20 Responses to “Batter Games With RE24 = 6+ Since 1973”

1. DaveKingman Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 1:38 pm

   I still don't really believed that Mark Whiten game actually happened.

   But of course I do believe that June 4, 1976 game happened. I was there.

2. Evil Squirrel Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 2:21 pm

   J.R. Towles #7! I love it!

   I was at the game where Towles batted out of his head. That was only his 6th career game, and I believe his 8 RBI's is still an Astros franchise record. The two run homer he capped off the night with came off of Cardinals infielder Aaron Miles.

   Cody Ransom batted ahead of Towles was the main beneficiary of Towles unbelievable night.... he scored a career high 5 runs, and was stranded on third base in the 4th inning for what could have been a sixth run....

   Towles never has lived up to that game, but seeing this game made me a Towles fan, and I still root for him to break through as a decent player....

3. John Autin Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 3:43 pm

   Shawn Green's 4-HR game (#15 on this list) is the only time a batter notched 6+ in both Runs and RBI in the live-ball era.

   Six runs scored is quite a rarity all by itself. Only 7 players have done it from 1920 onward, and only Mel Ott did it twice.

4. John Autin Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 3:53 pm

   Batters with 2 or more such games:
   -- Bernie Williams
   -- Brian Giles (16 years apart!)
   -- Cal Ripken
   -- Cory Snyder (!)
   -- Darryl Strawberry
   -- Dave Kingman
   -- Eddie Murray
   -- Ellis Burks (11 years apart)
   -- Garret Anderson
   -- Mike Piazza (both in '95)

   P.S. Bernie Williams's 2nd such game was a 10-9 loss -- one of just 3 losses out of 115 games on this list.

5. John Autin Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 4:01 pm

   Only one man made this list without an extra-base hit: Tim Foli, 5/9/79 (#78 on this list).

   It figures.

6. Tmckelv Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 4:27 pm

   Per usual, I love the 1970's on this list - sorted in date order. Starts with Bench and ends with a run of Ken Rietz, Roy Howell, Dave Kingman (2nd appearance on list), and 2 SS - Chris Foli (hit for cycle) and Tim Foli (no XBH as mentioned @5 above). nice mix.

7. John Autin Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 4:27 pm

   My personal favorites:

   -- Denard Span, 6/29/2010 (#73): 4 for 5, 3 triples (in the first 5 innings). The only game on this list with more than 1 triple.

   -- Chris Speier, 7/20/1978 (#53): Hit for the cycle in just 4 PAs; one of 23 such games in the live-ball era. Speier had 4 of Montreal's 9 hits, including their only 3 extra-base hits and their only 2 hits with RISP.

   -- Jim Spencer, 5/14/1977: The only man to make this list in just 3 PAs. Spencer opened the scoring with a 2-run HR in the 2nd and added a 2-out, 2-run single later that inning (after an intentional walk); launched a 2-out grand slam in the 4th; then watched the rest of the 18-2 romp from the dugout.

   BTW, the 2nd inning of that Spencer game:
   (a) featured a cycle by the White Sox in a span of 5 batters, starting with a triple by Richie Zisk (he hit 6 triples that year!); and
   (b) ended after 7 runs with Zisk caught stealing home (he had zero steals that year, and just 8 SB in over 1,400 career games.

8. Jimbo Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 5:02 pm

   @4

   Those 2 games by Brian Giles were indeed 16 years apart, but they were not the same Brian Giles!

   I spotted this immediately because I knew the more recent Giles didn't play long enough to fit that stat.

9. Doug Says:
   February 28th, 2011 at 5:50 pm

   At least one such game every year from '73 to '79, and again from '85 till 2010. But, no games in 4 of the 5 years between those runs.

   Most prolific years were 1999 and 2004, with eight such games each year. Never had two games the same day, but did have two on consecutive days in 2007, and three games within a week in 1990.

10. Doug Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    @8. Jimbo's bang on about the two Brian Giles.

    The earlier one is someone you have probably long forgotten about. Played only one season as a regular (for the Mets in 1983), and posted a -16.2 RE24 that year and a -31.4 for his career.

    His big 6+ game came in his final season, after being out of the majors for 3 years. He second best RE24 that year was a 0.99 ten days later, also against Toronto.

11. DoubleDiamond Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 9:04 pm

    I'm sure I've asked before what RE24 is, but I have forgotten. This time, I tried to find it myself.

    First, I went to the page at http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/.

    I then chose some promising categories:

    Batting Glossary
    Miscellaneous Glossary
    Play Index Glossary

    I didn't find it in any of them.

    So, I'm requesting the following:

    1. Someone please respond here with either what this means or a link to where this is explained.

    2. Someone please put an explanation of RE24 in one of the meaningful categories linked to in the Glossary section of the About Baseball-Reference.com page.

    Thanks in advance.

12. Raphy Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    Its under Win Probability Added:
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/wpa.shtml

    Run Expectancy

    "Run Expectancy

    "...Taking a step back from wins to runs. Just like we can estimate the probability of average teams winning a game in a situation, we can estimate how many runs an average team is likely to score in a given base-out situation (say one out and runners on the corners, 1.186 runs). And then add the actual runs scored on a play to the estimate of runs still to be scores (2 + .9420 in the case above). This change (2.942 - 1.186 = 1.755) is run expectancy is RE24 (run expectancy for the 24 base-out situations)...."

    "...RE24 Runs Added by 24 base-out situations. Sum of the differences in run expectancies for each play the player is credited with. Can be for a play, game, season, or career. This is denoted in runs and is of a similar scale to other runs-based statistics like linear weights. It is somewhat highly dependent on the context in which a player played. A player with a lot of runners on base ahead of him has more of a chance to create RE24 than a batter who always comes up with the bases empty. It is relative to average, so unlike runs created an average player will have zero RE24. "

13. Doug Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 12:12 am

    @11 and @12.

    This was explained in gory detail in one of Bill James' abstracts back in the 80s. The run estimates Ralphy mentions are derived from a model developed based on "Markov chain analysis" (mathematicians out there will know what that is).

    However, where my recollection differs is that the oriiginal model predicted future runs in an inning based an outs/on-base scenarios, not the expected runs to be produced from the next batter's contribution. So, am not sure how the original work has been adapted to come up with RE24.

    In some sense RE24 may be a bit unfair to the batter owing to circumstances quite beyond his control. For example, suppose it's early in the game and there are runners on 2nd and 3rd with two outs. The run expectancy for that situation is whatever it is. Except that, if the next batter is the number 8 hitter with the pitcher following, most likely that batter will be walked with no opportunity to contribute, and will end up with a negative RE24 on that plate appearance (I'm presuming). Like I say, seems a bit unfair to me.

14. Albert7 Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 1:37 am

    I believe Mike Greenwell is the only guy on the list who drove in all the runs for his team.

15. bells Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 2:27 am

    That Brian Giles factoid is maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen on this site.

16. Jon S C Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 10:50 am

    I am always fascinated by a pitcher's hitting ability, so there is one omission. Check out Tony Cloninger's RE24 of 6.7 from 1966:

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196607030.shtml

17. John Autin Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    Thanks to all and sundry for the Brian Giles correction. I do recall the first Brian Giles from early-'80s Strat-O-Matic sets; it just never occurred to me that he was capable of such a game!

    That 5/17/90 game came in his final MLB season (which followed a 3-year absence); with 2 HRs and 7 RBI, that game constituted half his HRs and 64% of his RBI for the year -- not to mention 20% and 14% of his career HR and RBI totals, respectively.

    BTW, that Brian Giles was batting 9th in his big game; he was the first #9 hitter in the DH era to record 2+ HRs and 7+ RBI in a game.

18. John Autin Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    Albert7 -- Nice point on the Greenwell game.

    And what an unexpected game it was, coming in the final month of Greenwell's career. Batting 8th, Greenwell started Boston's comeback from a 5-0 deficit with a 2-run HR in the 5th. In the 7th, his grand slam put them ahead, 6-5. After Seattle went back in front with 3 runs in the bottom half, Greenwell tied it up with a 2-out, 2-run double in the 8th. And in the 10th, his 2-out single drove in the winning run.

    Incidentally, all 4 of Greenwell's RBI hits followed a walk to the preceding batter, and 6 of the 7 baserunners he drove home had reached on a free pass.

19. John Autin Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    P.S. on Greenwell's game:

    1. It was the only time in the game-searchable era (1920-present) that a player with 9+ RBI drove in all of his team's runs.

    2. It was the first 9-RBI game by a #8 or #9 hitter in the DH era. (Two #8 hitters have matched it since: Bill Mueller with the BoSox in 2003, with 3 HRs, and James Loney of the Dodgers in 2006, with 2 HRs and a double.)

20. Basmati Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    Garret Anderson has announced his retirement today. He appears twice on this list, including at #9 for his 10 RBI performance against the Yankees in 2007.

    As an Angels fan new to baseball at the time, I remember him fondly for his contributions to the 2002 WS winning team and for several years he was one of the most consistent players around. But he was never an elite player and finishes his career with an OPS+ of 102.

    He is the Angels franchise all time leader in runs, hits, total bases, doubles, RBI, extra base hits, times on base. Interestingly though he doesn't feature particularly high in any advanced stats like WAR, runs created, WPA, etc.