trivial occurrences 2020

Spencer Strider is surely the most ILM pitcher out there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD3x5o1tji0

With two on and one out in the second inning, [Kutter Crawford] unleashed a full-count cutter to Max Kepler that elicited a tapper just in front of the plate. Conner Wong sprung to the ball to initiate a rare, inning-ending, 2-6-3 double play, the only recorded instance of such a twin killing in available play-by-play data, which dates to 1988.

Put it on glovework you cowards!

Beautiful play, Connor “🥰🥰🥰” Wong has such a great arm on him

What a double play by the Sox pic.twitter.com/qkN6bMwf0Q

— The Pesky Report (39-35) (@PeskyReport) June 21, 2023

Tonight is the 6th time this season the White Sox pitching staff has recorded 15+ strikeouts (17 tonight).

They are 0-6 in those games.

— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) June 24, 2023

I watched Lance Lynn strike out maybe 17(?) Mariners and still lose. Initially I was like, eh that’s not saying a huge amount cos my beloved Mariners are the 4th highest as a team in strikeouts and the offence has been pretty bad for weeks now, BUT it was genuine Tungsten Arm shit.

Giolito got most of his strikeouts against just three Red Sox; Adam Duvall & Connor Wong both were 0-3 on strikeouts against him, and each struck out a fourth time against the relievers. Christian Arroyo went 0-4 with 3ks as well. So hat fully tipped cos that is not a team that strikes out a lot, especially in the same game.

Also, the Red Sox had 4 hits to the White Sox 8.

Credit to @StrangedeBill1:

4 pitchers, and 4 pitchers only, have played in the majors after attending Fullerton Union High School in Fullerton CA, and now all 4 have thrown an MLB no-hitter. This is a simply incredible baseball fact—most amazing ever. pic.twitter.com/96VdAjCvj4

— High Heat Stats (@HighHeatStats) August 10, 2023

but how hot is he in person

Dominic Leone has pitched at Citi Field for the:

Mets (7/29)
Angels (8/26)
Mariners (Sun)

that 37-day span is the 3rd-shortest since 1900 for a player to play at a venue for 3 diff teams, behind only:

Mike Piazza at Sun Life Stadium, '98: 17
Bobby Rhawn at Shibe Park, '49: 26

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) September 3, 2023

don't know why i went down the Joe Magrane rabbithole today but even in the context of the changing game, it's wild to see that he threw 10 shutouts in his brief-ish career (all from 1987-1990) and meanwhile Scherzer has thrown 5, and Verlander has thrown 9.

"I went down the Joe Magrane rabbithole today"--words never before uttered throughout the entirety of human history.

He used to be the cardinals best pitcher when I was first following them, and I’d stare at his cards all the time. On the whole, pitchers are kind of strange creatures. Somehow I feel like becoming familiar with magrane partly introduced me to that

Lucas Giolito is the first pitcher to allow 8+ runs in a game for 3 different MLB teams in the same season since Bill Magee did so in 1899 for the Louisville Colonels, Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Senators.

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) September 5, 2023

Correction: the Baltimore Orioles tonight became the first American MLB team in history to beat every other team at least once in a single season. The Toronto Blue Jays accomplished this back on September 1.

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) September 12, 2023

Amazing that it never happened before, but I guess the interleague scheduling used to be very different, so it wasn't always possible in past years.

However, that bit of trivia calls for CodifyBaseball variations:

In 2022, Aaron Judge became the first Yankee MLB player in history to hit more than 61 HR in a season.

In 2010, Joey Votto became the first non-West Coast born Canadian MLB player in history to win an MVP.

In 2022, the Houston Astros became the first MLB team in history to win a World Series while being managed by Dusty Baker.

etc.

Saw this list on Reddit & posting here purely for the Mark Prior mention for user felicity

https://i.postimg.cc/ryryXfzp/IMG-0563.jpg

Oh I’m a fucking idiot: the list is last pitcher to strike out 15 in a single game

Honor the Prior!

<3

Cole is buoying NYA and HOU but couldn't help PIT out of the basement there

I’m sorry to tell you that People Magazine does not know ball. Bellinger and Betts aren’t even the best looking guys on their respective teams! Shohei is a good pick.

Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Cody Bellinger have made People Magazine's list of Sexiest Men in Sports

They appear alongside Messi, Lewis Hamilton, Travis Kelce and others pic.twitter.com/q9TX6xAm1U

— Cut4 (@Cut4) November 8, 2023

Maybe we need a thread that's an ILB version of Greil Marcus's "Real Life Top 10":

https://www.mlb.com/news/billie-eilish-wears-jake-peavy-jersey

I saw this cos I follow Peavy on Instagram and he was so happy because his teenage son is a fan and it instantly made him cooler by proxy, lol. He said he was going to send her a signed shirt!

