trivial occurrences 2020

just wait until the diamondbacks promote the Ng quadruplets

How do you hit .000 and match Babe Ruth in the record books?

You do what White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal just did -- go 0-for-3 with 13 walks in four games. With the strange stat line, Grandal joined the Bambino (1930) as the only players in American League history to walk 13 or more times in a four-game span.

If you add in the National League, you're only going to add one more player to the list -- Bryce Harper, who accomplished the feat in 2016.

wow, grandal's current line is:

.121/.388/.259

Carlos Martínez, a nine-year veteran, raised his career ERA from 3.55 to 3.64 in less than an inning.

— Foolish Baseball (@FoolishBB) June 3, 2021

It was a tough day

yankees (taillon) vs red sox (eovaldi) today is the first MLB game in which both starters have had multiple tommy johns

Since 1901, the Twins are just the 4th team to hit 7 HR in a 9-inning game and lose.

White Sox (6/25/16 vs Blue Jays)
Tigers (8/8/04 vs Red Sox)
Tigers (5/28/95 vs White Sox)https://t.co/fHLzbRR4BO

— Stathead (@Stathead) July 28, 2021

OK I’m interrupting my vacation one more time for this incredible tidbit.

2 teams in the last 100 years had scored in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th innings of any game. And then last night 2 teams did it in the same game! #Royals #Yankees

Baseball!

Now back to the beach

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) August 10, 2021

HISTORY at Dodger Stadium: Austin Adams ties the all-time record for hit batters in a season in the modern era (21) by plunking Will Smith in the ninth inning. He's done it in 47 2/3 innings. Most recent guy to hit 21 (Kerry Wood in '03) needed 211

— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) September 12, 2021

Paul Goldschmidt is now the all-time leader in hits for a player born in Delaware with 1,549. He surpassed Delino DeShields with that double.

That makes him first in hits for the First State.#Cardinals #stlcards #MLB

— Derrick S. Goold (@dgoold) September 15, 2021

Gavin Sheets with a hit off Lance McCullers, Jr., radio broadcast just said there's family history as Gavin's dad Larry had a hit off Lance McCullers, Sr.

Terrance Gore:

- 102 MLB career games
- 0 career Home Runs
- 1 career RBI
- 2 career Doubles
- 3 World Series rings. He has more World Series rings than Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, and Mike Trout combined (2).@LoCronitaTV pic.twitter.com/IwRVNwUHiH

— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) November 3, 2021

guy's a winner

amazing!

102 games, 77 PAs, 3 world series rings

0 HRs

2022 is official terrance gore HR watch imo

in 2016, with the royals, in 27 games he finished with .000/.000/.000 and 0.4 fWAR, due to his defense

Terrance Gore WS-Ring Watch.

extrapolated over a full 162 game season, he would be .000.000.000 and 2.0 fWAR

Amazing that teams manage to find space for a player like him in an era of 12 and 13-man pitching staffs.

ya well how else are they gonna win a WS?!

Jays tried this with Munenori Kawasaki, didn't take.

Roel Ramírez has made two big-league pitching appearances, one each in 2020 and 2021 with the St. Louis Cardinals. The 26-year-old right-hander — now in the New York Mets organization — has been charged with nine earned runs in one inning of work. Ramirez’s 81.00 currently ranks as the highest in the modern era among pitchers who have recorded at least three outs.

hell yeah

I wonder how Yu Darvish's two starts stack up historically in the schizophrenia department:

1st: 6.0 IP, 0 runs, 0 hits, 4 walks, 3 K, GS of 71
2nd: 1.2 IP, 9 runs, 8 hits, 2 walks, 2 K, GS of 3

Bo Bichette's go-ahead grand slam tonight was his first; also the 25th anniversary of Carlos Delgado's first slam.

take that, chicago

COAST TO COAST 📈

For the first time in MLB history, all four LA and NY teams are leading their respective divisions. pic.twitter.com/1t729bcd0a

— ESPN (@espn) May 4, 2022

The Orioles are now 0-6 when Anthony Santander hits multiple HR in a game -- Santander is the only player in MLB history to lose the first 6 multi-HR games of his career. pic.twitter.com/E2e26g6siW

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 17, 2022

The Braves' bid to win 15 in a row falls short as the Cubs become the first club since 1999 to beat a team with a 10+ game winning streak while on a 10+ game losing streak.

This is so ephemeral it's not even an occurrence, but I noticed that Machado, Devers, and Ramirez are 1-2-3 on Fangraphs' WAR list today. Those are arguably the three most underappreciated players in baseball, all at the same position.

Starting next year, every team will play each other for at least one series per year. So I got to thinking who has hit a home run in every park, and came up with this list. Currently no active player has done it.

https://www.quora.com/Who-has-hit-a-home-run-in-every-active-MLB-park

now this is trivial

First time in modern history (since 1900) that an MLB player has driven in the only run of a game off his brother.
Austin Nola’s RBI single off Aaron Nola in the sixth inning gives Padres a 1-0 victory over the Phillies.

— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) June 25, 2022

well that was rude. breaking one of the unwritten rules there

Every team in the A.L. East is .500 or better tonight--is that the latest date ever for such a thing in the wild-card era?

Found this piece from June 25, 2013 (A.L. East again).

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1683743-can-the-2013-al-east-make-history-with-all-5-teams-finishing-above-500

Not even close:

In 2005, the entire NL East actually finished at or above .500: Braves (90-72), Phillies (88-74), Marlins (83-79), Mets (83-79) and Nationals (81-81).

If they can hang on for three more days, it will mark the second-latest date for this.

https://www.mlb.com/news/all-al-east-teams-at-500-or-better

A reader on James's site:

"Over the course of his career, Vin Scully called a game involving a manager who was born in 1863 (Connie Mack), and a game involving a player born in 1996 (Julio Urias)."

Derek Law, making history for the Tigers in Toronto: The first pitcher to allow a homer, commit an error, hit a batter and throw a wild pitch in a single relief appearance.

— Ryan Ford (@theford) July 30, 2022

George Kirby of the Mariners: 24 strikes to start the game.

https://www.mlb.com/news/george-kirby-throws-24-straight-strikes-to-start-a-game

Had to look him up--rookie, 17 starts. Doubt that anyone without exceptional control could do that, and sure enough, only 13 walks in 90 IP. He needs more innings, but he might get a few ROY votes.

Got me reading up on the other George Kirby, who I'm guessing most of you (mookieproof, maybe) don't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kirby

Old, weird trivial occurrences (from something on my FB wall): "Trammell and Whitaker got their first major league hit off the same pitcher (Reggie Cleveland), and their final major league hit off the same pitcher (Mike Fetters)."

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/why-are-the-atlanta-braves-bunting-at-all/

the braves have only made four bunt attempts this season, by far the fewest bunt attempts by a team since bunts have been tracked. all four bunt attempts were unsuccessful (one would have been successful but michael harris II tried to stretch a bunt single into a double and got thrown out)

only four bunts! That’s kind of amazing.

From The Baseball 100: on Sept. 26, 1975, both Gaylord and Jim Perry had career W-L records of 215-174.

Still plugging away with the Posnanski book. Maybe I knew this already, but I'm not sure: George Brett (29th) and Mike Schmidt (30th) were drafted consecutively in the second round of the '71 draft.

wrong sport but i feel like i must honor this level of triviality

on Saturday, Trent Alexander-Arnold could become the first player to play a Premier League game next to a river that shares his first name since Don Hutchinson for Everton away at Sheffield Wednesday in September 1999 pic.twitter.com/WNyaZn3swF

— Michael Cox (@Zonal_Marking) October 20, 2022

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FfpIHoiXoAIP2PG.jpg:small

From Posnanski's book: Rickey Henderson was named after Ricky Nelson. "Travelin' Man'--makes sense.

Had no idea Whitey Herzog played alongside Satchel Paige (at least 51 at the time).

I cannot verify the truth of this--turned up on my FB wall:

"In high school, Joey Gallo tossed a no-hitter and then took Greg Maddux's daughter to prom the same night."

(If true, had to have her home in fewer than 100 pitches.)

He definitely struck out

this may be pretty common baseball trivia knowledge, but:

who was the first non-pitcher to get tommy john surgery?

i bet someone is going to it within 20 minutes (and that’s just because no one will click on this for 15-20 mimnutes)

I'm all over the clicking...no idea.

whoa, really? i thought you might know this one, thought of you first!

i’ll give you a hint: it was one of the first 10 tommy john surgeries performed (at least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_players_who_underwent_Tommy_John_surgery)

that’s how i wanted that to be formatted. good

another hint: it was the 7th tommy john performed….and the first one in which tommy john was the surgeon, which is why it’s named after him.

answer:
tommy john's knife slipped and carved off a shoulder-sized portion of buttocks, spurring an triumphant improvisational surgery on THIS first non-pitcher to receive tommy john surgery.

Wow--if I ever heard that discussed, I've long since forgotten. (That table can be ordered chronologically.)

hint: this player was known for being really good at baseball

redacted visual hint:

https://i.ibb.co/WNnSpwX6/redact.jpg

(That table can be ordered chronologically.)

oh i know!
it started off trying to figure out which non-pitchers had tj and then quickly turned into a big surprise at the 7th ever tj surgery, [REDACTED]

lol, i love that i redacted every mention of [REDACTED] in that wikipedia image…except for one. probably at least one. eagle eyed image viewers will want to check this one out

i do like the image of ted williams telling himself, every single of time he watched him in, matter of fact, “there’s joe."

Seeing as his name is already visible, I'll mention that that's now two things people have forgotten about Molitor--the other being his cocaine use early in his career.

(Two of his three years in Toronto were sublime.)

The result of their inability to adjust against Rasmussen? Infamy.

According to Elias, the Red Sox became the first team ever to have its top three batters (Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Wilyer Abreu) go a combined 0 for 9 with nine strikeouts in their first three plate appearances.