By Tom Ruane
A while back, I started collecting my Retrosheet posts in a place on the web-site. This series eventually grew to encompass several articles. Here are the others:
Fun With Retrosheet Data Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 3 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 4 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 5 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 6 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 7
I hope at least some of this is of general interest and, as always:
Thanks for your patience.
A note on the scope of the data presented in these articles:
As of this writing, the data used in these articles does not include any of the Negro Leagues that are now considered by MLB to be part of the "Major Leagues" as of December 2020. These leagues are the Negro National League from 1920 to 1931 and 1933 to 1948, the Eastern Colored League from 1923 to 1928, the 1929 American Negro League, the 1932 East-West League, the 1932 Negro Southern League, and the Negro American League from 1937 to 1948.
This omission is not in any way a reflection upon the major league status of those leagues (or for that matter any additional leagues that may come under the Major League umbrella in future years), only that I did not have access to data associated with these leagues while I was researching and writing these articles. In light of this, any data presented in this article, as well as my use of the term "major leagues," should be viewed in light of this omission.
List of Articles (starting with most recent)
Three-Out Innings with No Official At-Bats (April 16, 2023) ERA Qualifiers and the Number of Batter-Pitcher Matchups (November 7, 2021) Fun With Batting Orders (August 5, 2021) Most Consistent Pitchers (May 11, 2021) The Most Homogeneous Batting Orders (May 6, 2021) Most Consistent Hitters (April 25, 2021) Pitchers Doing Random Things In The Most Consecutive Games (February 2, 2021) Players Doing Random Things In The Most Consecutive Games (January 24, 2021) Extra-Inning Season and Career Batting Records (October 19, 2019) Extra-Inning Single Game Batting Records (September 29, 2019) Second (and third) Generation Major League Players (September 14, 2019) Perhaps the Most Improbable Comebacks From 1901 to 2018 (May 13, 2019) Runs Produced By The Most and Fewest Hits (September 12, 2018) Changes In Pitch Outcomes: 1988-2016 (July 2, 2017) Fun with a Team's OPS (June 20, 2016) A Look at Run Differentials (June 18, 2016) Starting Pitching Lines (May 24, 2015) The Greatest Incomplete Starts (May 20, 2015) Most Surprising Pitching Performances (July 5, 2014) Both Starting Pitchers Making MLB Exits (May 26, 2014) Both Starting Pitchers Making MLB Debuts (May 19, 2014) The Age of Starting Lineups (May 5, 2014) Hot Starts to Careers, the Pitching Edition (April 29, 2014) Hot Starts to Careers, the Batting Edition (April 28, 2014) Hard to Hit Pitchers (April 5, 2014) Unique Batting Lines (August 26, 2012) Come-From-Behind Wins and Losses (July 8, 2012) A Tour of Team Pitching Logs (July 7, 2012) A Tour of Team Batting Logs (July 5, 2012) Consecutive Winless Starts (June 23, 2012) Low-Hit Clusters (June 19, 2012) When Winning Streaks Collide (June 14, 2012) Defensive Juggling (May 8, 2012) Incomplete Games By Position (April 8, 2012) A Look at Triple-Crown Leaders (December 19, 2011) Do Only Slow Runners Ground into a Lot of DPs? (December 15, 2011) The Homering-est Teammates (and Multiple Debuts) (December 12, 2011) Multiple Hitting Streaks (November 29, 2011) The Most Exciting Games (October 28, 2011) League Leaders With the Fewest Games Played (October 14, 2011) Nelson Cruz Made Me Do It (October 15, 2011) Players With The Highest Percentage of Post-Season Homers (October 7, 2011) Doubling Their Home Runs (September 27, 2011) Top Hitting Streaks By Batting Order and Defensive Position (September 27, 2011) Come-From-Behind Batting Champions, An Update (September 26, 2011) Best Career Marks By Park (September 24, 2011) Come-From-Behind Batting Champions (September 23, 2011) Best Career Hitters By Lineup Position (September 18, 2011) Best Hitters By Lineup Position (September 16, 2011) More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About 1-0 Games (September 15, 2011) Best/Worst Month for a Team's Pitchers (September 14, 2011) Batters Supporting Starting Pitchers (September 10, 2011) Most Strikeouts Between Hits Allowed... And Then Some (September 5, 2011) Double-Digits In Strikeouts and Hits Allowed (September 3, 2011) Bases-Loaded Plate Appearances (August 31, 2011) Palindromic At-Bat Line (August 27, 2011) Most At-Bats With the Bases Loaded (August 25, 2011) Starting Infields, Then And Now (August 24, 2011) Easy schedule runs (July 15, 2011) Parity Comes to MLB (May 29, 2011) Two .400 Hitters on a Team (May 3, 2011) Pitcher versus Team (July 22, 2010) Expected Pitcher Match-Ups (July 21, 2010) Consecutive Starts With IPs greater than or equal to Hits (July 19, 2010) Consecutive Starts With Ks greater than or equal to IPs (July 17,2010) Pitcher Match-Ups (July 16, 2010) Most Blown Saves Combo (June 3, 2009)
Last week, Trent McCotter was wondering what hitter held the career record for the most hits in a single park. We both guessed Stan Musial at Busch Stadium and we were both close, which is a polite way of saying we were wrong. Of course, one thing led to another, and as is usually the case, that meant a series of charts, this time of various batting and pitching park leaders. Once again, this covers all games played from 1918 to 2010.
The first chart shows the career leaders at a single park in seven different categories: games played, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs and runs batted in. The list is sorted by games played, but alongside each statistic is the career ranking in each category. All of the players who ranked among the top five in any of the seven categories are listed (although the ordering can be a little tough to see once you get past the first category).
---G--- ---AB-- ---R--- ---H--- --2B-- --3B-- --HR-- --RBI--
Player Park 1st Last # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK
Carl Yastrzemski Fenway Park 1961 1983 1676 1 5948 1 994 2 1822 1 382 2 38 - 237 12 1063 1
Stan Musial Busch Stadium 1941 1963 1524 2 5402 2t 999 1 1815 2 394 1 90 6 252 8 1056 2
Robin Yount County Stadium 1974 1993 1438 3 5402 2t 810 11 1558 4 285 8 67 20t 124 92t 721 22
Brooks Robinson Memorial Stadium 1955 1977 1435 4 5127 4 602 45 1397 10 232 20 32 - 137 66 701 25t
Al Kaline Tiger Stadium 1953 1974 1421 5 4984 6 838 7 1508 7 247 14t 33 - 226 15 827 8
Mel Ott Polo Grounds 1926 1947 1367 6 4576 8 954 4 1360 15 182 65 21 - 323 1 947 4
George Brett Kauffman Stadium 1973 1993 1366 7 5122 5 818 9 1637 3 351 3 97 4 136 67 839 7
Ernie Banks Wrigley Field 1953 1971 1285 8 4734 7 722 19 1372 12 218 28 42 76t 290 3 909 6
Tony Gwynn Jack Murphy Stadium 1982 2001 1213 12t 4506 9 695 23 1544 5 260 12 48 48t 66 - 536 63t
Mickey Mantle Yankee Stadium 1951 1968 1213 12t 3970 25 825 8 1211 23 163 94t 44 65t 266 4 744 15t
Mike Schmidt Veterans Stadium 1972 1989 1202 15 4020 23 784 13 1094 45 220 25t 31 - 265 5 825 9
Charlie Gehringer Tiger Stadium 1924 1942 1176 17 4386 11 948 5 1417 8 297 5 62 26t 92 - 765 12
Ted Williams Fenway Park 1939 1960 1165 19 3887 30 974 3 1403 9 319 4 35 - 248 10 965 3
Paul Waner Forbes Field 1926 1944 1124 20 4274 12 814 10 1513 6 296 6 128 1 56 - 630 35t
Lou Gehrig Yankee Stadium 1923 1939 1080 26 3861 31 882 6 1269 20 206 39 83 10t 251 9 946 5
Roberto Clemente Forbes Field 1955 1970 1070 28 4144 19 630 39 1364 13 198 46t 95 5 86 - 576 52
Sam Rice Griffith Stadium 1918 1934 1060 30 4036 22 706 21 1363 14 201 43t 101 3 9 - 528 70
Pie Traynor Forbes Field 1920 1935 948 56 3603 42 617 41 1197 26 174 71t 102 2 23 - 650 30
Sammy Sosa Wrigley Field 1992 2004 917 62t 3475 52 638 34 1005 61 145 - 19 - 293 2 740 17
So Yastrzemski and Musial sit atop the hit list, only seven apart, while no one else is even close. And they also hold the top two spots in all the other categories except for triples and home runs.
