Hits without Singles
Posted by Raphy on June 4, 2008
From the suggestions page:
A’s rookie Carlos Gonzalez now has five hits on the season/career - all doubles.
What’s the most hits to start a season or career without a single?
Comment by gswitter — June 4, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
Good idea. We can't do a direct search but let's see what we can do.
1) If he would retire today Gonzalez would hold the record for the most hits in a career without a single.
2) We can't search for ab streaks but we can search for games streaks. By using the advanced criteria in the Batting Streak Finder, we can limit our search to games in which a player had a hit. Searching consecutive games without a single and to start a career yields the following results.
Four players (since 1956) started their careers with 6 hits before getting a single: Pete Incaviglia, Carlos Quentin, Dave Kingman, and Jim Lefebvre. (Pete Daley singled prior to 1956.)
Three previous players (since 1956) have started their careers with 5 hits before getting a single: Mark Johnson, Roric Harrison and Frank Ernaga.
I only checked the players who appear on the search with 4 hits or more. However, these lists are not necessarily all-inclusive. If a player started a game with three extra base hits and then singled it would not be included here.
Also, if a played had a really big day to start his career, it may have been overlooked. (Although a quick run of the PI Game Finder yields nothing significant.)
June 5th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Roric Harrison is an interesting inclusion on this list, only because he was a pitcher. His career average was an unspectacular .121, but among his 15 career hits were six home runs and three doubles.
The homer he hit on 10/3/72 as a member of the Orioles was the last home run hit by an AL pitcher before the introduction of the DH.
Using that tidbit as a launching point for something totally unrelated, I ran a quick search to identify all of the AL pitchers who have hit homers in NL parks since the beginning of interleague play. There have been 12 of them, and four of them were Cleveland Indians. No other team has more than one.
June 7th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Carlos Gonzalez just got another hit in the 3rd inning Saturday Night v LAA. yep, it was another double.
June 7th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Carlos Gonzalez just got another hit in the 8th inning Saturday Night v LAA. yep, it was another double.
BTW For those of you who like triple numbers, after his AB in the 3rd his averages were .222/.222/.444