2007 plate appearances, count 3-0
Posted by Andy on December 29, 2007
Following on a bit from yesterday's Mattingly post, here is some info on all plate appearances in 2007 that ended on a pitch thrown with a 3-0 count. So keep in mind as you read below, this doesn't include any PAs that went to 3-1 or 3-2, but rather those that ended on the pitch coming with a 3-0 count. In most cases, this means a 4th ball, leading to a walk. But there are the occasional HBP, fly-outs, HR, etc. (Just to hammer the point home, there could be no strikeouts in this stat since there are no strikes when the count is 3-0. Similarly, a PA that goes from 3-0 to 3-1 on a strike doesn't count here. It's only those PAs that end on a pitch thrown with a 3-0 count.)
So it turns out that there were 4380 such PAs in 2007:
G PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP BA OBP SLG OPS +-----+------+------+-----+----+----+----+-----+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+------+------+------+------+ 1968 4380 245 97 30 2 23 159 4118 1249 0 11 0 6 2 5 .396 .965 .816 1.781
So that's a little more than 2 such PAs per game. As you can see, 4118 of those became walks (94.0%), including 1249 that were intentional walks. Incidentally, this doesn't differentiate between PAs that started off as intentional walks (4 intentional balls) and those where the last ball or two were given intentionally after the pitcher fell behind.
You can see the full results of this search here.
Barry Bonds (surprise, surprise) had the most PAs ending on the pitch thrown with a 3-0 count.
In his 64 such PAs, here was his batting line:
G PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP BA OBP SLG OPS +----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 53 64 1 0 0 0 0 0 63 43 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .984 .000 .984
Incidentally, you can't get this line from the above search. Rather, you need to go to Bonds' Batting Event Finder page.
So in 63 out of 64 PAs, Bonds ended up walking (including 43 times intentionally.) But he did swing and put the ball into play once on a 3-0 count. It was in this game, where he grounded out to second on a 3-0 pitch.
Now from above, we see that 23 times a guy homered on a 3-0 pitch. To get that list, we need to go to the Batting Event Finder and look it up through home runs.
So here is the full list of 3-0 homers in 2007:
Yr# G# Date Batter Tm Opp Pitcher Score Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc.
+-------+---+-------------+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
1 1 2007-04-09 Jim Thome CHW @OAK Rich Harden down 0-1 t 4 --- 0 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF)
2 1 2007-04-27 Casey Kotchman LAA @CHW Jose Contreras down 1-3 t 6 1-- 2 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF-RF); Anderson Scores
3 1 2007-04-28 Josh Willingham FLA @PHI Francisco Rosari ahead 7-4 t 6 12- 2 3-0 4 3 Home Run (Fly Ball to LF); Cabrera Scores; Jacobs Scores
4 1 2007-04-29 Adam Dunn CIN @PIT Shawn Chacon ahead 6-4 t 5 1-- 1 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF); Gonzalez Scores
5 1 2007-05-23 Alex Gordon KCR CLE Cliff Lee ahead 7-4 b 5 --- 1 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF)
6 1 2007-06-01 Jason Michaels CLE DET Mike Maroth down 3-5 b 6 1-- 2 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to LF); Garko Scores
7 1 2007-06-04 Casey Kotchman LAA MIN Boof Bonser ahead 3-1 b 6 --- 1 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF)
8 1 2007-06-05 B.J. Upton TBD @TOR Roy Halladay ahead 4-1 t 4 -2- 1 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF); Harris Scores
9 1 2007-06-24 Jason Varitek BOS @SDP Scott Linebrink ahead 3-2 t 8 --- 0 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF)
10 1 2007-06-28 Chase Utley PHI CIN Matt Belisle tied 0-0 b 1 -2- 1 3-0 2 2 Home Run (Line Drive to CF); Rollins Scores
11 2 Chase Utley PHI CIN Matt Belisle down 2-4 b 3 -2- 1 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF); Rollins Scores
