.
Mookie Betts would fix that by promptly hitting a bases-clearing double. Norris thus became the first Cubs starter to allow 0 hits but 3 runs since Matt Clement against the Expos on September 10, 2003. (Clement walked 5, but it also took him 5+ innings.) Mookie then got stranded at second, meaning the Dodgers now have 4 runs on 1 hit.
Thompson issues one more walk but gets through the 3rd and 4th unscathed. Chris Martin has a perfect 5th. Rowan Wick gives up two more walks and a wild pitch in the 6th, but still no hits. Scott Effross gets through the 7th on 11 pitches. Will Smith gives a long ride to a Mychal Givens pitch in the 8th, but it's caught in right. "4 on 1" is still up there. And if you think that's weirder than a no-hitter, well, you'd be very very right. There have only been two games in the live-ball era where a team finished with 4+ runs on 1 hit. The Mariners did it in Houston on July 20, 2013, in a game where they had 6 walks, a sac fly, and Michael Saunders' double in the 7th. We hinted at the other: Andy Hawkins' famous 4-unearned-runs unofficial no-hitter for the Yankees on July 1, 1990.
David Robertson enters for the 9th, and of course we're prepared for a 7-hit outburst like the Mets had on Thursday to blow this whole thing up. With 2 outs he issues the ninth walk of the game, this time to Gavin Lux. With Mookie on deck. And may he who had the first hit, also have the second. This one ends up in the left-field bleachers for not only a 2-run homer, but an even more obscure "6 on 2". There have only been two of those in the live-ball era either, both against the Blue Jays. The Orioles did it in a 7-walk affair on September 21, 1996, and the A's got a full dozen free passes in beating the Jays 8-4 on April 12, 1994.
Ah, but Freddie Freeman, who made history earlier in the day (more in a moment), is going to deny us a chance at more of it. He gets a blooper that falls for a hit in shallow center and finally ends this thing at "6 on 3". Not historic from an MLB sense. But yes, historic from a Dodgers sense. Back to 1901, they'd never before scored 6+ runs in a game on no more than 3 hits. And they're the second team ever to do it at Wrigley Field. The Cubs had themselves a similar game on October 5, 1991, when they did a 7-on-3 with 9 walks and 4 stolen bases, against the Cardinals.
If you were counting along, you also realize that Mookie Betts was responsible for 5 of the 6 Dodgers RBIs. (The other came on the first bases-loaded walk.) The last Dodgers leadoff batter to post a 5-RBI game was... Mookie Betts against the Padres on August 13, 2020. And the only other to do it twice is Chase Utley; both his games happened in 2016.
And we can't let Saturday in Chicago pass without a nod to Mr. Freeman. In the day game, which the Dodgers won with the more-traditional line score of "7 on 11", he hit a 1st-inning double off Drew Smyly, ending up on third only because Michael Hermosillo misplayed it in center. Freeman would later be the batter to chase Smyly out of the game with another double in the 5th. And then in the 7th, he deposits another double off the ivy in right-center.
The Cubs and the Dodgers have been playing each other since the latter moved over from the American Association in 1890. (We think Vin Scully might have called that first "Bridegrooms" game at Washington Park, but this is unconfirmed.) They've been playing each other at Wrigley Field since 1916, before it was called that. Counting postseason, Saturday's day game was the 835th time they'd met at the corner of Clark and Addison. How many Dodgers batters have ever had a 3-double game there? Yep, one. Freddie Freeman.
I Left My Hits In San Francisco
Yes, 4-on-1 or 6-on-2 or 6-on-3 is weird-looking to us as baseball fans because the natural order of things decrees that more batters are going to get hits than will actually score (the rest get stranded). So the ones who "fall" through the cracks and get on base in other ways create this phenomenon we call an inverted linescore, one where the runs column is actually greater. Leave it to two California teams to turn things on their head.