Forbes Field was a great field to hit triples in. Eleven different players hit 50 or more triples there from 1918 on. In contrast, the leader in triples at Veterans Stadium was Larry Bowa with 49, and during period covered, Ryne Sandberg's 48 triples are the most hit at Wrigley Field and Bobby Doerr's 46 triples top the list at Fenway Park.
Here are the highest career batting averages in a park since 1918 (2000 plate appearances minimum):
Player Park 1st Last AVG ELSE Chuck Klein Baker Bowl 1928 1938 .395 .277 Rogers Hornsby Sportsman's Park 1920 1937 .392 .354 Tris Speaker Dunn Field 1918 1928 .381 .317 Larry Walker Coors Field 1995 2005 .381 .282 George Sisler Sportsman's Park 1918 1930 .369 .328 Wade Boggs Fenway Park 1982 1999 .369 .306
The "ELSE" column contains each player's batting average elsewhere during the period covered.
Sportsman's Park was known as Busch Stadium starting in 1953 and Dunn Field was known as League Park after 1927.
The highest on-base and slugging percentages:
On-Base Percentage: Player Park 1st Last AVG ELSE Ted Williams Fenway Park 1939 1960 .496 .467 Babe Ruth Yankee Stadium 1923 1934 .487 .474 Tris Speaker Dunn Field 1918 1928 .475 .401 Rogers Hornsby Sportsman's Park 1920 1937 .467 .433 Wade Boggs Fenway Park 1982 1999 .464 .388 Slugging Percentage: Player Park 1st Last AVG ELSE Larry Walker Coors Field 1995 2005 .710 .501 Chuck Klein Baker Bowl 1928 1938 .705 .451 Babe Ruth Yankee Stadium 1923 1934 .697 .701 Hank Greenberg Tiger Stadium 1930 1946 .691 .532 Jimmie Foxx Shibe Park 1925 1945 .668 .584
Chuck Klein and Larry Walker were both very fortunate in their choice of home parks throughout the peak years of their careers. And despite placing third on the slugging list, Ruth actually hit better away from Yankee Stadium. Of course, an .840 slugging percentage in 216 games at the Polo Grounds didn't hurt.
Barry Bonds fell 4 plate appearances short of the 2000 minimum at Pacific Bell Park or he would have easily topped both of the lists above with an OBP of .526 and a slugging percentage of .763.
Here is a summary of the leaders (with additional categories added), along with the leaders among players who played in the park during 2010:
CAT Player Park 1st Last # Current Player Park 1st Last # G - Carl Yastrzemski Fenway Park 1961 1983 1676 Garret Anderson Anaheim Stadium 1994 2010 1023 AB - Carl Yastrzemski Fenway Park 1961 1983 5948 Garret Anderson Anaheim Stadium 1994 2010 3989 R - Stan Musial Busch Stadium 1941 1963 999 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 788 H - Carl Yastrzemski Fenway Park 1961 1983 1822 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 1239 2B - Stan Musial Busch Stadium 1941 1963 394 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 283 3B - Paul Waner Forbes Field 1926 1944 128 Carl Crawford Tropicana Field 2002 2010 58 HR - Mel Ott Polo Grounds 1926 1947 323 Paul Konerko Comiskey Park II 1999 2010 216 RBI - Carl Yastrzemski Fenway Park 1961 1983 1063 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 748 BB - Ted Williams Fenway Park 1939 1960 1031 Chipper Jones Turner Field 1997 2010 642 IBB - Barry Bonds Pacific Bell Park 2000 2007 198 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 95 SO - Mike Schmidt Veterans Stadium 1972 1989 897 Jim Thome Jacobs Field 1994 2010 628 HBP- Craig Biggio Astrodome 1988 1999 92 Chase Utley Citizens Bank Park 2004 2010 56 SH - Joe Judge Griffith Stadium 1918 1934 140 Omar Vizquel Jacobs Field 1994 2010 73 SF - George Brett Kauffman Stadium 1973 1993 72 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 48 SB - Rickey Henderson Oakland Coliseum 1979 2002 435 Carl Crawford Tropicana Field 2002 2010 197 CS - Rickey Henderson Oakland Coliseum 1979 2002 133 Luis Castillo Pro Player Stadium 1996 2010 67 AVG - Chuck Klein Baker Bowl 1928 1938 .395 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 .356 OBP - Ted Williams Fenway Park 1939 1960 .496 Todd Helton Coors Field 1997 2010 .454 SLG - Larry Walker Coors Field 1995 2005 .710 Jim Thome Jacobs Field 1994 2010 .629
Many of the modern parks on the list have gone through a variety of name changes. I just picked one. In these cases, each park page will contain the litany of companies who paid for the naming rights.
Bonds set the high for intentional walks in only 494 games, drawing an intentional pass in just over 40% of those games.
