Archive for the 'Streak Finders' Category

As a reader asked for, here are the longest streaks for reaching base at least once per game, broken down by position.

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Using the PI batting Streak Finder, here are the longest hitting streaks by position since 1957. The player needed to have appeared at the position (though not necessarily have started there) in each game to qualify.

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Here's a pretty straightforward search: streaks of consecutive games without an RBI over the last 15 years:

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• 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.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about the trade between Minnesota and Philadelphia that saw them swap Eric Milton for Carlos Silva and Nick Punto. That was a pretty bad trade for Philly, and I added that Punto has been an effective player for the Twins. I might have spoken to soon on that, though. While he had a pretty good season in 2006, his numbers this year are verging on historically terrible.

Here are the seasons with the lowest slugging percentage in the last 20 years for players with at least 450 at bats:

 Cnt Player             **SLG**   AB Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+---------+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Alfredo Griffin      .254   461 1990  32 LAD NL 141 502  38  97 11  3  1  35  29  11  65   2   6   4   5   6  3  .210  .258  .512 *6
    2 Billy Ripken         .258   512 1988  23 BAL AL 150 559  52 106 18  1  2  34  33   0  63   5   6   3  14   8  2  .207  .260  .518 *4/5
    3 Felix Fermin         .260   484 1989  25 CLE AL 156 562  50 115  9  1  0  21  41   0  27   4  32   1  15   6  4  .238  .302  .562 *6/4
    4 Nick Punto           .269   450 2007  29 MIN AL 143 512  51  95 17  3  1  23  54   1  81   0   5   3   7  16  6  .211  .294  .563 *564
    5 Jose Lind            .269   468 1992  28 PIT NL 135 506  38 110 14  1  0  39  26  12  29   1   7   4  14   3  1  .235  .275  .544 *4
    6 Gerald Young         .276   533 1989  24 HOU NL 146 620  71 124 17  3  0  38  74   4  60   2   6   5   7  34 25  .233  .326  .602 *8
    7 Gary Pettis          .277   458 1988  30 DET AL 129 512  65  96 14  4  3  36  47   0  85   1   6   0   3  44 10  .210  .285  .562 *8
    8 Jose Uribe           .280   453 1989  30 SFG NL 151 497  34 100 12  6  1  30  34  12  74   0   6   4   7   6  6  .221  .273  .553 *6
    9 Jose Lind            .289   578 1989  25 PIT NL 153 637  52 134 21  3  2  48  39   7  64   2  13   5  13  15  1  .232  .280  .569 *4
   10 Omar Vizquel         .291   491 2007  40 SFG NL 137 551  49 116 17  2  2  41  42   6  48   1  14   3  12  14  6  .236  .296  .587 *6
   11 Brad Ausmus          .291   450 2003  34 HOU NL 143 509  43 103 12  2  4  47  46   1  66   4   4   5   8   5  3  .229  .303  .594 *2
   12 Rafael Santana       .294   480 1988  30 NYY AL 148 521  50 115 12  1  4  38  33   0  61   1   5   2  17   1  2  .240  .289  .583 *6
   13 Mike Caruso          .297   529 1999  22 CHW AL 136 564  60 132 11  4  2  35  20   0  36   3  11   1   6  12 14  .250  .280  .577 *6
   14 Jody Reed            .297   495 1996  33 SDP NL 146 568  45 121 20  0  2  49  59   8  53   3   5   6  15   2  5  .244  .325  .622 *4
   15 Darren Lewis         .297   472 1995  27 TOT NL 132 527  66 118 13  3  1  24  34   0  57   8  12   1   9  32 18  .250  .311  .608 *8
   16 Eric Yelding         .297   511 1990  25 HOU NL 142 559  69 130  9  5  1  28  39   1  87   0   4   5  11  64 25  .254  .305  .602 *8674/95
   17 Delino DeShields     .298   581 1996  27 LAD NL 154 642  75 130 12  8  5  41  53   7 124   1   2   5  12  48 11  .224  .288  .586 *4
   18 Omar Vizquel         .298   560 1993  26 SEA AL 158 630  68 143 14  2  2  31  50   2  71   4  13   3   7  12 14  .255  .319  .617 *6
   19 Rey Ordonez          .299   505 1998  26 NYM NL 153 548  46 124 20  2  1  42  23   7  60   1  15   4  11   3  6  .246  .278  .577 *6
   20 Brian Hunter         .301   539 1999  28 TOT AL 139 589  79 125 13  6  4  34  37   0  91   2   4   7   8  44  8  .232  .280  .581 *78

Punto comes in at #4, without much chance of moving any higher on this list given how little of the season remains. His .563 OPS is also remarkably low (8th lowest for the same search criteria) and his OPS+ is just 52.

Note that another 2007 season made the list, that of Omar Vizquel. He made #18 in 1993 as well. When Vizquel first came up with Seattle, he had the reputation of being all-field and no-hit, which is proven out by the fact that he posted 4 seasons in his first 5 with an OPS+ under 70. As recently as 2002, he had a league-average OPS, and until this year stayed fairly steady with an average of about 87 OPS+.