While the Dodgers were off drawing four straight walks at Wrigley, the Giants began their game on Saturday against the Cardinals with 2 walks and a single around an infield fly. That just gives Wilmer Flores the chance for a 1st-inning grand slam, the first one the Giants have hit at home since Jose Guillen against Milwaukee on September 19, 2010.
Mauricio Dubon and Darin Ruf add homers of their own in the 2nd and suddenly it's 8-3 on only 5 Giants hits. Steven Matz has already become just the second Cardinals starter ever to give up 8 runs and 3 homers in a game in San Francisco. The fun part of this note is that the other game wasn't at Oracle... and it wasn't at Candlestick. It was at Seals! Gary Blalock did it in a 9-4 loss on May 27, 1959.
Jake Woodford quiets the uprising aside from a sac fly and an unearned run by Flores in the 4th. By the time we reached the 8th, Kodi Whitley is on the hill for St Louis, and he throws a total of 26 pitches. And 10 of them were even strikes. But that means the other 16 were... well, yeah. Four straight walks to score an 11th Giants run without a hit. Whitley is the first Cards pitcher to face 4 batters and walk all of them since Lloyd "Whitey" Moore did it at Wrigley on August 13, 1942. T.J. McFarland enters and promptly hits Luis Gonzalez to score a 12th run, also without a hit. Thairo Estrada then lifts a sac fly to right for a final score of 13-7, not only our second-highest output by any team this week, but with all those runs scoring on just 9 hits. The Giants had not done a 13-on-9 since at least 1900, and no team had done it at all since the Rays rode 9 walks to a win over Oakland on May 18, 2009.
And those 4 walks that Kodi Whitley issued? Take a guess who got the last one. It's the same guy who hit the grand slam in the 1st and the sac fly in the 4th, Wilmer Flores. That means he drove in 6 runs in a game where he only had 1 hit. Only one other player in Giants history had pulled that off; Monte Irvin had a grand slam plus two groundouts against the Braves on April 19, 1951. And the only other Giants batter ever to have any 6-RBI game against the Cardinals was their all-time leader in that category. Mel Ott did it at the Polo Grounds on June 7, 1930.
Put The O in Oakland
Like their rivals across the Bay, the A's have been trying for years to build a new waterfront ballpark. (Unlike the A's, the Giants actually did it.) And like their California counterparts, the A's found their hit total drying up on Saturday, also finishing with only 3 base knocks in their game in Minneapolis. Unfortunately they did not score 6 runs on those 3 hits. In fact they didn't score any. In a repeat of the game that started this post, Jorge Polanco fouled off three 2-strike pitches from James Kaprielian in the 6th before launching one to center. Polanco 1, Athletics 0. Between the Minnesota weather, the previous enormity of the Metrodome, and all those bombs they were known for a few years ago, the Twins are no stranger to winning 1-0 games via solo homer. But Saturday was the first time they'd ever done it against the Athletics, and that goes back to the days of Washington against Philadelphia. There are still four AL teams against whom they've never done it, although they are the four "newest"-- Kansas City, Seattle, Tampa Bay, and Toronto.
As for Polanco, he had as many hits as the A's did, tacking on a double and a single but getting nowhere. A Twins player hadn't gone single-double-homer and had the team only score once since Doug Mientkiewicz in Toronto on July 31, 2001. And that hadn't happened at home since back in those days when it was Washington against Philadelphia. Early Wynn pulled off the trick at Griffith Stadium on August 17, 1947.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Spencer Strider, Friday: First Braves "reliever" to strike out 8 and issue 0 walks since Lew Burdette against the Phillies on September 5, 1961.
⚾ Manny Machado, Thursday: First player in Padres history to hit 2 homers in a game that the team won by a score of 2-0 or 2-1.
⚾ Gleyber Torres, Monday: First go-ahead hit for Yankees with 2 outs in the 9th in Toronto since Tony Clark on July 26, 2004.