And here are the career leaders if we only count games played by visiting players (for average categories I used a 200 plate appearance minimum):
CAT Player Park 1st Last # Current Player Park 1st Last #
G - Stan Musial Forbes Field 1941 1963 215 Derek Jeter Fenway Park 1996 2010 118
AB - Stan Musial Shibe Park 1942 1963 808 Derek Jeter Fenway Park 1996 2010 508
R - Babe Ruth Tiger Stadium 1918 1934 170 Derek Jeter Camden Yards 1996 2010 85
H - Stan Musial Forbes Field 1941 1963 271 Derek Jeter Camden Yards 1996 2010 151
2B - Lou Gehrig Tiger Stadium 1923 1938 64 Magglio Ordonez Jacobs Field 1997 2010 31
3B - Jim Bottomley Crosley Field 1922 1932 20 7 - many players
Jim Bottomley Braves Field 1922 1935 20
Earl Averill Griffith Stadium 1929 1940 20
Stan Musial Forbes Field 1941 1963 20
HR - Babe Ruth Shibe Park 1918 1934 68 Alex Rodriguez Anaheim Stadium 1995 2010 37
RBI - Babe Ruth Tiger Stadium 1918 1934 181 Alex Rodriguez SkyDome 1995 2010 90
BB - Babe Ruth Dunn Field 1918 1934 172 Todd Helton Dodger Stadium 1997 2010 65
Chipper Jones Pro Player Stadium 1995 2010 65
IBB - Barry Bonds Dodger Stadium 1986 2007 44 Albert Pujols Minute Maid Park 2001 2010 18
SO - Mike Schmidt Forbes Field 1973 1989 140 Alex Rodriguez Fenway Park 1994 2010 92
Alex Rodriguez SkyDome 1995 2010 92
HBP - Minnie Minoso Tiger Stadium 1951 1964 19 Derek Jeter Camden Yards 1996 2010 10
Alex Rodgiguez Tropicana Field 1998 2010 10
SH - Roger Peckinpaugh Comiskey Park 1918 1926 29 Livan Hernandez Pro Player Stadium 1999 2010 11
Joe Sewell Comiskey Park 1921 1933 29
SF - Ernie Banks Crosley Field 1953 1970 12 Joe Mauer Kauffman Stadium 2004 2010 8
SB - Rickey Henderson Cleveland Stadium 1979 1993 59 Johnny Damon Camden Yards 1995 2010 29
Rickey Henderson Kauffman Stadium 1979 2002 59
Rickey Henderson Humphrey Metrodome 1982 2002 59
CS - Lou Brock Dodger Stadium 1962 1979 20 7 - many players
AVG - Lefty O'Doul Sportsman's Park 1919 1934 .436 Adrian Beltre Coors Fields 1999 2010 .399
OBP - Babe Ruth Dunn Field 1918 1934 .534 Ken Griffey Jr. Rangers Ballpark 1994 2010 .470
SLG - Willie Mays Ebbets Field 1951 1957 .786 Lance Berkman Great American Ballpark 2003 2010 .765
What I called (for space) the Humphrey Metrodome was usually known as the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome; the Rangers Ballpark is really called the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington; and Camden Yards is the Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
So much for the batters. Before moving on to the pitchers, I wanted to take a brief detour. As I said above, this only covers 1918 to 2010. I thought it might be interesting to calculate the parks with the most missing games (in other words, the parks that hosted the most games from 1871 to 1917). Here are the top ten:
Park 1st Last Missing Robison Field (St. Louis) 1893 1920 1850 Baker Bowl (Philadelphia) 1895 1938 1707 West Side Grounds (Chicago) 1893 1915 1688 Exposition Park III (Pittsburgh) 1890 1915 1570 Polo Grounds IV (New York) 1890 1911 1545 South End Grounds III (Boston) 1894 1914 1489 League Park III (Cleveland) 1891 1909 1220 Washington Park (Brooklyn) 1898 1912 1125 Polo Grounds V (New York) 1911 1963 908 Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds (Boston) 1901 1911 831
One more non-germaine chart and then we'll get back on topic. Since all of the parks above lasted at least several years into the 20th century, I was wondering which parks hosted the most 19th century games. The list:
Park 1st Last Games Jefferson Street Grounds (Philadelphia) 1871 1890 742 Exposition Park III (Pittsburgh) 1890 1915 726 Sportman's Park I (St. Louis) 1882 1892 716 Polo Grounds IV (New York) 1890 1911 712 League Park I (Cincinnati) 1884 1893 699 South End Grounds I (Boston) 1871 1887 688 Eclipse Park I (Louisville) 1882 1893 677 Oriole Park III (Baltimore) 1891 1899 618 Boundary Field (Washington) 1891 1899 617 Eastern Park (Brooklyn) 1890 1897 554
Okay. Back to the matter at hand: here are the pitching leaders in complete games, shutouts, innings pitched, hits allowed, bases on balls, strikeouts, wins and losses. Once again, the top five in each category is shown and, once again, the order can be difficult to see once you get past the first column.
---CG-- --SHO-- ---IP---- ---H--- ---BB-- ---SO-- ---W-- ---L--
Player Park 1st Last # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK
Ted Lyons Comiskey Park I 1923 1946 176 1 9 - 2068.1 2 2216 1 538 14t 589 - 131 4 106 2
Red Ruffing Yankee Stadium 1925 1947 149 2 26 6t 1751 10 1509 14 553 9 885 32 126 6t 69 25t
Robin Roberts Shibe Park 1948 1966 140 3 15 48t 1953 5 1851 4 362 73t 1050 17 126 6t 94 4
Carl Hubbell Polo Grounds 1928 1943 131 4 26 6t 1878 7 1746 5 372 62t 949 25 133 3 76 9t
Warren Spahn County Stadium 1953 1965 122 5 26 6t 1657 14 1479 17 381 57t 836 42 124 9 71 17t
Jim Palmer Memorial Stadium 1965 1984 112 9 30 3 2005.1 4 1649 6 608 5 1191 11 134 2 72 15t
Walter Johnson Griffith Stadium 1918 1927 109 10t 27 4t 1334.1 42 1202 51 322 - 678 82 94 35t 55 61t
Steve Carlton Veterans Stadium 1972 1986 105 13 20 17t 1887.2 6 1558 13 615 4 1615 1 138 1 62 36t
Phil Niekro Atlanta Stadium 1966 1987 102 17 21 15t 2257 1 2082 2 732 1 1442 5 130 5 101 3
Mickey Lolich Tiger Stadium 1963 1975 99 20t 23 11t 1760.1 9 1643 9 474 20 1536 2 114 14 85 5
Bob Lemon Cleveland Stadium 1946 1958 97 25t 17 30t 1403.2 32 1192 55 629 3 646 94 100 23t 60 44t
Nolan Ryan Anaheim Stadium 1972 1993 94 30t 34 1t 1274 51 796 - 683 2 1446 4 85 48t 58 50t
Don Sutton Dodger Stadium 1966 1988 94 30t 34 1t 2027 3 1648 7 494 18 1498 3 126 6t 84 6
Whitey Ford Yankee Stadium 1950 1967 87 34t 27 4t 1696 12 1474 18 540 13 1063 16 120 11t 55 61t
Bob Friend Forbes Field 1951 1966 83 38 23 11t 1831.2 8 1896 3 456 25 891 31 101 21t 109 1
For a big chunk of Robin Robert's career, Shibe Park was known as Connie Mack Stadium.
Walter Johnson is only seven shutouts behind the leaders in a single park, despite missing his games in Griffith Stadium from 1911 to 1917, years in which he threw 51 shutouts and won nearly 200 games. This intrigued me enough to cause me to head to the Official Dailies to complete his record there. Now this work is unproofed and some of the stats don't quite match his official records, but it's close enough to get some idea of what the complete data will look like once it's compiled. Adding those missing years gives us the following totals for Johnson in that park:
---CG-- --SHO-- ---IP---- ---H--- ---BB-- ---SO-- ---W-- ---L--
Player Park 1st Last # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK # RK
Walter Johnson Griffith Stadium 1911 1927 223 1 61 1 2549 1 2083 2 535 16 1512 3 200 1 93 5
It would be nice to report that he had an even 200 wins, but I wouldn't guarantee it at this point. One of the stats that didn't match in the seven years I worked on was Johnson's win total in 1913. I got a home record of 19-3 and a road mark of 16-4, which adds to 35-7. Since his official record is 36-7 that year, I am currently missing one of his wins from that season. Try as I might (wins were not marked on the official sheets in 1913, but I read game accounts of all of his non-wins from that season), I can't locate it. I suspect he was given a win in the first game of the double-header with New York on September 5th. He entered that game in the top of the ninth inning with the bases loaded, no one out and the Senators clinging to a 3-2 lead. Johnson retired the side without giving up the lead, and while today this would be called a save, I think that the officials of the time were impressed enough with his performance to give him the win. If this is the mystery win, then his record in Griffith Stadium will improve to 201-93.