Random note of interest: After the 1993 season, Vizquel was traded in part for #3 on this list, Felix Fermin.

A-rod has a streak of 5 consecutive games with a homer broken last night. Click through for the full list of players to homer in at least 5 straight games since 1997. Read the rest of this entry »

• Curtis Granderson became the founding third member of the 20/20/20/20 club (HR, SB, 2B, and 3B.) Here are the members of the 15/15/15/15 club. Carl Crawford (2005 & 2006) and Juan Samuel (1984 & 1987) have done it twice. Jimmy Rollins needs 2 SB and 3 3B this year to join the 20/20/20/20 club, so he's got a shot.

• Who's got the longest streak in the 2000's of most starts without allowing a walk? Yes, the answer is Greg Maddux, but it's not his current streak of 8 starts. In 2001 he did it in 9 straight games. The list includes streaks of 7 straight games by David Wells and Javier Vazquez. The longest streak since 1957 was by Bill Fischer in 1962, with 11 straight starts with no walks. Fischer did have a relief appearance in the middle of his streak, earning a blown save. Over the 11 starts, Fischer went 2-8 with 71 IP, 86 hits, 0 walks and just 18 strikeouts. That's a pretty weird streak.

• The Brewers led off their game on Sunday with 3 straight homers. It's just the third time it's been done, with the first occurrence back in 1987 by the Padres. It took me a while to find the second time it was done. I went to the Team Batting Event Finder, set it to all teams, home runs, then limited the events to homers in the 1st inning with no outs. Here's the list for 1994. Reading down the list, you'll notice the game where three such homers occurred, but that's not the game. From the boxscore, we see that Jacob Brumfield led off with a homer, and Bret Boone followed with one. But then Barry Larkin reached on an error, ahead of Kevin Mitchell homering. Here's a 1996 game by the Rockies where something similar happened. And one by the Mets in 1999. Finally, here's the game: in 2003 by the Braves, when Rafael Furcal, Mark DeRosa, and Gary Sheffield homered in the bottom of the first.

• Coming in to Sunday, there were 7 pitchers who had 30 starts allowing 6 or fewer earned runs. The ERAs of these players were Dontrelle Willis 5.01, Brandon Webb 2.91, C. C. Sabathia 3.15, Scott Kazmir 3.79, Tim Hudson 3.47, Dan Haren 3.03, Aaron Harang 3.64. Remember that song "One of These Things is Not Like the Others"? Maybe that explains why Dontrelle Willis finally gave up 7 ER on Sunday against the Phillies.

From the last 10 years, longest streaks with at least 1 RBI in each game:

                   StreakStart  Streak End Games    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  SO   BB   SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Teams
+-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Mike Piazza        2000-06-14  2000-07-02    15     63   14   22   3   0   8   28    9    4    0   0  .349  .388  .778 1.166 NYM                                         

 Mike Sweeney       1999-06-23  1999-07-04    13     52   14   23   4   0   4   19    5    5    1   0  .442  .508  .750 1.258 KCR                                         

 Garret Anderson    2007-08-26  2007-09-06    11     40   12   19   3   0   7   21    3    7    1   0  .475  .531 1.075 1.606 LAA
 Carlos Guillen     2007-06-16  2007-06-28    11     35   11   16   3   0   4   17    3    5    1   1  .457  .500  .886 1.386 DET

Anderson's is active. Aside from missed playing time, he's put together a pretty nice season in 2007, recovering a bit over substandard seasons in 2004-2006. (Although had he not had those 10 RBI in one game, it might not look quite as good.)

How about Piazza getting 28 RBI in 15 games? Is that a record? In those 15 games he had 3 doubles and 8 homers. Many of his RBIs came on singles, of which he had 11. Kind of amazing that with 28 RBI, he slugged "only" .778 over that period.

8 Home Runs in Postseason, Deciding Game and as last play of game - Baseball-Reference PI

The Play Index is now fully integrated with postseason data.  Within the event finder you can find all of the various events in the postseason for every team or by individual team.   You can also select by type of series and game in the series (including the last game of the series).

The game finders and streak finders also now include postseason data and allow you search by series type and game as well.

Most consecutive scoreless outings to start career with at least one strikeout in at least each outing - Baseball-Reference PI

With one more scoreless outing with a strikeout Joba Chamberlain will take sole possession of the longest such streak to start a career with 8 games.  What other future Hall of Famer shares the distinction of having seven such games?  Why Joel Johnston, of course.   Others with a high number of scoreless innings and strikeouts to start their careers include four with six and a bunch with five.  Todd Wellemeyer for instance started his career with 7 2/3rd scoreless innings with 13 strikeouts and no walks and just two hits allowed.

Joba is a couple years younger than most of the other guys on this list, though Victor Cruz was just 20 when he debuted.

How you can do this: I went to the Pitching Streak Finder in the Play Index.  Checked "To Start Player's Career", Selected R = 0 and SO >= 1 for "with the following in each game:" and hit submit.