Chris Carter starts his career with 11 consecutive 0-hit games
Posted by Andy on September 22, 2010
Chris Carter, a youngster up with the Oakland Athletics, had a rough start to his career. In his first 11 games, he went to the plate 33 times, got one walk, and no hits. He's among 3 players to rack up no hits in his first 11 games:
| Rk | Gcar | Player | #Matching | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | HBP | GDP | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kelly Shoppach | 11 | Ind. Games | 19 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | .000 | .105 | .000 | .105 | 1 | 0 | |
| 2 | Vic Harris | 11 | Ind. Games | 35 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 9 | .000 | .086 | .000 | .086 | 0 | 0 | |
| 3 | Chris Carter | 11 | Ind. Games | 33 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 13 | .000 | .030 | .000 | .030 | 0 | 1 |
This list excludes pitchers and guys appearing as only pinch-hitters in some or all of the games.
Reader Erik G. brought this to my attention a couple of days ago, and since then Carter is 3 for 5 with a walk in 2 subsequent games.
Incidentally, this Chris Carter should not be confused with the Chris Carter acquired by the Mets from the Red Sox for Billy Wagner or the Cris Carter who did nothing but catch touchdowns.
September 22nd, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I was going to post...
"his inability to get hits is not a surprise. He only cathes Touchdowns."
Then I decide to reread your post because you couldn't possibly have left that joke out...I was right.
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I'll tell you something...I regularly watched Eagles games at the time when Buddy Ryan made that comment, and I knew what he meant. Carter, at that time in his career, seemed really focused on running the corner end-zone fade to try to catch TDs from Cunningham, but didn't seem to put in much effort to catch balls anywhere else on the field. I knew what Ryan was saying and I agreed, even if it did become an unfortunate quote when removed even slightly from context.
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Is there anyway to do the search by AB's instead of games?
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Nope, not without doing some manually stuff.
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:47 pm
He'd better start hitting before he loses "the good Chris Carter" label
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Of course, I wanted to see if both baseball Chris Carters had birthdays a day apart with the one with the earlier date born in a leap year and the other one not born in a leap year, but their birthdays are about three months apart.
However, I did discover that both of them have first names other than Chris or Christopher. The Oakland Chris Carter is Vernon Christopher Carter. The Mets via Red Sox Chris Carter is William Chris Carter.
I remember Cris Carter from the Eagles, too. I thought I remembered that Lucille Ball's character had a daughter named Chris (presumably short for Christine or Christina) Carter in one of her post-"I Love Lucy" comedy series, but it turns out that her characters had daughters, in different series, named Chris Carmichael and Kim Carter (the latter played by real-life daughter Lucie Arnaz).
September 22nd, 2010 at 6:15 pm
He's presumably also not the Chris Carter who created the X-Files...or maybe that's what the government wants us to think!
September 22nd, 2010 at 6:17 pm
DD, I would have been stewing on deciphering that one for a while if I hadn't guessed Jeff Robinson(s) rather quickly!
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:56 pm
To come back to the point..... Kelly Shoppach probably should not be on the list with the other two because his 11 games spanned 2005 and 2006 and included a September callup in 2005 after being sent back to the minors for poor performance in early 2005.
What might be more interesting, is 11 consecutive no-hit games by date, not by ML appearance. What could prompt management to give that many PA to a prospect, when he didn't even make contact at the plate?
September 23rd, 2010 at 5:53 am
Who said Carter hasn't made contact? He hasn't struck out every PA.
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:48 am
The Giants had a kid once who Durocher was really high on, but started out ice cold as well.
And, unlike Carter {Or Carter, or Carter for that matter}, Willie Mays had more than his fair share of Ks during that period as well, if memory serves. My advice would be not to stick the fork in Carter quite yet; he ain't done by a long shot.
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:50 am
I stand corrected on the strikeouts...still, don't give up on the kid quite yet.
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:54 am
I think the A's want their cup of coffee back.
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:28 am
@ 11: In Mays 0-for-12, only 1 K.
And (and I didn't know this until 38 seconds ago), after that 0-12 ended with the famous HR off Spahn, he went 0-for-10 again in the next 3 games before he started hitting with any consistency.
By the time he was (in total) 1-for-23 going into his 8th game, that HR must have seemed like a distant memory.
September 23rd, 2010 at 5:36 pm
What about Lucas Duda for this year's Mets? He started off 1-33 before coming to life.
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Man, Vic Harris began 0-for-35 and 1-for-44. It's hard to go much lower than an .023 average! Even after this, though, he only hit .176 in 151 PA, finishing at .140. Amazingly, Texas made him a regular the next year, playing 152 games and posting a respectable 90 OPS+, well above his career 66. In 1981 he went to Japan and hit 22 homers, 9 more than his 579-game MLB total of 13! Jeez, how many would Albert hit there??
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:18 pm
@11 @14
Frank and Zack. So interesting about Willie Mays...... What was it about him that made an organization leave him in the lineup after a slow start to his career?
On the Chris Carter watch, his slugging is up to 0.175 as of tonight after 42 PA. Is he a bust or the next real deal?
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:50 pm
@17 - Hitting .477 at AAA will grant you some leniency, I suspect. And as Frank pointed out, Durocher liked him.
And that was the end of Bobby Thompson playing center. Bumped Bobby Thompson from CF to LF, Whitey Lockman from LF to 1B, Monte Irvin from 1B to RF/LF/1B, and RF Jack Maguire never played another inning for the Giants. All to get Mays his spot in CF.
But hey - Chris Carter!!
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:51 pm
@17:
Whether this was true or not, rumor had it at the time that someone's grits were on the line for signing Mays away from the Black Barons when he was such a bust. But then, Leo Durocher was always on someone's bad list in the front office for one reason or another. As much as I hated New York {the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees}, I always enjoyed watching the Lip squeak through -- and, like the case with Mays, emerge making the nay-sayers look like idiots.
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Would this be too premature to post a "Chris Carter and the Hall of Fame" type of post {LOL}