News and notes from Sunday
Posted by Andy on September 10, 2007
- Curtis Granderson became the
foundingthird member of the 20/20/20/20 club (HR, SB, 2B, and 3B.) Here are the members of the 15/15/15/15 club. Carl Crawford (2005 & 2006) and Juan Samuel (1984 & 1987) have done it twice. Jimmy Rollins needs 2 SB and 3 3B this year to join the 20/20/20/20 club, so he's got a shot.
- Who's got the longest streak in the 2000's of most starts without allowing a walk? Yes, the answer is Greg Maddux, but it's not his current streak of 8 starts. In 2001 he did it in 9 straight games. The list includes streaks of 7 straight games by David Wells and Javier Vazquez. The longest streak since 1957 was by Bill Fischer in 1962, with 11 straight starts with no walks. Fischer did have a relief appearance in the middle of his streak, earning a blown save. Over the 11 starts, Fischer went 2-8 with 71 IP, 86 hits, 0 walks and just 18 strikeouts. That's a pretty weird streak.
- The Brewers led off their game on Sunday with 3 straight homers. It's just the third time it's been done, with the first occurrence back in 1987 by the Padres. It took me a while to find the second time it was done. I went to the Team Batting Event Finder, set it to all teams, home runs, then limited the events to homers in the 1st inning with no outs. Here's the list for 1994. Reading down the list, you'll notice the game where three such homers occurred, but that's not the game. From the boxscore, we see that Jacob Brumfield led off with a homer, and Bret Boone followed with one. But then Barry Larkin reached on an error, ahead of Kevin Mitchell homering. Here's a 1996 game by the Rockies where something similar happened. And one by the Mets in 1999. Finally, here's the game: in 2003 by the Braves, when Rafael Furcal, Mark DeRosa, and Gary Sheffield homered in the bottom of the first.
- Coming in to Sunday, there were 7 pitchers who had 30 starts allowing 6 or fewer earned runs. The ERAs of these players were Dontrelle Willis 5.01, Brandon Webb 2.91, C. C. Sabathia 3.15, Scott Kazmir 3.79, Tim Hudson 3.47, Dan Haren 3.03, Aaron Harang 3.64. Remember that song "One of These Things is Not Like the Others"? Maybe that explains why Dontrelle Willis finally gave up 7 ER on Sunday against the Phillies.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Granderson isn't the founding member of the 20/20/20/20 club. Willie Mays accomplished the feat back in 1957. I don't have a subscription to the PI, but it shows 3 players as having had a 20/20/20/20 season.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I stand corrected on that. The two previous players to do it were Mays (35 HR, 38 SB, 26 2B, and 20 3B in 1957) and Frank Schulte (21 HR, 23 SB, 30 2B, 21 3B in 1911.)
September 10th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
One other oddity I caught from Sunday.
With the Dodgers up 2-1 in the 8th and a runner on 2nd, Joe Beimel is brought in. He faces one batter, Barry Bonds, handing him an IW and is pulled in favor of Broxton. Next batter, Durham hits a 3-run HR and Beimel is tagged with the loss.
This is the 4th time this has happened since 1957. The others were:
Brian Shouse in 2006
Hector Almonte in 1999
Humberto Robertson in 1960
I used the pitching game finder set to look for losing pitchers who had:
IBB=1
BF=1
September 10th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Neat. That sort of reminds me of the appearances where a relief pitcher doesn't even through a pitch but gets the win (such as by picking off a baserunner in a tie game.)
September 18th, 2007 at 5:38 am
[...] has 28 HR, 36 doubles, 36 stolen bases, and 18 triples. That means he needs just 2 more triples to join the 3-member 20/20/20/20 club, which Curtis Granderson also joined this [...]