Cory Snyder vs Roger Clemens
Posted by Andy on March 16, 2009
When I was a lad in 1988, I recall reading a blurb about a Cory Snyder plate appearance against Roger Clemens. I don't recall where I read it--perhaps in the newspaper. It said that in a recent game, Snyder hit a routine fly ball out against Clemens but when he returned to the dugout, Snyder received high fives from his teammates. The reason? Snyder apparently had struck out in every career plate appearance against Clemens prior to the fly ball.
The batter-vs-pitcher logs prove it:
Car# Year Date Tm Opp Score Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc. +-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+ 1 1986 1986-08-30 CLE @BOS tied 0-0 t 2 --- 1 - Strikeout 2 down 0-4 t 5 --- 0 - Strikeout Looking 3 down 2-7 t 7 -2- 0 - Strikeout Car# Year Date Tm Opp Score Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc. +-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+ 4 1987 1987-05-27 CLE @BOS tied 0-0 t 2 --- 2 - Strikeout 5 tied 0-0 t 5 --- 1 - Strikeout 6 down 0-1 t 7 --- 2 - Strikeout 7 1987-08-30 CLE BOS down 0-3 b 2 12- 0 - Strikeout 8 down 1-4 b 4 1-3 0 - Strikeout 9 down 3-6 b 6 --- 0 - Strikeout Car# Year Date Tm Opp Score Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc. +-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+ 10 1988 1988-06-29 CLE @BOS ahead 1-0 t 2 --- 1 0-0 1 Flyball: RF 11 down 1-4 t 5 --- 0 0-0 1 Flyball: LF 12 down 1-4 t 7 --- 2 1-2 4 Strikeout Looking 13 1988-09-30 CLE BOS ahead 1-0 b 1 -2- 1 1-2 4 Strikeout Swinging 14 ahead 3-0 b 3 --- 2 0-2 3 Flyball: 2B 15 ahead 3-1 b 5 1-3 2 1-2 4 Foul Flyball: 1B 16 ahead 4-2 b 8 --- 0 2-2 5 Strikeout Looking
That's 9 strikeouts in the first 9 PAs until he finally hit that fly ball. Only 4 pitchers struck Snyder out more than Clemens, and they all had more PAs in which to do it. And while Clemens and Bert Blyleven both struck Snyder out 12 times, look at the difference in stats. Off Clemens, Snyder managed only 2 singles for a .087 SLG. Off Blyleven, Snyder hit 4 HR, 1 2B, 1 3B, and had 7 RBI and a .821 SLG. Geez.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:01 am
FWIW, here's part of an article about it.
http://www.bookrags.com/highbeam/good-grief-cory-snyder-its-clemens-hb/
GOOD GRIEF, CORY SNYDER! IT'S CLEMENS! INDIAN IS 9 FOR 9 -- ALL K'S
The Boston Globe, August 31st, 1987
CLEVELAND - Forget the mop of Texas hair and the song of Texas drawl and replace them with black curls and a seductive coo; Roger Clemens is Lucy Van Pelt. Forget the blond locks and the home run swing and replace them with a single ringlet atop the dome and the unkindest cut of all; Cory Snyder is Charlie Brown. "Come on," Cy Young Lucy purrs from the mound. "Please. This time I promise. Really." "Good grief!" mustachioed Charlie replies from the bench. Yet he goes out there every time. It is not a football waiting to be kicked on a fall day. It is a baseball asking to be hit by the summertim...
March 16th, 2009 at 11:03 am
dude, your blog just rocks. Posts like this. They are fantastic. I follow a ton of blogs and site, and honestly, this has to be one of the top ten blogs out there. I should make a top ten blog list and include yours in it.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:09 am
thanks, although I am just one of several authors here. You are a frequent commenter too--although I forget if here or on my baseball card blogs?
March 16th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Andy, you sparked my curiosity.
(Bruce Ruffin struck out in all 9 PA against Doc Gooden, but that doesn't count.)
He only got to 8, but Andres Galarraga is still waiting to hit the ball off of Rob Dibble.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/qwqF
Also, does anyone know if there is a player and pitcher match-up more one sided than Ray Durham vs. Mariano Rivera? Durham was 0-26 and was only able to get the ball out of the infield twice. He did manage to reach base once on an E3.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/tedk
March 16th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I seem to remember Clemens owning Torii Hunter. Lemme see... yup: http://tinyurl.com/cjzj33
March 16th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
i remember this from a blooper video!
March 16th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Raphy - I'm wondering how you have enough time on your hands to come up with Durham v Rivera...
March 16th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Raphy never ceases to amaze me.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
I just took five minutes (alright it was probably more like ten) to look around at a few high-strikeout pitchers and searched to see who they faced the most often with an OBP of .000 .
If PI could ever do a global search on these things, it would be a lot of fun.
March 18th, 2009 at 8:30 am
How about a pitcher owning a hitter over a single season? In 1999, Pedro Martinez faced Jay Buhner 8 times and struck him out 8 times: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/cMQY
Buhner did manage to make contact on five foul balls.
March 18th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Now there's a total shocker -- a guy who struck out 100 times in 266 AB versus a pitcher who struck out 251 in 233 2/3 IP, and the outcome was... 8 Ks in 8 AB! Who'da thunk it?
Jay struck out in 23.7% of all his career PA, while Pedro struck out 27.8% of all batters he's faced to date. Still, those percentages would indicate a likelihood of 2 or 3 K's in 8 PA, not 8-for-8.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Tomepp, I'm not aware of any studies on the likely outcomes of specific pitcher-batter matchups, or pitcher-types vs. batter-types. But intuitively it makes sense to me that you can't simply average out the strikeout percentages for the most likely outcome. The two probably work together exponentially in some way. A high-K pitcher vs. a high-K batter will probably usually result in a ton of K's.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Just to test this, I'm going to look at top strikeout batters and pitchers over the past few seasons, and see how they did head-to-head.
2008: Burnett vs. Cust - 3 K in 6 PA; Lincecum vs. Reynolds - 3 K in 7 PA
2007: Kazmir vs. Cust - 1 K in 3 PA; Peavy vs. Howard - 0 K in 3 PA
2006: Santana vs. Granderson - 2 K in 3 PA; Peavy vs. Dun - 4 K in 6 PA
That's 13 strikeouts in 28 PA (46%). Obviously a very small sample, but it isn't the quickest thing to check, so I'll stop here for now.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Johnny, you're absolutely right - you can't just average strikeout rates. Many of Jay's 76% non-K plate appearances came against non-K pitchers (the Jeff Suppans), and likewise many of the 72% non-K plate appearances against Pedro were by disciplined hitters (the Nomar Garciaparras). I was totally wrong in implying that they should be averaged to determine the probable outcome. Still, I think 8 Ks in 8 PAs is an outlier in any case.
March 19th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
take a look at Frank Thomas vs Nolan Ryan