AL Pitchers Batting in the Designated Hitter Era
Posted by Sean Forman on May 18, 2009
With Joe Maddon's gaffe, Andy Sonnastine becomes just the fourth pitcher since the dawn of the DH era to bat as a starter in an American League Game:
He is also the only one with an extra-base hit or an RBI.
Cnt Player Date Tm Opp GmReslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BOr Positions
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---------+
1 Andy Sonnanstine 2009-05-17 TBR CLE W 7-5 3 3 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3rd P
2 Ken Brett 1976-09-23 CHW MIN L 0-3 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8th P
3 Ken Brett 1976-07-06 CHW @BOS L 0-4 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9th P
4 Ken Holtzman 1975-09-27 OAK CAL W 6-3 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9th P
5 Fergie Jenkins 1974-10-02 TEX @MIN W 2-1 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9th P
May 18th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Sean, do you mean as a starting pitcher?
There were others. Here are some:
Matt Garza in 2007 (Catcher Mike Redmond was injured before he came to bat and DH Joe Mauer had to replace him, so Garza was the first player to bat eighth)
Charles Nagy in 1999- In a similar situation to Sonnastine
Frank MacCormack in 1976
The links to these games can be found in here:
http://www.bb-ref.com/play-index/shareit/73z8
May 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
He means they were listed in the starting lineup. Garza, Nagy, and MacCormack were substitutions.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
But he technically wasn't, this is almost exactly same thing that happened to Nagy. Sonnastine was not listed in the starting line up, there were two third basemen listed in the starting lineup, hence Sonnastine needing to bat.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Given that Longoria was able to pinch hit later, I think that we can say that Sonnanstine started and batted third. If Longoria had been used up at that point, then I might agree with you.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Good point, though I'm confused now about the Nagy game. How come Alex Ramirez wasn't eligible to be in that game? What's the difference here? His spot in the field was taken by another player (Manny, Longoria) prior to his being in the game in any way.... right?
May 18th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Alex Ramirez played right field in the top of the first.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
that's not what happened at all. Manny was listed as the DH, Alex was listed as the RF. Top of the first Manny runs out to right and plays RF.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
The difference, to my understanding of the DH rule, is in how the DH was lost.
In the Nagy game, a valid lineup card was turned in, and Manny “started the game” as the DH and Alex as RF. Nagy was not in the starting lineup. When Manny trotted out in the top of the first and played right field, this constituted the legal DH playing a field position after the game was started and therefore sacrificed the DH and the pitcher had to bat. With Manny “moving” to RF, Alex had to be removed from the game, as he was not “moved” to another position. (Someone had to be removed from the game, since the game was “in progress” and a position shift was made.) Even though Manny played RF from the first pitch on, and Nagy batted in the 7-spot beginning with that spot’s first plate appearance, this was considered an in-game switch.
In the Sonnanstine game, the violation occurred before the start of the game, when an illegal lineup card was turned in. Adjudication of the violation required the loss of the DH, and the pitcher had to be placed in the would-be DH’s spot (i.e. whichever player was not going to be playing the duplicate position; in this case, Longoria’s spot). But as the game had not yet officially started, Longoria had not “been used” in the game, and therefore was able to pinch hit or be otherwise used later in the game.
The key difference is that the Sonnanstine violation occurred before the official start of the game, while the Nagy violation occurred immediately after the official start of the game.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
OK, sorry. But now I'm confused. The gamelog has Manny moving from DH to RF after the bottom of the first, which is why I thought that Alex Ramirez had already played in right. Can someone explain that to me?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
that makes sense... thanks!
May 19th, 2009 at 10:19 am
BunnyWrangler: Hmm. Interesting. Account descriptions of the game all seem to consistently indicate that Manny played right field in the top of the first. That would lead me to believe that listing the switch as “Charles Nagy replaces Alex Ramirez (RF)” at the top of the 2nd is an error of syntax. I would guess that the lineup error was pointed out to the umpires by Toronto manager Jim Fregosi at that time, so that is when the change "officially" took place and the Indians lost their DH.
However, the first play of the game was a fly to right-center, fielded by the right fielder. Alex is credited with a putout in the game. That would seem to indicate that Alex was playing RF in the first, and perhaps Manny trotted out to RF for the second. But why would neither Manny, Alex, nor Fregosi realize that Manny didn’t play the field in the first inning, and catch him before the second inning play began?
Perhaps – but this is speculation on my part – because the lineup card officially listed Alex as the right fielder, until the error was pointed out after the first inning, all RF plays were “officially” credited to him even though he wasn’t the guy actually in the field. (Assuming that Manny was actually playing RF in the first.) The rules for official MLB scorekeeping have their share of quirks, and I wouldn’t be totally surprised if this were in fact the case.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
The again, maybe Longoria did start:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090528&content_id=5009458&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb