|
Useless All-Star Information
Jamie Moyer could wreck this list by being picked as the subsitute for Pedro Martinez. But for now, only eight active pitchers have won 100 games or more in their careers and not made an All-Star team. Bet you can't name them:
Jamie Moyer 159
Scott Erickson 138
Todd Stottlemyre 138
Jose Rijo 115
Pedro Astacio 110
Dave Burba 109
Jeff Fassero 106
Kirk Rueter 102
On the other end of the no-All-Star spectrum, only four active players (or three, depending on whether you consider the out-for-the-year Dave Martinez to be "active") have 1,500 hits or more without ever making an All-Star team:
Todd Zeile 1,794
Dave Martinez 1,599
Eric Karros 1,551
Delino DeShields 1,545
Finally, there are only three active players who have hit 200 homers or more and never made an All-Star team:
Karros 265
Tim Salmon 260
Zeile 228
Useless Interleague Information
Interleague play is more than just a novelty. It could be the difference in whether some teams make the playoffs or not.
The A's (16-2 interleague) are four games UNDER .500 against their own league but 14 over against the NL. If it weren't for interleague play, they would be 11 games out of first instead of six.
The Giants went 8-10 in interleague play. The Dodgers went 12-6. If it weren't for interleague play, the Giants would be a half-game out instead of 4½ out.
The Red Sox went 5-13 in interleague play, the Yankees 11-7. So just in games against AL teams, Boston's record is 4½ games better than New York's. Instead, the Red Sox were 1½ out, though Monday.
And the Reds went 2-10 in interleague, the Cardinals 8-4. So the Reds would be six games up -- instead of tied -- if we were just counting games against their own league.
The A's compiled the best single-season interleague record ever, and the Braves were right behind. Here are the six best since interleague play began, according to the Elias Sports Bureau:
Oakland Athletics, 2002: 16-2, .889
Atlanta Braves, 2002: 15-3, .833
New York Yankees, 1998: 13-3, .813
Houston Astros, 1999: 12-3, .800
Montreal Expos, 1997: 12-3, .800
Florida Marlins, 1997: 12-3, .800
The '99 Astros and '97 Marlins would not have made the playoffs had only records against their own leagues counted.
Best-hitting AL pitching staffs in interleague play:
Yankees, .261 (2 doubles, 3 runs, 2 RBIs)
Twins, .227 (1 RBI)
Mariners, .208 (1 double, 2 RBIs)
Yankees pitchers have a higher batting average this year than Yankees catchers (.249) and left fielders (.244). Which is kind of ironic, since no Yankees starting pitchers made the All-Star team but their starting catcher (Jorge Posada) did.
Worst-hitting AL pitching staffs:
Orioles, .053 (1-for-19, 11 strikeouts),br>
A's, .056 (1-for-18, 8 strikeouts)
Royals, .059 (1-for-17, 11 strikeouts)
Red Sox, .067 (1-for-15, 7 strikeouts)
No AL pitchers homered this year, but Kenny Rogers stole a base. That makes him the fourth AL pitcher in the DH era to steal a base. Kip Wells and Ismael Valdes did it last year. Blue Moon Odom stole one for the 1973 A's.
More Useless Information
One more note to try to put into better perspective just how long Luis Castillo's 35-game hitting streak really was. It's more than twice as long as the longest streaks in the careers of all these hitters: Todd Helton, Derek Jeter, Edgar Martinez, Jeff Cirillo, Bobby Abreu, Magglio Ordonez and Barry Bonds (to name just a few).
On June 21, Pudge Rodriguez hit his first home run since Aug. 29. Six days earlier, Mike Piazza threw out his first basestealer in two months, after allowing 51 steals in a row.
Of course, in between Pudge's homers, Piazza homered 20 times. And at the time of Piazza's first CS, Pudge had thrown out 24 of the previous 51 men who'd attempted to steal on him, according to Elias.
Nice June for the Tigers. Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler reports the Tigers had as many roster moves in June as wins (seven). It was the fewest wins in any June in their 102-year history (not counting the '81 strike season).
The Tigers also slipped behind the Pirates into last place in the majors in runs scored. And here's how hard that is to do: In the 29 seasons of the DH era, only eight AL teams have finished last in the big leagues in runs.
