Getting Pinched Twice
Posted by Steve Lombardi on March 23, 2009
Here's another fun list via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Game Finder. It's batters, since 1956, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter and then got to bat again in the game still with that "pinch-hitter" status and who got at least two hits in the contest with that status - while never playing a position in the game.
O.K. that's terrible grammar. Let's use an example: Joe Batter enters the game in the top of the 7th inning as a pinch-hitter (batting for the pitcher). And, he gets a hit. Then, before three outs are registered, he gets to bat again in that inning, still as a "pinch-hitter" in the game, and then he gets another hit. Then, in the bottom of the inning, he comes out of the game as a new pitcher takes the mound for his team. So, in this game, Joe Batter got two hits as a "pinch hitter." It's cases like this that make this report.
Here's the list.
Games Link to Individual Games +-----------------+-----+-------------------------+ Jeff Stone 1 Ind. Games Bill Robinson 1 Ind. Games Jeff Reboulet 1 Ind. Games Angel Pagan 1 Ind. Games Greg Norton 1 Ind. Games Russ Nixon 1 Ind. Games Duane Kuiper 1 Ind. Games Cliff Johnson 1 Ind. Games Brian Hunter 1 Ind. Games Dave Henderson 1 Ind. Games Ken Griffey 1 Ind. Games Julio Franco 1 Ind. Games Chris Bando 1 Ind. Games Oscar Azocar 1 Ind. Games Rick Auerbach 1 Ind. Games
Actually, you can take Jeff Reboulet off the list (above). I think that's a fluke boxscore error on him - as he stayed in the game as a D.H.
But, the others look "good" here - just doing a quick check on PA in the game.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I think you'll find that technically the second time the batter comes up he's no longer a pinch-hitter. He's in a sort of statistical limbo, where there's no adequate description for him. Some years ago I saw a list of players who had homered with no position. These were players who homered after having pinch-hit or pinch-run earlier in the inning. The list, which went through 2001, had 18 names on it.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
About little over a year ago we had a discussion about the status of these players. At the time Sean said he was in the middle of changing some of the ways these players were recorded.
See the comments on this post:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/593
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:55 pm
That Rick Auerbach game was pretty amazing:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN198006150.shtml
March 25th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
In that same great game, Hendrick hits a bases clearing single in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game. Very hard to do, especially if the third guy that scores is a catcher.