trivial occurrences 2020

The @Padres are the first team EVER to hit a grand slam in four consecutive games.

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) August 21, 2020

holy shit they did it

before yesterday

We have a winner.

Last time there were multiple MLB games played on a day, and none of them lasted 9 innings: Jun 21 1943. American League off-day. pic.twitter.com/E1H9PnYj64

— Doug Kern (@dakern74) August 28, 2020

Padres and Rockies combined for 14 runs and 28 hits at Coors tonight with only 1 Home Run. Got me looking for the highest scoring games with no extra base hits and it led me to this wild 2005 Phillies vs Marlins game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200509170.shtml

D-train takes a complete game shutout into the 9th with a 2 run lead and ends up losing 10-2, on a ton of hits, errors, and hit batsmen.

Jacob deGrom just became the first pitcher to induce at least 31 swings and misses in a game and LOSE since Pedro Martinez had 37 misses (and 17 K's) in a 1-0 loss to Steve Trachsel on May 6, 2000.

— David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) August 31, 2020

because of the marlins' earlier covid-related schedule issues, new outfielder starling marte could possibly play 65 games in a 60-game season

MILWAUKEE -- Josh Hader and the Brewers closed their homestand with a Major League record.

Hader finished the Brewers’ 8-5 win over the Tigers on Wednesday night at Miller Park with a record-setting 12th consecutive hitless appearance to begin the season, snapping a tie he had shared with three others and capping a winning homestand that kept Milwaukee in the thick of the postseason chase -- losing record and all.

Nobody’s perfect, and Hader certainly hasn’t been. His velocity is a tick down this season and his walks were up even before an outing Saturday against the Pirates when he blew a save by walking five of the six batters he faced, forcing home the tying and go-ahead runs. The Brewers bailed him out that night with Eric Sogard’s walk-off home run, and the next day, Hader threw a rare bullpen session to, in his words, “make sure I was able to throw it over the plate, at least.”

Back on the mound on Monday, Hader struck out the side in a win over Pittsburgh. On Wednesday against Detroit, he hit the first man he faced before retiring the next three.

With that, Hader had 12 straight hitless games spanning 11 2/3 innings to begin 2020. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s the longest season-opening streak of appearances without allowing a hit in history, snapping a tie he had shared with 2017 Tiger Justin Wilson, 1999 Phillie Scott Aldred and 1987 Red John Franco.

...“He's good at baseball,” Christian Yelich said.

Do people even care about hitless streaks anymore if you're walking 5 straight batters in the thick of it?

it's pretty trivial, i'd say

Today is just the 23rd day in MLB history with 20+ games. First time since 1974 pic.twitter.com/Xxx6TRWCco

— Dan Hirsch (@DanHirsch) September 4, 2020

13 XBH today is a brewers franchise record

19 runs, of which yelich got 1, which feels representative of his season so far

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29863609/tampa-bay-rays-first-mlb-modern-history-start-all-lefties

Luke Voit hit a game-ending sacrifice fly leading off the 10th inning

Cavan Biggio is the 7th player (since stolen bases became an official stat) to steal 20 bases without being caught to begin a career.#BlueJays

— Rodney Hiemstra (@therodbot) September 18, 2020

SABR-approved percentage

From Jon Couture:

Jon Lester, regular season with Red Sox: .636 winning pct. (110-63), 3.64 ERA
Jon Lester, regular season with Cubs: .636 winning pct. (77-44), 3.64 ERA

who led MLB in HR, RBI, and Runs from 1950-1959?

ugh, a hint: not MLB, but just one of the leagues. this player was 1st in MLB in 2 of the categories, and 2nd in MLB in the other

I know this because this player played in 3* different HOME stadiums during this stretch. He would have had even better numbers if his team had stayed put.

*Kind of a trick question but I'm shameless: Name all 3

Ebbetts, the LA Coliseum, and...?

For some reason I watched his HOF speech last night (maybe the first one I’ve ever sat all the way through?)

He spent the entire speech telling stories about teammates and family, it was great

It was used for 15 "home" games by the Brooklyn Dodgers during their last two seasons in Brooklyn – seven in 1956 and eight in 1957.[7] The games were played partly as a negotiating tactic with the Borough of Brooklyn, in pursuit of a new stadium to replace Ebbets Field.[8] While it had just 24,000 seats as opposed to Ebbets Field's 31,497, Roosevelt Stadium had 10,000 parking spaces compared to Ebbets Field's 700. The Dodgers' negotiation came to naught, and the team moved to Los Angeles in 1958.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Stadium#Sports

Incredible to think back at how much power BigAuto used to have.

(Dodger Stadium has 16k parking spaces... if you've ever gone to a game there you'll never forget the hour plus spent coming in & out Chavez Ravine).

Don't know where to put this--it's not an occurrence, it is trivial.

Posnanski mentioned Alex Gordon today, so I was looking at the 2005 draft (Gordon was drafted second). Within the first 11 picks, there were three guys who seemed like a very good bet for the HOF at one point midway through their careers, then all three, for one reason or another, fell off a cliff: Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, and Andrew McCutchen. (Two are still active, and McCutchen's playing reasonably well at 33, but he'd have to stage some kind of a comeback to make up for time wasted.) Justin Upton, and Ryan Zimmerman were also in the top 11--add Gordon, and that's six guys between 30-50 WAR. I would think that counts as a strong draft, I don't know--the value is spread around, at least, rather than one or two imposing players.

6 of top 11 with 30/50 WARs is extremely impressive, i would think! tough to comprehensively compare that draft year until all the players from it are retired, but that's gotta be up there for a top 10 cumulative WAR

Found this piece, which counts 2005 as the best ("sickest," actually, but I'm up on my lingo, so I know that means good) first-round ever, and the fifth-best overall. It was written in 2012, though, when the three headed-for-the-Hall guys were all at their peak--might get a bit of a downgrade today. But it does seem to be one of the best ever.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1462043-which-mlb-draft-class-is-the-best-of-all-time

Looking at their rankings today, think I'd go with the '85 class as the best (third on their list). Bonds, Randy Johnson, Larkin, Smoltz, Palmeiro--wow. And Will Clark still may make the HOF one day via the Veteran's Committee.

i knew that pitchers sucked at hitting. i didn't realize they suck a little more each year!

https://i.imgur.com/snOJv8M.png

(xposts) The first round of the 2011 draft is looking pretty great right now. All mid-career, among the first 11 picks: Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer, Anthony Rendon, Francisco Lindor, George Springer.

I love to get excited about Opening Day starters, especially when they have outings that could be mistaken for bad openers. 1.1 IP, 6 R for Brad Keller (KC), 0.1 IP, 5 R for Kyle Gibson (TEX) https://t.co/e2rmJurMR7

— Jay Jaffe (@jay_jaffe) April 1, 2021

This is the Giants' first 10-run FIRST INNING since June 29, 1967 at the Cardinals, when they scored 11 in the 1st

Scoring summary from that inning ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/shoem2nEZD

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 4, 2021

Is this what they mean by a "counting stat"?

https://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2021/5/6/22422240/blue-jays-pitchers-matz-kay-ray-ryu-ties-mlb-name-record

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

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

the list of current active leaders in shutouts includes a guy near the top whom i forgot existed.

Clayton Kershaw - 15
Justin Verlander - 9

tied for third place --

Gerrit Cole - 5
Max Scherzer - 5
Shelby Miller - 5

reminds me what a different time we're in, Tim Belcher (career w-l of 146-140, ERA of 4.16) tossed 18 shutouts and even if we take away the 8(!) he threw in 1989*, he'd still rank second among active dudes now.