What a difference a start makes. Last year, the Phillies started 22-13, then played one game over .500 the rest of the year and took the Braves to the final weekend of the season. This year, the Phillies started 9-19, then played four games over 500 for the next 44 games -- but are still buried in last place, 14 games out.
On June 21, the Cubs won a 2-1 game over the Cardinals in which their only two runs came on two Fred McGriff homers. According to the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent, the Cubs have won only one other 2-1 game since 1901 in which their only two runs came on two home runs by one player.
That was on May 31, 1975, when Jose Cardenal hit two off Andy Messersmith in a 2-1 win over the Dodgers.
It was quite a week for comebacks (or disappearing leads, depending on which side you're on).
The Padres blew a 5-0 first-inning lead Thursday in San Francisco, then blew another 5-0 first-inning lead the next day in Kansas City. That made them the first team to score five runs in the first in back-to-back games and still lose both games, according to Elias, since the 1893 Chicago Colts did it on the same dates.
But the most amazing game of them all was Friday's Cubs-White Sox game, when the Cubs lost a game they led by eight runs for the first time since April 17, 1976, the day Mike Schmidt hit four home runs in an 18-16 game.
Elias' Santo Lombardo reports that of all the interleague games ever played -- World Series and regular season -- the only other game in which one team blew an eight-run lead and lost was Game 4 of the 1929 World Series. And who blew that one?
The Cubs, who took an 8-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh, gave up 10 runs in the seventh and lost, 10-8.
In his June 22 start in San Diego, the Yankees' Ted Lilly pitched nine innings and gave up a run in none of them. The following Saturday, in his next start against the Mets, he pitched into the fifth inning -- and gave up runs in all five of them.
That turned into the second game in the history of Yankee Stadium in which the visiting team scored in each of the first six innings. The other, according to Elias' Alex Stern: Aug. 23, 1938, when Luke Appling, Boze Berger and the White Sox did it.
From our Go Figure Dept.: The Marlins had gone 226 straight games without a home run from a pitcher. Then A.J. Burnett and Michael Tejera homered in two games in a row. And no player in either league had homered in five straight games this year until Mike Sweeney did it Monday-Friday. How long did it take until somebody else did it? Exactly one day, until Jim Thome homered in his fifth straight Saturday.
Loyal reader Lee Sinins, of baseball-encyclopedia.com, reports that Barry Bonds just reached 100 walks for the 10th time, tying Mel Ott's NL record and making him only the sixth player to go over 100 walks 10 times. The others:
Babe Ruth 13
Ted Williams 11
Lou Gehrig 11
Mickey Mantle 10
Mel Ott 10
Randy Johnson gave up a home run to Melvin Mora on June 20 on an 0-2 pitch. The East Valley Tribune's Ed Price reports it was the Unit's first gopherball on an 0-2 pitch since Andruw Jones hit one on April 20, 2001 -- 1,271 batters ago.
From the Farm Bureau
Jim Ferguson, longtime media-relations whiz for the National Association, reports that switching from aluminum to wood bats must not be that tough for everybody, since ... Prince (Son of Cecil) Fielder hit a grand slam in the first game of his pro career (for Ogden of the Pioneer League). ... And Jeff Tolotti, a 39th-round draft pick of the Cardinals, went 6-for-6 in the second game of his pro career (for Johnson City of the Appalachian League).
Steve Degler, golden voice of the Reading Phillies, wonders when the last time two teams' respective saves leaders started against each other in a game? It happened last Tuesday, in the second game of a Reading-Trenton doubleheader in the Eastern League, when Rolando Viera (9 saves) started for Trenton and Franklin Perez (5 saves) started for Reading. By the way, they got 21 outs combined, and neither figured in the decision in a 5-4 Trenton win.
It isn't just Mike Piazza who couldn't throw out anybody in the first two months of the season and then finally figured it out. At Norfolk, the Mets' two Triple-A catchers, Jason Phillips and Joe Depastino nailed only 8 of 53 basestealers in April and May, including streaks of 22 steals in a row and 31 for 32. Then they threw out six of their first 12 in June.
And crime definitely paid June 25 for the Johnson City Cardinals. They stole 15 bases in one game against the Danville Braves -- and still needed a 10th-inning home run by Gabriel Veloz to win, 8-7.
Finally, out in Houston, Kirk Saarloos may be gone. But he isn't forgotten -- not by SABR's Michael Mavrogiannis, anyway. It takes an inspired guy to look up every player in history who had two sets of double vowels in his last name, but this man did it.
