• Not to go too crazy here, but Micah Owings just completed the greatest hitting season for a pitcher ever (well, since 1901, and, well, if you're judging just by OPS.) He capped off an amazing season yesterday with a ho-hum 4-for-4 performance with 3 doubles and 3 RBI. (And he pitched shutout ball into the 7th inning in a critical game for the Diamondbacks.) He finishes the year with a 1.050 OPS, tops among pitchers with at least 40 plate appearances in a season since 1901. His 12 extra-base hits are tied for 28th all-time and are the most singe Ferguson Jenkins' 14 in 1971. It's time for the Diamondbacks to seriously think about using him as a pinch-hitter, and if the kid can play some outfield, he might even get a few starts there in between mound appearances. (Editor's note: much to my surprise, Arizona did use Owings as a PH and his OPS for the season dropped a bit. See the comments below.)

• Lost in the hoopla of the Mets' collapse is that Jesus Matty Moises Alou had a 30-game hit streak snapped yesterday. That's the longest in the majors this year. Ichiro had a streak of 25 and another of 19 this year...not too shabby. (I kept in the Jesus and Matty because I did actually start to type those names by accident...only Felipe's name didn't come out.) By the way, Alou is hitting .344 on the year, giving him 4 seasons in his career with at least 300 ABs and a batting average higher than .330. Not too shabby.

• Ryan Howard did it! In yesterday's game, he finally broke the tie with Adan Dunn and moved into first place all-time for most strikeouts in a season. Of course, nobody cares since it happened after his 2-run first-inning HR put the Phillies up 4-0 and allowed them to tie the Mets for first place. I'm sure Howard would love to avoid striking out 3 times in the last 3 games, to finish below the magic number of 200.

• Yesterday I was reminded of something I had forgotten: Braves reliever Ron Mahay actually made it to the big leagues as an outfielder with Boston in 1995, getting a homer and 3 RBI in 20 ABs. As you can see from his minor league stats, starting in 1996 he went back to single-A to become a pitcher. He had a very nice season as a lefty reliever this year.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 9:25 am and is filed under Box Scores, Season Finders, Streak Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.