Aaron Nola has thrown 10,000 fastballs in his career. 9 of them have been 96 MPH or faster. 3 of those 9 were thrown to his brother, Austin Nola. pic.twitter.com/8UPrrbEUf9

— Baseball Dugout (@baseballdugout_) October 20, 2022

Neat idea:

https://i.postimg.cc/kXZ7s0yW/salary.jpg

Six players who are in the HOF, one who will be (Freeman), one who might be (deGrom), plus A-Rod. Bob Feller's $82,500 would be worth all of $1,043,067.01 in 2023 dollars according to this:

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Not too much over the minimum salary.

cousin dave <3

Matt Cain might have been the worst pitcher (including RP!) on the Giants that season which is frankly surprising.

the last Giant to have a 30HR season was… Barry Bonds in ‘04

Brandon Belt came closest in 2021. It’s a hard park for homers cos it’s pretty much limited to pull side hitting due to not only the park dimensions but also the marine layer iirc? As we know, there has never been a rhh splash hit and as for lefties going oppo…

L: the 97 HR hit 420+ feet by LHH at Oracle Park in the Statcast Era (since 2015) before tonight

R: what Triston Casas just did https://t.co/NEB7B0GFPZ pic.twitter.com/GLVBe4qPcn

— Céspedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) July 29, 2023

100% on park dims, also sea level altitude (>20 ft), high humidity, stadium shelter on 3B/LF side acts as a windshield when honestly there is almost always a strong afternoon breeze pulling straight out to RF... but park dims make this (& SD) a huge power drain (almost wrote dong drain, sorry).

lol. On that note, you can go to sadly defunct twitter account would_it_dong and search Oracle to see all the moonshots that are described as “Only Oracle Park would have held that one in”

https://twitter.com/would_it_dong

Relatedly, this infamous Red Sox twitter meme

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fb1J5itX0AE_0p8?format=jpg&name=large

Fenway is god-tier park dims. <3<3<3

I believe I made a park dims thread...?

I sure did!

S/D Unconventional Stadium Dimensions

I was looking at the NL ROTY for 2002 to see who finished above Mark Prior (not saying he should have won it, but wanted to see if I recognised any of the names). Look at the guy who finished in 4th! Negative WAR, league-high walks(106 in 154 innings), WHIP of 1.578 (Prior’s was 1.166). What on earth was going on there?

https://i.postimg.cc/J4Dvykkt/IMG-6367.jpg

14 wins as a rookie and had a gruesome end of season injury which may have lent some sympathy votes.

Steve Shasta…You are unreal

lollin'~q

...pardon my ignorance. When did you start posting on ILX gyac? I created this subboard 21 years ago (!) when I had tons of free time and we could have used more quality posters such as yourself.

Firstly!

Secondly, I had to check, 2011? But I only got into baseball in 2022. I’m trying very hard to make up for lost time though! One day we will meet and pore over your big book of player injuries together 🫡🫡🫡

Yes please!

HEALTH IS WEALTH

(aw, thanks for the kind words too!)

Was WAR around in 2002? I know there was an earlier version at some point--VORP--but I don't think it was. A couple of the awards that year were obvious--Bonds and Johnson--but Tejada winning MVP over A-Rod suggests voting was still pretty old-school.

No idea, and I’m not even a WAR believer tbh (it’s just one stat of many & I personally cbf thinking about the different kinds), but I just mentioned it as shorthand for a negative WAR (for a reliever, no less!) being reflective of some less than shining performances.

I think it's a great tool for narrowing the field and making sure there's never a Baylor/Burroughs-type winner again. (And honestly, you don't need WAR for that.) But I'm far from a true believer. I like a little narrative in the mix!

If you want to feel really old: Kent Tekulve turns 77 today.

thought he'd be older

https://i.imgur.com/Zp1C3Dt.jpeg

I wonder if his arm even works these days...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVGks-UU0AIl4VC?format=jpg&name=small

According to noted White Sox stats poster Jay Cuda, they are only the second team in baseball history to have--take a deep breath--zero runs, zero walks, zero extra-base hits, and 10 or more strikeouts in an Opening Day game. The previous instance was in 1967, when the San Francisco Giants faced Bob Gibson and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Tbf they should definitely have had a walk going by the scorecard

#OpeningDay
Umpire: Brian O'Nora
Final: Tigers 1, White Sox 0#RepDetroit // #WhiteSox#DETvsCWS // #CWSvsDET

More stats for this game 👇https://t.co/fASdPcVOMs pic.twitter.com/uFV9X0FshR

— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) March 29, 2024

Tyler Anderson vs. Chase Anderson--that seems worth noting.

the astros' manager and the orioles' manager are brothers-in-law because their wives are sisters