12 1 2007-07-04 Adam LaRoche PIT MIL Claudio Vargas tied 3-3 b 6 1-- 0 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF-RF); Sanchez Scores
13 1 2007-07-14 David Ortiz BOS TOR Dustin McGowan tied 0-0 b 1 --- 2 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Line Drive to RF)
14 1 2007-07-14 Josh Willingham FLA WSN Matt Chico ahead 3-0 b 6 1-- 0 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to LF); Jacobs Scores
15 1 2007-07-21 Pedro Feliz SFG @MIL David Bush ahead 1-0 t 4 -2- 2 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to CF-RF); Klesko Scores
16 1 2007-07-24 Jeff Kent LAD @HOU Jason Jennings down 0-1 t 2 --- 0 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to LF)
17 1 2007-07-24(2) Jim Thome CHW DET Chad Durbin down 3-7 b 7 12- 2 3-0 4 3 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF); Pierzynski Scores; Owens Scores
18 1 2007-08-07 Aaron Rowand PHI FLA Carlos Martinez ahead 7-1 b 4 --- 1 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to LF)
19 1 2007-08-25 Victor Martinez CLE @KCR Kyle Davies ahead 6-0 t 2 --- 2 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF)
20 1 2007-08-25 Milton Bradley SDP @PHI Tom Gordon down 1-2 t 8 --- 1 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF)
21 1 2007-08-26 Carlos Pena TBD OAK Danny Haren ahead 4-2 b 6 --- 1 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Line Drive to RF)
22 1 2007-09-11 Brian Giles SDP @LAD Esteban Loaiza ahead 2-0 t 2 -2- 2 3-0 4 2 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF); Bard Scores
23 1 2007-09-26 Lance Berkman HOU @CIN Tom Shearn tied 0-0 t 1 1-3 0 3-0 4 3 Home Run (Fly Ball to LF-CF); Burke Scores; Everett Scores
Holy smokes! Chase Utley did it twice, in the same game, off the same pitcher! MVP Rollins scored on both. Casey Kotchman, Jim Thome, and Josh Willimgham also did it twice this year, but Belisle is the only pitcher to give up two. There were no slams, but a few three-run jobs.
Now, if you check out the data above, you can see that there were 150 outs recorded on a 3-0 pitch. Again using the Batting Event Finder, we can find all such outs on 3-0 pitches.
Here are the batters to do it the most:
Victor Martinez 6, Chase Utley 4, Frank Thomas 4, and Matt Holliday 4. All good hitters. Utley must swing a lot on 3-0.
Here (from his personal Batting Event Finder) are the 6 times Martinez did it:
Car# Yr# G# Date Tm Opp Pitcher Score Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc.
+-----+----+---+-------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
1 1 1 2007-05-18 CLE CIN Victor Santos ahead 9-4 b 3 1-- 2 3-0 4 0 Popfly: 3B
2 2 1 2007-06-09 CLE @CIN Dave Weathers tied 6-6 t 9 --- 2 3-0 4 0 Flyball: LF
3 3 1 2007-06-17 CLE ATL Kyle Davies tied 0-0 b 4 --- 1 3-0 4 0 Groundout: 1B-P
4 4 1 2007-07-05 CLE @DET Justin Verlander ahead 2-1 t 3 1-- 1 3-0 4 0 Flyball: CF
5 5 1 2007-07-17 CLE CHW Dewon Day tied 5-5 b10 --- 0 3-0 4 0 Groundout: 2B-1B
6 6 1 2007-08-18 CLE @TBD Jason Hammel ahead 3-0 t 3 --- 1 3-0 4 0 Flyball: RF
Ouch, he did it twice in the 9th inning or later or a tie game. That's not good.
He did also have these 4 hits on a 3-0 pitch:
Car# Yr# G# Date Tm Opp Pitcher Score Result Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc.
+-----+----+---+-------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
1 1 1 2007-06-17 CLE ATL Kyle Davies ahead 1-0 1B b 6 --- 0 3-0 4 0 Single to RF (Ground Ball)
2 2 1 2007-07-07 CLE @TOR Shaun Marcum tied 0-0 2B t 1 --- 2 3-0 4 0 Double to RF (Line Drive)
3 3 1 2007-07-22 CLE @TEX Robinson Tejeda ahead 2-0 1B t 5 --3 0 3-0 2 1 Single to CF (Ground Ball); Blake Scores
4 4 1 2007-08-25 CLE @KCR Kyle Davies ahead 6-0 HR t 2 --- 2 3-0 4 1 Home Run (Fly Ball to RF)
But these games were all either early or tied...much better times to take such a chance.
Anyway, there are so many cool things like this you can find on the PI. Get cracking!