Level 42
Posted by Steve Lombardi on April 8, 2010
A totally random and bizarre stat for today - via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Team Batting Game Finder - teams, since 1973, with 40 or more games of 9 innings or less where they sent 42 or more players to the plate:
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It's really too bad that those 1996 M's had almost zero starting pitching - 'cause, if they did, they would have been one of the great teams of the modern times.
April 8th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I definitely agree with your last statement. This stat is obviously a good stat to have, but then to go only 38-16 with all those baserunners? That '07 Yanks staff was nothing at all spectacular, but when your offense is that powerful, you have to try to lose games.
April 8th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I remember watching a game between the Orioles and Mariners that baseball-reference tells me was on May 17, 1996, where both teams had over 20 hits in a 9-inning game (and ended up being 14-13, in favor of the Orioles). The announcers said at the time that was the first time that had happened in about 20 years. The most recent game I can find to the 1996 game was April 27, 1980, between the A's and Twins, where the Twins won 20-11.
April 8th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
It's interesting to see a young Raul Ibanez racking up a -52 OPS+. I didn't even know that was possible!
April 8th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
I note that team 51 on the list, the 1999 Rockies, went only 22-20 in these games. I bet most of them were in Denver....