Here are the park ERA leaders with a minimum of 500 innings pitched:
Player Park 1st Last IP ERA Sandy Koufax Dodger Stadium 1962 1966 715.1 1.37 Hippo Vaughn Wrigley Field 1918 1921 513 2.09 Don Drysdale Dodger Stadium 1962 1969 1107 2.19 Dean Chance Dodger Stadium 1962 1965 511 2.24 Greg Maddux Atlanta Stadium 1987 1996 514.1 2.33
Wrigley Field was known as Weeghman Park and then Cubs Park when Vaughn pitched there. And during Maddux's career Atlanta Stadium had the more cumbersome handle of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (which didn't fit nicely in the chart).
It turns out that Dodger Stadium was pretty good to pitchers. If you raise the bar to 1000 innings pitched, here is the same list:
Player Park 1st Last IP ERA Don Drysdale Dodger Stadium 1962 1969 1107 2.19 Nolan Ryan Anaheim Stadium 1972 1993 1274 2.36 Catfish Hunter Oakland Coliseum 1968 1979 1095.1 2.39 Vida Blue Oakland Coliseum 1969 1982 1029.1 2.43 Walter Johnson Griffith Stadium 1918 1927 1334.1 2.46
The official dailies for Walter Johnson's missing years (1911 to 1917) didn't include earned runs for 1911 and 1912, but if you add his 1913 to 1917 data to the mix, his ERA drops from 2.46 (in 1334.1 innings) to 2.06 (in 2196 innings). And since his ERAs in 1911 and 1912 were 1.90 and 1.39, it will drop even lower once those years are added.
By the way, the pitcher with the highest ERA in a park with a minimum of 1000 innings pitched from 1918 to 2010:
Player Park 1st Last IP ERA Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 1476.1 4.40
Here is a summary of the leaders (with additional categories added), along with the leaders among players who played in the park during 2010:
CAT Player Park 1st Last # Current Player Park 1st Last #
G - Mariano Rivera Yankee Stadium 1995 2008 435 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 287
GS - Phil Niekro Atlanta Stadium 1966 1987 292 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 205
CG - Ted Lyons Comiskey Park I 1923 1946 176 Roy Halladay SkyDome 1998 2010 30
SHO - Nolan Ryan Anaheim Stadium 1972 1993 34 Roy Halladay SkyDome 1998 2010 10
Don Sutton Dodger Stadium 1966 1988 34
SV - Mariano Rivera Yankee Stadium 1995 2008 230 Trevor Hoffman PetCo Park 2004 2010 105
IP - Phil Niekro Atlanta Stadium 1966 1987 2257 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 1476.1
H - Ted Lyons Comiskey Park I 1923 1946 2216 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 1490
R - Ted Lyons Comiskey Park I 1923 1946 1007 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 808
ER - Phil Niekro Atlanta Stadium 1966 1987 852 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 721
BB - Phil Niekro Atlanta Stadium 1966 1987 732 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 455
SO - Steve Carlton Veterans Stadium 1972 1986 1615 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 968
W - Steve Carlton Veterans Stadium 1972 1986 138 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 93
L - Bob Friend Forbes Field 1951 1966 109 Tim Wakefield Fenway Park 1995 2010 75
ERA - Sandy Koufax Dodger Stadium 1962 1966 1.37 Roy Oswalt Minute Maid Park 2001 2010 2.89
And here is the same list only counting visiting players (the qualifying bar for ERA leadership has been dropped to 150 innings pitched for the first column and 75 innings pitched for current players):
CAT Player Park 1st Last # Current Player Park 1st Last #
G - Kent Tekulve Wrigley Field 1975 1989 65 Mariano Rivera Camden Yards 1995 2010 60
GS - Warren Spahn Busch Stadium 1946 1965 54 Andy Pettitte Camden Yards 1995 2010 23
CG - Warren Spahn Crosley Field 1947 1965 31 Mark Buehrle Comerica Park 2000 2010 3
Livan Hernandez Pro Player Stadium 1999 2010 3
SHO - Bob Gibson Wrigley Field 1959 1975 7 Mark Buehrle Comerica Park 2000 2010 2
Bert Blyleven County Stadium 1970 1992 7 Livan Hernandez Pro Player Stadium 1999 2010 2
John Lackey Safeco Field 2002 2010 2
SV - Trevor Hoffman Dodger Stadium 1993 2009 39 Mariano Rivera Camden Yards 1995 2010 37
IP - Warren Spahn Busch Stadium 1946 1965 408 Mark Buehrle Kauffman Stadium 2001 2010 148
H - Warren Spahn Busch Stadium 1946 1965 395 Andy Pettitte Camden Yards 1995 2010 159
R - Earl Whitehill Yankee Stadium 1923 1938 209 Jamie Moyer SkyDome 1990 2010 75
ER - Earl Whitehill Yankee Stadium 1923 1938 192 Jamie Moyer SkyDome 1990 2010 72
BB - Early Wynn Yankee Stadium 1941 1963 159 Andy Pettitte SkyDome 1995 2010 56
SO - Steve Carlton Wrigley Field 1965 1986 227 Andy Pettitte SkyDome 1995 2010 113
W - Warren Spahn Crosley Field 1947 1965 32 Andy Pettitte Camden Yards 1995 2010 16
L - Early Wynn Yankee Stadium 1941 1963 31 Tim Wakefield Rangers Ballpark 1995 2010 13
ERA - Tom Seaver Jack Murphy Stadium 1969 1983 1.58 A.J. Burnett Tropicana Field 2001 2010 2.09
The most wins by a visiting pitcher without a loss:
Player Park 1st Last # Vic Raschi Comiskey Park 1947 1955 14 Whitey Ford Griffith Stadium 1950 1961 13 Mudcat Grant Griffith Stadium 1958 1961 11 Lon Warneke Shibe Park 1938 1943 10 Hank Wyse Shibe Park 1942 1947 10
Warneke had a 1.03 ERA in his games at Shibe Park. Wyse pitched so well there that he joined the Athletics in 1950. Unfortunately, he found that it was much easiest beating the Phillies with his Cub teammates behind him than it was winning games for the A's. He went 4-5 with a 5.58 ERA pitching there for the home team.
And the most losses without a win:
Player Park 1st Last # Ben Cantwell Wrigley Field 1927 1936 13 Frank Tanana Kauffman Stadium 1973 1990 12 Tom Poholsky Ebbets Field 1951 1957 11 Tommy Thomas Yankee Stadium 1926 1937 11
It occurred to me that Retrosheet's game logs contain complete information on games started by pitchers back to 1871. Although we don't have any other statistical data for the pitchers than that, I thought that looking at the most games started in any single park during our missing years (1871 to 1917) might give us some idea how much the lists above will change once our data is complete. Here's the list:
Player Park 1st Last GS Cy Young League Park II (Cleveland) 1891 1909 214 Christy Mathewson Polo Grounds IV (New York) 1900 1911 196 Amos Rusie Polo Grounds IV (New York) 1891 1898 182 Jim McCormick League Park I (Cleveland) 1879 1884 177 George Mullin Bennett Park (Detroit) 1902 1911 173 Mickey Welch Polo Grounds I (New York) 1883 1888 157 Vic Willis South End Grounds III (Boston) 1898 1910 157 Pud Galvin Riverside Grounds (Buffalo) 1879 1883 155 Guy Hecker Eclipse Park I (Louisville) 1882 1889 154 Cy Young Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds (Boston) 1901 1911 153
So despite all the data we are missing, we can be sure that no pitcher completed more games at a single stadium than Walter Johnson. The only pitcher other than Johnson who pitched prior to 1918 and started as many as 223 games in one park was Red Faber (who started 242 games at Comiskey Park from 1914 to 1932), but we know that he completed only 104 of his 186 starts there from 1918 onward, so he couldn't have come close to Johnson's 223 complete games at Griffith Stadium.
I'm sure we're all glad I cleared that up.
Jacoby Ellsbury entered this season with 1510 plate appearances and 20 home runs and has proceeded to more than double his round-trippers by hitting 31 so far this year. Which got me to wondering about the record for the most plate appearances entering such a season. Well, it turns out that 1510 isn't even close, sitting in 187th place (not counting any other player that might have done this in 2011). Here are the top five:
Year Player HR CHR PAs 1977 Larry Bowa 4 4 4399 1914 Al Bridwell 1 1 4240 1935 Dick Bartell 14 9 4194 1950 Eddie Stanky 8 7 3946 1884 Cap Anson 21 5 3834
HR is the number of HRs hit that year and CHR and PAs are the career homers and plate appearances at the beginning of the season.
Dick Bartell was traded to the Giants prior to the 1935 season and discovered his home run stroke in the Polo Grounds. He played all or parts of eight seasons with the Giants and during those years hit 54 homers at home compared to just 6 on the road. Eddie Stanky also has the Polo Grounds to thank for his appearance here. He played only two seasons with the Giants and almost doubled his home run total in both of them. After his power surge in 1950, he entered the next season with 15 career homers and proceeded to hit 14. His two year total of 22 included only 4 away from home.
Since most of the players above hardly ever hit a round-tripper, I decided to require a minimum of at least 20 homers. This produced the following:
Year Player HR CHR PAs 1884 Cap Anson 21 5 3834 1962 Chico Fernandez 20 19 2306 1884 Abner Dalrymple 22 4 2161 1884 Ned Williamson 27 8 2086 1945 Tommy Holmes 28 22 2035 1977 George Brett 22 20 1929 2009 Aaron Hill 36 28 1899 1948 Sid Gordon 30 27 1597 2011 Jacoby Ellsbury 31 20 1510
Anson, Dalrymple and Williamson were all teammates on the Chicago White Stockings and owe their place on the list (as well as almost all of their homers) to their park that year: Lake Front Park. As a matter of fact, of the 14 players on that team who hit at least one home run in 1884, only one of them, George Gore, did not hit at least as many homers that season as he had in his entire career to that point.
I repeated this exercise with doubles instead of homers and, as expected, had a much much smaller list:
Year Player 2B C2B PAs 1969 Don Kessinger 38 36 2261 1910 Bobby Byrne 43 37 1804
Among players with at least 2000 plate appearances, only Roy Thomas and Bill Bergen ever entered a season with a lower career rate of doubles per at-bat than Kessinger in 1969:
Year Player 2B/100 1903 Roy Thomas 1.22 1911 Bill Bergen 1.50 1969 Don Kessinger 1.72
Where 2B/100 is the number of doubles hit per 100 at-bats.
Actually, Thomas and Bergen both entered several seasons with a lower doubles rate than Kessinger. The years shown are their lowest rates. While Kessinger had his big year in 1969, Roy Thomas (whose career high in a season was 15) and Bill Bergen (who topped out at 8 in a year) never did.
And the triples list was somewhere in between, with 65 entries. The players at the top:
Year Player 3B C3B PAs 1978 Jeff Burroughs 6 6 3579 2009 Victor Martinez 1 1 3014 2004 Mike Lowell 1 1 2789 1999 Jim Leyritz 1 1 2597 2005 Ramon Hernandez 2 1 2571
Similar to the first home run list above, this contains people who almost never hit triples. Here's the list with a ten triple minimum:
Year Player 3B C3B PAs 1952 Ted Kluszewski 11 8 2174 1974 Ralph Garr 17 12 2124 1899 Fred Tenney 17 13 1888 1905 George Browne 14 14 1880 2001 Luis Castillo 10 10 1837 2004 Jack Wilson 12 8 1626 1990 Mariano Duncan 11 9 1625 1930 Woody English 17 11 1596 1996 Thomas Howard 10 10 1589 1900 Honus Wagner 22 20 1528 1966 Tim McCarver 13 13 1506
Ted Kluszewski never hit more than four triples in a season before or after that big year and Thomas Howard's second highest total was three.
Eric Jones was wondering about the longest hitting streaks by batting order and defensive position. Of course, some of these will be very familiar to us. Let's start with the top two streaks by each batting order position:
Pos # Start End Player
1 44 1978- 6-14 1978- 7-31 Pete Rose
39 1987- 6-18 1987- 8-25 Paul Molitor
2 38 1945- 5-20 1947- 5- 6 Tommy Holmes
34 1938- 7-24 1938- 8-25 George McQuinn
3 41 1922- 7-27 1922- 9-17 George Sisler
35 1924- 9-27 1925- 5-19 George Sisler
4 56 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
36 1982- 4-17 1982- 6-13 Kent Hrbek
5 38 1936- 8- 6 1936- 9-14 Luke Appling
32 1987- 8-25 1988- 4-26 Benito Santiago
6 39 1957- 4-21 1965- 8-29 Dick Groat
29 1942- 5-13 1942- 6-14 Joe Gordon
7 30 1922- 9-24 1923- 5-16 Charlie Grimm
29 1930- 6-29 1930- 8- 6 Gabby Hartnett
8 20 1948- 6-20 1950- 5-26 Al Dark
19 1925- 4-26 1925- 5-30 Earl Smith
19 1933- 8-26 1933- 9-16 Lou Finney
19 1959- 8-17 1959- 9- 9 Eddie Kasko
19 1964- 6- 9 1964- 7-28 Andre Rodgers
9 19 1978- 7- 3 1979- 4- 9 Mike Edwards
19 1985- 9- 5 1985-10- 4 Jerry Willard
The entries above by Pete Rose, Paul Molitor, George Sisler and Joe DiMaggio will be familiar to most baseball fans, but most of the others are new. At first I thought that the streak by Tommy Holmes was almost the same as his 37-game streak in 1945, but then I saw the range of dates. It turns out it included 9 games before his famous streak began and another 6 more after it ended. He was moved down to third after he had hit in 23 straight games in 1945 and didn't hit in the second slot again until 1947. And I bet you didn't expect to see Kent Hrbek with the second longest run out of the cleanup spot.
Luke Appling had a normal 27-game hitting streak before being moved to the cleanup spot for two hitless games. He was then dropped back down to fifth and hit in another 11 straight games. I'm sure Dick Groat never realized he had a 39-game consecutive hitting streak that spanned over eight years. It was finally broken on September 3, 1965 by Dick Selma and Gordon Richardson. And Jerry Willard got exactly one hit in each game of his streak.