And the winners are ...
Robert Eenhoorn (1994-1997 Yankees-Angels)
Bob Greenwood (1954-1955 Phillies)
Bill Greenwood (American Association, 1882-1890)
The Sultan's Corner
After hitting four home runs in a game May 2, it took Mike Cameron 54 days to hit his next four homers. That's the second-most in history for a four-homer man, according to the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent. (We're exonerating Mark Whiten, who hit his four homers in September and needed until the following May 6 to hit his next four.)
The record for most days ever, according to the Sultan:
59 days -- Bob Horner, 1976
54 days -- Mike Cameron, 2002
41 days -- Joe Adcock, 1954
37 days -- Ed Delahanty, 1896
30 days -- Willie Mays, 1961
And the fewest days ...
4 days -- Shawn Green, 2002
7 days -- Mike Schmidt, 1976
11 days -- Rocky Colavito, 1959
Jorge Posada hit home runs from each side of the plate last weekend, for the fourth time in his career (and second time against the Mets). Here are the only three catchers with more than one game like that, according to the Sultan:
Todd Hundley 5
Jorge Posada 4
Ted Simmons 2
Posada also is one of just four players who have switch-hit homers from each side in an interleague game -- and the only one who has done it twice:
Mark Bellhorn, Cubs, 6/30/2002 vs. CWS
Roberto Alomar, CLE, 7/16/2001 vs. HOU
Ruben Sierra, TEX, 6/13/2001 vs. LA
Tony Clark, DET, 7/18/1999 vs. CIN
Jorge Posada, Yankees, 7/10/1999 vs. Mets
Mike Hampton may not be pitching real hot, but he's still going yard. With seven homers last year and two this year, he's the first pitcher since Steve Avery to have back-to-back multihomer seasons. Here are the only pitchers to do that in the DH era, courtesy of the Sultan:
Ken Brett, 1973 (4); 1974 (2)
Roric Harrison, 1973 (2); 1974 (3)
Larry Christenson, 1975 (2); 1976 (2)
Larry Christenson, 1976 (2); 1977 (3)
J.R. Richard, 1976 (2); 1977 (2)
Bob Forsch, 1986 (2); 1987 (2)
Steve Avery, 1995 (2); 1996 (2)
Hampton is going to have to keep on hacking if he wants a shot at the all-time record-holder. That's Warren Spahn, who had NINE straight multihomer seasons from 1955 through 1963.
Who are the only two active players who have hit game-ending pinch-hit grand slams? No, not Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa. It's Dave Hansen and Gregg Zaun (of course), following Zaun's walkoff slam last Thursday against Byung-Hyun Kim. The 10 most recent game-ending pinch slams before Zaun's, according to the Sultan:
6/3/1978: Davey Johnson, PHI, off LA (9th, 0 out)
5/1/1979: Roger Freed, StL, off HOU (11th, 2 out)
8/5/1979: John Milner, PIT, off PHI (9th, 2 out)
8/8/1982: Terry Crowley, BAL, off KC (9th, 1 out)
9/2/1983: Ozzie Virgil, PHI, off SF (9th, 2 out)
6/10/1986: Tim Teufel, Mets, off PHI (11th, 1 out)
7/26/1988: Mike Fitzgerald, MON, off CHI (11th, 2 out)
9/19/1991: Curt Wilkerson, PIT, off StL (9th, 2 out)
6/28/1993: Dave Hansen, LA, off SF (9th, 2 out)
5/19/1995: Dwight Smith, ATL, off FLA (9th, 2 out)
Finally, no Twin has hit 30 home runs since 1987, believe it or not. But Torii Hunter is right on schedule, with 18 through Monday. Now, though, can he become the first Twin since 1987 to hit 20 by the All-Star break? Here are the Twins who did that, along with their totals for the season, according to the Sultan:
Player YEAR BREAK SEASON
Harmon Killebrew 1964 30 49
Harmon Killebrew 1969 28 49
Harmon Killebrew 1961 26 46
Harmon Killebrew 1970 26 41
Kent Hrbek 1987 23 34
Harmon Killebrew 1967 22 44
Bob Allison 1963 21 35
Bob Allison 1964 21 32
Larry Hisle 1977 21 28
Kent Hrbek 1986 20 29
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
| |
|
