Slamming pitchers
Posted by Andy on October 2, 2009
Raphy wrote about Chris Carpenter's great day with the bat yesterday and I wanted to add a little bit more.
Carpenter hit a grand slam and was the first pitcher in 2009 to do so.
Going back, here are grand slams hit by pitchers in recent years:
Yr# G# Date Batter Tm Opp Pitcher Score Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc. +-------+---+-------------+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+ 1 1 2008-06-23 Felix Hernandez SEA @NYM Johan Santana tied 0-0 t 2 123 2 0-0 1 4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep CF-RF); Beltre Scores/unER; Clement Scores/unER; Bloomquist Scores/unER; Hernandez Scores/unER 2 1 2008-09-22 Jason Marquis CHC @NYM Jonathon Niese tied 2-2 t 4 123 0 0-0 1 4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF); DeRosa Scores; Johnson Scores; Theriot Scores 1 1 2006-07-07 Dontrelle Willis FLA @NYM Jose Lima ahead 3-0 t 4 123 0 0-0 1 4 Home Run (Fly Ball); Willingham Scores/unER; Hermida Scores; Treanor Scores 1 1 2002-06-02 Robert Person PHI MON Bruce Chen ahead 3-0 b 1 123 2 1-0 2 4 Home Run; Giambi Scores; Lee Scores; Pratt Scores 1 1 2001-09-29 Denny Neagle COL MIL Jimmy Haynes ahead 9-6 b 4 123 2 0-1 2 4 Home Run (CF-RF); Ochoa Scores; Uribe Scores; Bennett Scores 1 1 2000-05-24 Shawn Estes SFG MON Mike Johnson ahead 7-0 b 5 123 2 0-0 1 4 Home Run (LF-CF); Kent Scores; Snow Scores; Burks Scores 1 1 1998-07-20 Kevin Tapani CHC @ATL Denny Neagle ahead 1-0 t 3 123 2 1-1 3 4 Home Run (Line Drive to Deep LF); Hill Scores; Orie Scores; Servais Scores 2 1 1998-09-02 Kent Mercker STL @FLA Jesus Sanchez ahead 3-0 t 4 123 0 1-1 3 4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF Line); Gant Scores; Tatis Scores; Polanco Scores 1 1 1996-09-07 Donovan Osborne STL SDP Andy Ashby tied 1-1 b 5 123 1 - 4 Home Run (Deep CF-RF); Mabry Scores; Pagnozzi Scores; Alicea Scores 1 1 1995-05-29 Chris Hammond FLA HOU Shane Reynolds down 0-2 b 2 123 1 1-1 3 4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF); Pendleton Scores; Whitmore Scores; Johnson Scores 2 1 1995-06-27 Denny Neagle PIT @CHC Jim Bullinger tied 2-2 t 6 123 2 - 4 Home Run (Deep LF-CF); Merced Scores; Garcia Scores; Liriano Scores 3 1 1995-08-25 Jeff Juden PHI LAD John Cummings ahead 10-2 b 4 123 2 2-2 5 4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF Line); Webster Scores/unER; Hayes Scores/unER; Van Slyke Scores/unER; Juden Scores/unERs
Ahh, good times. I can remember every single one of these slams.
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:27 am
Dear Brains,
You guys thrill me on a daily basis. Read this on a Boston fan site and wonder if the data means anything to you:
"Since 2000, the ten teams playing above .700 in September and making the playoffs only one - the 2007 Rockies - made it to the World Series. And, we know what happened to them. And just four of these red-hot teams advanced past the first round of the playoffs.
Six playoff teams had sub-.500 records in September. Yet four of them made it to the World Series, and two won it – ’06 Cardinals at .414 and ’00 Yankees at .419. The average September/October regular season record of the nine World Series-winning teams from 2000-2008 is .586, making it actually lower than the .596 record in the same time frame for the World Series losers.
Digging deeper, the teams who lost the League Championship Series went .652 down the stretch, with better records during the last month of the season than the .591 average of the opponents who defeated them in those series.
Do lukewarm Stretch team do better?
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:52 am
This is a pretty well-established fact. All teams have hot and cold streaks during the season. Teams that happen to have a very hot streak in the final month, enough to push them into the playoffs, are typically not as good as teams that finished with similar records (and also made the playoffs) but played more consistently throughout the year.
In other words, think about it like this. Imagine with 20 games left to play in the season, there are three teams with the following records:
Team A: 71-71 (.500)
Team B: 71-71 (.500)
Team C: 82-60 (.580)
Let's say in those final 20 games, Teams B and C keep on exactly the same pace and finish with the same winning percentage.
So Team B goes 10-10 in the final 10 games and finishes 81-81 (.500) Team C finishes the year at .580, meaning 94 wins, so they went 12-8 in the final 20. Team C makes the playoffs and Team B does not.
But let's say Team A has an incredible final 20 games and goes 19-1. This is an extreme example but it makes my point. So they played .950 ball over the last 20 games and finish with a record of 90-72 (.555) and they might make the playoffs with 90 wins. You can imagine that if they played a little better than .500 during most of the year they could win, say, 16 out of 20 near the end and achieve even a higher win total.