A few other interesting cases (at least to me):
Pos # Start End Player 1 32 1969- 6-19 1969- 9-14 Cesar Tovar 2 33 2006- 7-14 2008- 4-26 Eric Byrnes 2 30 1929-10- 5 1930- 5-17 Sam Rice 3 31 1924- 8-23 1924- 9-24 Sam Rice 6 23 1954- 7- 2 1964- 9- 7 Willie Mays
Tovar's streak didn't end for three months. Not only did Twins manager Billy Martin play Tovar all over the field that year, but Tovar also had at least 25 plate appearances at six different lineup positions. Eric Byrnes played only 10 games batting second during 2007, but hit over .400 there. Sam Rice is the only player with streaks of thirty games or more at two different lineup spots. And Willie Mays took over a decade to string together 23 straight games with a hit while batting sixth.
And finally, the top two hitting streaks by each defensive position:
Pos # Start End Player
P 16 1924- 6-23 1924- 9- 3 Wilbur Cooper
13 1947- 6-26 1947- 8-21 Johnny Sain
13 2008- 6- 2 2008- 8-26 Carlos Zambrano
C 34 1987- 8-25 1987-10- 2 Benito Santiago
29 1997- 5-25 1997- 7- 6 Sandy Alomar
1B 41 1922- 7-27 1922- 9-17 George Sisler
35 1924- 9-27 1925- 5-19 George Sisler
2B 35 2002- 5- 8 2002- 6-21 Luis Castillo
33 1922- 8-13 1922- 9-19 Rogers Hornsby
33 2006- 6-23 2006- 8- 3 Chase Utley
3B 42 1978- 6-14 1978- 7-31 Pete Rose
39 1980- 6- 8 1980- 8-18 George Brett
SS 38 2005- 8-23 2006- 4- 5 Jimmy Rollins
34 1963- 8-27 1964- 5- 9 Eddie Bressoud
LF 36 1971- 9- 3 1972- 7-21 Ralph Garr
32 1933- 7-22 1933- 8-25 Heinie Manush
CF 56 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
36 1933- 7- 4 1933- 9- 7 Freddie Lindstrom
RF 34 1993- 8-26 1994- 4-30 Kirby Puckett
32 1922- 8-17 1923- 5-15 Harry Heilmann
DH 39 1987- 7-16 1987- 8-25 Paul Molitor
30 1998- 8-15 1999- 9-28 Juan Gonzalez
I wasn't sure how to count multiple positions played in a single game, so I only used the first defensive position. Since Pete Rose started two of the games during his 44-game streak in left-field, his total above is 42 at third. In one of those games, Rose did move to third-base, but after that got up only once and walked. Garr's entry above spanned the 1971 and 1972 seasons. During most of 1972 Garr moved around the outfield quite a bit. He also moved to left-field at the end of several games during his streak, but they were ignored.
During Brett's long streak, he played one game at first-base and went 0-4. Bressoud's run was broken up by both the end of the 1963 season and an unsuccessful pinch-hitting appearance. And Juan Gonzalez was primarily a right-fielder during 1998 and 1999.
Here are the leaders in various statistical categories during hitting streaks of all lengths (and at all positions):
CAT LEN # Start End Player
AB 56 223 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
R 56 56 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
H 56 91 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
2B 38 22 2005- 8-23 2006- 4- 5 Jimmy Rollins
3B 21 9 1930- 8-20 1930- 9-10 Paul Waner
HR 56 15 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
24 15 1963- 6-25 1963- 7-19 Willie McCovey
23 15 2006- 9-25 2007- 4-23 Alex Rodriguez
RBI 56 55 1941- 5-15 1941- 7-16 Joe DiMaggio
BB 26 29 1921- 7-28 1921- 8-25 Babe Ruth
IBB 9 12 2004- 7- 7 2004- 7-20 Barry Bonds
HBP 13 6 1998- 6-24 1998- 7-11 Fernando Vina
16 6 1999- 5-20 1999- 6- 7 Jason Kendall
12 6 2001- 7- 5 2001- 7-20 Craig Biggio
22 6 2006- 6-16 2006- 7-13 Nomar Garciaparra
SO 30 30 1998- 7-12 1998- 8-15 Eric Davis
SH 20 9 1943- 7-21 1943- 8-18 Harry Walker
5 8 1920- 7-19 1920- 7-23 Jimmy Dykes
SF 27 5 2006- 7-15 2006- 8-12 Manny Ramirez
SB 19 23 1962- 8-23 1962- 9-11 Maury Wills
CS 28 11 1981- 8-29 1982- 4-11 Lonnie Smith
It's hard to have a hitting streak when opposing pitchers are intentionally walking you more than once a game, but Bonds managed to reach nine games in 2004. Jimmy Dykes is tied with several other players for second place with 8 sacrifice hits during a hitting streak. I added him to the chart above because he managed to do it only five games.
And finally, not counting Jerry Willard above (since his was only a long hitting streak from the 9th spot in the batting order), the longest hitting streak in which the player got exactly one hit in each game was:
# Start End Player 16 1975- 6- 1 1975- 6-18 Ted Sizemore
A quick one today: here are the players who have hit the highest percentage of their home runs during the post-season:
Player First Last REG POST PCT Mickey Lolich 1963 1979 0 1 1.0000 Don Gullett 1970 1978 0 1 1.0000 Joe Blanton 2004 2011 0 1 1.0000 David Freese 2009 2011 15 5 .2500 Allen Craig 2010 2011 15 4 .2105 Paul Goldschmidt 2011 2011 8 2 .2000 Bucky Harris 1919 1931 9 2 .1818 Dave McNally 1962 1975 9 2 .1818 Jose Lind 1987 1995 9 2 .1818 Nelson Cruz 2005 2011 106 14 .1167 Lenny Dykstra 1985 1996 81 10 .1099 Jayson Werth 2002 2011 140 13 .0850 Derek Jeter 1995 2011 240 20 .0769 Bernie Williams 1991 2006 287 22 .0712 Manny Ramirez 1993 2011 555 29 .0497
The list is current through the end of 2011 and is in ascending order of post-season homers. Missing entries have fewer home runs and a lower percentage than the entries shown. I did keep the three players behind Freese (as well as two other current players) because he is unlikely to continue to hit 25% of his home runs in the postseason. The same goes for the player (Lenny Dykstra) behind Nelson Cruz.
The top three entries (and Dave McNally) are pitchers.
Players with 400 or more home runs who failed to hit a single post-season round-tripper:
Player First Last HRs Ted Williams 1939 1960 521 Ernie Banks 1953 1971 512 Dave Kingman 1971 1986 442 Andre Dawson 1976 1996 438 Billy Williams 1959 1976 426 Darrell Evans 1969 1989 414
Cliff Blau recently mentioned to me that Vince Barton led the NL in getting hit by pitches in 1931 despite playing only 66 games and wondered what were the fewest games for players leading their respective leagues in a hitting category.