⚾ Gleyber Torres, Sunday: Yankees' first walkoff homer in the first game of a doubleheader since Ken Phelps against Seattle on August 19, 1988.
⚾ Mets, Tuesday: First time scoring multiple runs in 1st inning of both games of a doubleheader since July 30, 1996, against the Pirates.
⚾ Joe Dunand, Saturday: Third player to make MLB debut with the Marlins and, in that game, both hit a homer and score 2 runs. Joins Mike Redmond (May 31, 1998) and Charles Johnson (May 6, 1994).
⚾ Jon Berti, Wednesday: First Marlins batter to hit a leadoff homer, and then go yard again later in the same game, since Justin Ruggiano at San Francisco on June 23, 2013.
⚾ Yankees, Sunday: First time held to 2 runs on 5 hits (or less) in both games of a home doubleheader since July 19, 1970, against the Angels.
⚾ Jose Berrios, Thursday: First Jays starter to give up 6+ runs and strike out 0 in a game at Progressive Field. Last at Cleveland Municipal was none other than Jack Morris on April 16, 1993.
⚾ Giants, Tuesday: First game where their only run scored on a pinch-hit sac fly since Lance Niekro drove in Ray Durham in San Diego on September 28, 2005.
⚾ Blue Jays, Saturday: First time scoring 8+ runs in Cleveland without homering since April 20, 1987.
⚾ Guardians, Wednesday: First time losing the first game of a doubleheader by 1 run, and then walking off in the second game, since July 20, 1969, against Detroit. That wasn't the only "walkoff" that day. Yes, the moon landing happened between games of that twinbill.
⚾ Austin Hays & Ryan Mountcastle, Sunday: First Orioles teammates to each have 4 hits in a home loss since Miguel Tejada & Nick Markakis against Chicago, July 29, 2006.
⚾ Cesar Hernandez, Friday: Second Nationals batter ever to hit a leadoff homer in Anaheim. Brad Wilkerson took Paul Byrd deep on June 13, 2005.
⚾ Jazz Chisholm & Jesús Aguilar, Tuesday: Second time in Marlins history that their #1 and #2 batters each had 2 hits and 2 RBI in a loss. Todd Dunwoody & Alex Gonzalez did it in Cincinnati on August 28, 1998.
⚾ Pirates, Saturday: First time in team history (1882) hitting 3 homers in the 1st inning of a game.
⚾ Jorge Mateo, Thursday: First Orioles/Browns #9 batter with a homer and a triple in the same game since pitcher Steve Sundra at Chicago, July 5, 1942.
⚾ Yandy Diaz, Monday: Second leadoff homer ever hit by Rays in Oakland. Rocco Baldelli off Dan Haren, August 11, 2006.
⚾ Jorge Alfaro, Sunday: Second walkoff homer in Padres history against the Marlins. Carlos Hernandez took Justin Speier deep on August 7, 1998.
⚾ Nelson Cruz, Saturday: Third Nats/Expos batter ever to have a homer and 4 strikeouts in the same game, after Ryan Zimmerman (July 10, 2013) and Adam Dunn (July 22, 2010).
⚾ Ben Gamel, Wednesday: First Pirates batter to hit leadoff in both games of a doubleheader, and have 2+ hits and 1+ RBI in each, since Tony Womack in San Francisco on July 27, 1997.
⚾ Eugenio Suarez, Friday: Third player in Mariners history to hit 2 homers and draw 2 walks in a loss. Others are only Edgar Martinez (July 24, 1995) and Ken Griffey Jr (May 18, 1994).
⚾ Scott Effross, Tuesday: First Cubs starter with the unusual line of 0 earned runs, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts, and a loss, since Dennis Lamp at Houston on August 23, 1978.
⚾ Colin Moran, Sunday: Reds' first lead-flipping grand slam against the Pirates since Wily Mo Peña on June 25, 2004.
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