But do you feel good about Team A as a playoff team? Sure they are really hot, but did something change the team or was it just a lucky run? Did they play weak opponents in those last 20 games, but now will be facing a tough playoff opponent? Unless the change in team record is due to a new player on the team (or a player returning from injury, like the way the Yankees took off when A-rod came back) the new momentum is not usually going to be sustained into the playoffs.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:17 am
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October 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
But why do you assume a team that had a hot final month is one that just snuck into the playoffs? A powerful, 100-win team could end up with a hot September too.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:04 am
I think teams that play consistently well during the season are less likely to have hot Septembers because they don't need to. Teams that clinch playoff spots earlier rest guys, line up their pitching staffs, etc, and generally coast into the playoffs. I'm not suggesting that they don't win their share of games--I just think they typically win at about the same rate they have all year. More often than not, teams will really hot Septs are teams that are trying to make the playoffs and hence often have a better win% than they did during the year.
Mind you, these are averages we're talking about. We can find plenty of exceptions to my examples. I just think my examples illustrate why ON AVERAGE the teams with the higher win% in Sept are, apparently, the weaker teams in Oct.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:04 am
By the way, Rico, would you please provide the link to the source of the quote you posted? Thanks.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Hey it's in this philospohical comment from boston.com
"When we were Kings"
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2009/10/01/amid_this_messy_ending_there_are_things_to_tidy_up/?comments=all&plckCurrentPage=1
JT really confirms your point -- if you are hot all year (105 paid-for wins) then a hot september is just average for you.
Have you guys ever done the cost-per-win analysis, based on team salary. Wonder how much more the Yankees pay to win
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Getting back to the Slamming pitchers subject, some things of note:
1. The three most recent were in Shea Stadium. Well, that won't happen again.
2. No surprise, all in this list were hit in National League parks, but one was by a visiting AL player in an interleague game. I wonder when the last grand slam by a pitcher in an AL park occurred. I know that the name Roric Harrison is associated with a last pre-DH AL homer, but I don't remember if it was the last AL grand slam by a pitcher or if it was the last pre-DH AL homer, period.
3. The game in which Jeff Juden hit his grand slam is memorable to me in many ways:
a. It was the Phillies' first game against Hideo Nomo, the phenom of the year that year. The Phillies didn't meet the Dodgers that year until well into August, so maybe by then they had had a chance to figure him out. While they did have some trouble with him in later years, they roughed him up in this game. But by the time Juden came to the plate, as you can see, he was gone. The final score was 17-4. Conversely, Juden did not do well during his time with the Phillies, but this was a relatively good game for him. I don't remember if all four runs were his responsibility or if all of them were earned. If he had faced Nomo early in the season, perhaps the Phillies would have lost, 4-0.
b. Juden's grand slam wasn't even the hitting accomplishment of the game. Gregg Jeffries hit for the cycle, the first Phillie to do so since Johnny Callison in 1963. He came to bat in the 6th needing a double and sure enough sent a ball into left field that had "2 bases" written all over it. He left the game after that because his wife had to go to the hospital to give birth!
c. When Juden hit that grand slam, it was during a promotion called the "Home Run Payoff Inning". Someone's name gets picked for each batter, and if the batter hits a home run, the fan gets $1,000. But if it's a grand slam, the prize is $10,000. So someone got 10 grand because of that slam.
This was a Friday night game back when one or two of the non-Fox broadcast networks had something called "The Baseball Network", with a game on Friday nights. Unlike the old Game-of-the-Week, where the prime time game was almost always an out-of-market game, this one was like Fox's Saturday game, where the game was almost always an in-market game. With Tommy Lasorda managing the Dodgers, the announcers were somewhat partial to L.A. During Juden's at-bat, the count got to 3 balls. Or at least I thought I remembered it did, but the above list says there were only 2 balls. So maybe when the count got to 2 balls, one of the announcers said that the last thing Lasorda would want his pitcher to do was to walk the opposing pitcher. In my living room, I responded, "What about hitting a grand slam?" And indeed after the ball went out, the announcer then said, "I guess there are worse things than walking the opposing pitcher."
d. But since this is a Phillies game, something bad for them had to happen, too. Notice that Lenny Webster was the runner on third. He was their second string catcher, pinch running for Darren Daulton, the 1st string catcher, who had injured himself trying to get to third on an earlier play. That turned out to be the injury that prevented him from ever being a catcher again. After missing the rest of 1995 and all of 1996, he returned as an outfielder for 1997. But his career was pretty much done then.
I thought I recalled that #8 hitter, Kevin Stocker, was the runner on 1st base after getting an intentional walk with first base open, but I'm probably thinking of an almost-grand slam by another Phillies pitcher around that time. If things happened the way I remember, Stocker was walked intentionally with runners on 2nd and 3rd and probably two out and Tyler Green due up. A wild pitch or passed ball occurred during Green's at-bat, with the runner on 3rd scoring. Green then hit a three-run homer.