So since major league baseball returned to a 150+ game schedule in 1904 (and ignoring the shortened seasons of 1918-19, 1981 and 1994-1995), here are the leaders in the various categories with the fewest games played:
CAT G # Year Player AB 143 622 1941 Johnny Rucker R 118 114 1987 Paul Molitor H 139 198 1959 Harvey Kuenn 2B 118 41 1987 Paul Molitor 3B 97 14 1992 Deion Sanders HR 102 10 1904 Harry Davis RBI 133 107 1914 Frank LaPorte BB 115 104 1990 Jack Clark IBB 98 17 1955 Ted Williams SO 101 99 1944 Pat Seerey HBP 66 9 1931 Vince Barton SH 29 15 2003 Jason Schmidt SF 116 12 1961 Leo Posada GDP 107 26 1933 Ernie Lombardi SB 85 18 1941 Danny Murtaugh CS 101 18 2003 Alex Sanchez
RBI wasn't an official stat in 1914 in Frank LaPorte's day and he led the Federal League, a borderline major league. If you don't count him, the leader with the fewest games played was Ray Boone who collected 116 RBIs in 135 games to tie Jackie Jensen for the most in the AL in 1955.
Pat Seerey also topped the AL in strikeouts while playing only 105 games in 1948 and led the league four times in all without ever having more than 414 at-bats in a season.
And Cliff was right to point out Barton. With the exception of sacrifice hits, where pitchers now and then lead the league, no player has ever led a league in one of these categories while appearing in as few games as Barton did in 1931. He was a rookie that year and didn't join the Cubs until July 17th and didn't start a game until July 20th, when the Cubs reshuffled their outfield, replacing disappointing Hack Wilson with the rookie. He quickly became one of the NL's pitcher's favorite targets. The Philly hurlers hit him four times in two games before the end of the month, and in less than two weeks he had already taken over the leadership in getting plunked. He ended up hitting 13 HRs and driving in 50 runs in less than half a season, but a low batting average and a poor start the next season soon spelled the end of his career.
Rookie Danny Murtaugh didn't play his first game until July in 1941 and had only one stolen base after swiping three in a September 3rd double-header, but teams didn't run much in 1941 and he narrowly took the crown from teammate Stan Benjamin. Despite having the circuit's top two base stealers, the Phillies had a dreadful offense in 1941, scoring nearly 100 runs less than the second worst offense in the majors that year, on their way to 111 losses.
Other league leaders in 1961 got more publicity than Leo Posada, but I suppose he can take some solace in having made this list.
While we were on the subject, I thought it might be interesting to see the earliest date that a player had clinched at least a tie for the league leadership. Perhaps an example might make it clear what I'm getting at. Frank Robinson led the NL in doubles in 1962 with 51. Willie Mays was second with 36. On July 28th, Robinson hit his 36th double so, theoretically at least, Robinson could have taken the rest of the year off and still tied for the lead.
Now I realize that we shouldn't take this too seriously, and that Robinson's absence over the last two months of the season could very well have changed how many doubles the rest of the players hit, but I decided to go ahead with this anyway. I looked at the games from 1920 to 2010 (again ignoring shortened seasons) and here's what I found.
CAT G TOT 2ND Date Player AB 143 679 624 1953- 9-11 Harvey Kuenn R 112 152 124 1932- 8- 9 Chuck Klein H 123 228 184 1946- 8-28 Stan Musial 2B 101 51 36 1962- 7-28 Frank Robinson 3B 57 23 10 2007- 6- 6 Curtis Granderson HR 47 47 19 1926- 6- 5 Babe Ruth RBI 92 170 119 1935- 7-27 Hank Greenberg BB 76 232 127 2004- 7- 9 Barry Bonds IBB 29 120 26 2004- 5- 9 Barry Bonds SO 93 119 81 1936- 7-24 Jimmie Foxx HBP 27 24 10 1973- 5-15 Ron Hunt SH 41 39 14 1990- 5-26 Jay Bell SF 71 13 11 2007- 6-19 Carlos Lee GDP 69 36 23 1984- 6-26 Jim Rice SB 36 57 22 1964- 5-25 Luis Aparicio CS 50 23 16 1967- 6-12 Don Buford
I had a good idea who would have clinched at least a tie for a league leadership the earliest and, sure enough, it was Barry Bonds, who had 26 intentional walks in his first 29 games of 2004, on his way to a ridiculous 120.
Jim Rice's 36 grounded into double-plays in 1984 is the major league record, but he was an even more amazing GDP machine in the early going that year, hitting into an average of one every three games, a pace that would have given him 53 for the season. The next year, he once again had a ton of these in the first three months of the season, hitting into his 26th on June 25th, a day earlier than in 1984. Despite that, he doesn't make the list for his 1985 performance because Cal Ripken grounded into 32 DPs that season, tying tied him for the most in major league history for a player not named Rice.
When Aparicio stole his 22nd base on May 25, 1964, the next highest total in the league was only five.
The previous chart looked at the earliest date in a season where a player had tied the league's runner-up. Here's a similar chart of the players that did this in the fewest games.
CAT G TOT 2ND Date Player
AB 139 622 603 1941- 9-23 Johnny Rucker
139 639 610 1951- 9-21 Dom DiMaggio
R 112 152 124 1932- 8- 9 Chuck Klein
112 119 98 1960- 8-20 Mickey Mantle
H 123 244 211 1922- 9- 1 George Sisler
123 228 184 1946- 8-28 Stan Musial
2B 94 56 40 1937- 8- 5 Joe Medwick
3B 57 23 10 2007- 6- 6 Curtis Granderson
HR 47 47 19 1926- 6- 5 Babe Ruth
RBI 92 170 119 1935- 7-27 Hank Greenberg
BB 76 232 127 2004- 7- 9 Barry Bonds
IBB 29 120 26 2004- 5- 9 Barry Bonds
SO 83 102 87 1948- 8-15 Pat Seerey
HBP 20 9 7 1931- 8- 5 Vince Barton
SH 24 17 13 1999- 8- 5 Shane Reynolds
SF 62 18 11 1983- 6-21 Andre Dawson
GDP 69 36 23 1984- 6-26 Jim Rice
SB 36 57 22 1964- 5-25 Luis Aparicio
CS 50 23 16 1967- 6-12 Don Buford
In addition to all those strikeouts, Pat Seerey's year also included a June trade and a four home run game.
Here is a list of the pitchers who locked up at least a tie for the leadership of a category the earliest in a season:
CAT G TOT 2ND Date Player
G 47 64 47 1926- 8- 8 Firpo Marberry
CG 6 9 4 2008- 4-29 Roy Halladay
SHO 5 3 2 2005- 5- 1 Jon Garland
6 4 2 2010- 5- 1 Roy Halladay
GF 30 62 23 1950- 7- 1 Jim Konstanty
SV 49 62 42 2008- 7-23 F. Rodriguez
IP 33 346.2 265.2 1953- 8-18 Robin Roberts
H 32 324 243 1953- 8-16 Robin Roberts
HR 25 40 29 1957- 7-25 Robin Roberts
R 32 151 119 1951- 8- 8 Murry Dickson
ER 28 127 94 1942- 8-11 Jim Tobin
BB 16 204 99 1977- 6-16 Nolan Ryan
IBB 31 11 9 2007- 6-16 Luis Vizcaino
SO 22 364 221 1999- 7-20 Randy Johnson
21 347 217 2000- 7-20 Randy Johnson
WP 11 9 6 1925- 5-20 Lefty Grove
HBP 8 7 5 1946- 5-18 Bobo Newsom
W 29 31 22 1931- 8- 3 Lefty Grove
L 28 22 18 1963- 7-27 Roger Craig
Roy Halladay also clinched at least a tie for his league's lead in complete games before the end of May in 2005 and 2010. The only other pitcher to do this before the end of June was Curt Schilling in 2001. Halladay pitched four straight complete games in April of 2008, losing three of them.
I did not include any saves leaders prior to 1969. If I had, the earliest pitcher to clinch a tie for the lead would have been Firpo Marberry when he picked up his ninth save on June 10, 1926 and Jim Turner who got his fifth save exactly nineteen years later.
Randy Johnson actually had more strikeouts in 2001 than either 1999 or 2000, including 220 by July 20th, but Curt Schilling's 293 strikeouts that year kept Johnson off the list.
Rookie Lefty Grove threw eight wild pitches in his first 54.2 major league innings (up through the games of May 26th), but then threw only one more the rest of the season.
Normally, I try to find someone else to blame for suggesting one of these posts, but this silly one is all mine. After noticing that Nelson Cruz had seven RBIs in the eleventh innings of Texas' playoff series with the Tigers, I wondered what player had the most extra-inning HRs and RBIs in a season from 1948 to 2010. And then I decided I might as well look at who holds the record in each inning. Here are the HR leaders by inning:
INN Player Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
1 Alex Rodriguez 2001 TEX A 143 33 53 10 0 18 40 15 0 38 2 0 .371 .438 .818
2 Willie Mays 1954 NY N 81 19 32 2 1 13 18 5 0 9 0 1 .395 .430 .926
Ron Cey 1980 LA N 102 27 41 7 0 13 20 18 0 20 2 2 .402 .500 .853
Richard Hidalgo 2000 HOU N 88 24 29 3 0 13 17 9 0 13 2 2 .330 .427 .807
3 Roger Maris 1961 NY A 74 25 27 3 0 15 29 7 0 5 0 0 .365 .422 1.014
4 Albert Belle 1996 CLE A 72 20 31 2 0 13 22 8 0 8 2 0 .431 .494 1.000
Mark McGwire 1998 STL N 51 21 24 5 0 13 19 12 2 9 0 0 .471 .571 1.333
Jim Thome 2002 CLE A 77 17 29 3 1 13 22 14 0 15 0 0 .377 .478 .948
5 Sammy Sosa 1998 CHI N 64 13 22 2 0 12 26 4 0 18 0 2 .344 .382 .938
6 Ryan Howard 2006 PHI N 81 18 28 4 0 13 22 15 2 20 0 0 .346 .448 .877
7 Todd Hundley 1996 NY N 62 15 18 3 0 11 23 7 5 13 0 0 .290 .357 .871
8 Jim Wynn 1967 HOU N 70 18 27 2 0 14 30 3 1 10 1 1 .386 .411 1.014
9 Tony Batista 2000 TOR A 56 16 21 4 0 10 17 6 0 10 0 0 .375 .435 .982
EX Charlie Maxwell 1960 DET A 17 5 6 0 0 5 7 2 1 3 0 0 .353 .421 1.235
Nelson Cruz 2010 TEX A 9 5 6 0 0 5 8 1 1 0 0 0 .667 .700 2.333
Now our data is only 100% complete back to 1956 and the lists above and below will certainly look very different once we extend our reach before 1948, but hopefully this is of some interest despite these limitations.
Once I wrote these words, I realized that we do know at least what inning each home run was hit in, even if we are missing the play-by-play data for the game. So I went and generated the all-time leaders for each inning and only one old-timer replaced an entry above: Jimmie Foxx hit 12 seventh-inning homers back in 1932.
I had assumed that Mays had such a low HR/RBI ratio above was because hit fourth in 1954 and so frequently led off the second inning, but he actually hit sixth more often than any other place that year. And the same goes for Ron Cey in 1980 and Richard Hidalgo in 2000.
Once you get past the first two innings, I think the law of small sample sizes takes over, although it does appear that hitting well in extra-innings isn't something new for Nelson Cruz. And despite his reputation for hitting well on Sundays, Charlie Maxwell hit his extra-inning home runs in 1960 on Tuesday, Friday (two) and Saturday (two).
And the RBI leaders:
INN Player Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
1 Ted Kluszewski 1954 CIN N 80 18 33 6 0 10 44 14 2 5 0 0 .412 .490 .863
Juan Gonzalez 2001 CLE A 85 14 30 7 1 8 44 5 0 13 0 0 .353 .367 .741
2 Butch Hobson 1977 BOS A 109 19 32 9 2 7 28 11 0 27 0 2 .294 .364 .606
3 Jackie Jensen 1954 BOS A 70 17 26 5 2 7 34 9 0 3 3 2 .371 .434 .800
4 Manny Ramirez 2005 BOS A 72 20 26 4 0 9 29 12 0 13 0 0 .361 .452 .792
5 Albert Pujols 2006 STL N 61 28 32 5 0 11 37 16 6 4 1 0 .525 .633 1.148
6 Orlando Cepeda 1961 SF N 84 17 28 1 1 11 31 4 3 11 4 3 .333 .367 .762
7 Rafael Palmeiro 1999 TEX A 67 14 29 6 0 9 28 13 1 5 0 0 .433 .525 .925
Sammy Sosa 2001 CHI N 67 23 29 4 1 10 28 16 5 21 0 0 .433 .535 .970
8 Jim Wynn 1967 HOU N 70 18 27 2 0 14 30 3 1 10 1 1 .386 .411 1.014
9 Alex Rodriguez 2007 NY A 42 14 19 3 0 8 21 9 0 7 1 0 .452 .549 1.095
EX Tim Wallach 1982 MON N 17 2 6 2 0 2 11 0 0 2 0 0 .353 .333 .824
Juan Gonzalez 1991 TEX A 27 4 10 2 0 2 11 2 0 2 1 2 .370 .414 .667
Nowadays teams have access to all sorts of arcane data (although probably not quite this arcane), but I wonder if Jim Wynn would have been intentionally walked more than once in the eighth inning during 1967 if anyone had known how well he was hitting in that frame. Sadly, this "talent" was short-lived. In 1968, he hit .233 (with an OPS of .724) in the eighth inning.
I also thought that one of these ninth or extra-innings leaders would have been on the list of players with the most walk-off RBIs in a season, but I was wrong. The following players lead with six each:
Rodney Scott 1979 MON N Cory Snyder 1987 CLE A Wally Joyner 1989 CAL A Andre Ethier 2009 LA N
Rodney Scott knocked in all of 42 runs that year, but six of them ended games. Go figure.
Despite hitting 30 home runs, Hobson often hit eighth for the Red Sox in 1977 and it didn't hurt that two of the team's better hitters, Carlton Fisk and George Scott usually hit in the fifth and sixth slots. As a result, the team got their most runs scored out of the sixth place in the batting order.
How unusual was that? If I may be excused a brief digression here, how often do teams get their most runs scored out of the different spots in the batting order? Since there's probably no point to doing this without going overboard, I decided to look at how often each team from 1918 to 2010 got the most at-bats, run, hits and so on, from each spot in the batting order. Here's the inevitable chart:
POS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF SB CS - 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 464 0 0 0 559 0 208 1 1531 827 637 293 752 45 1 428 42 60 372 55 50 1171 1120 2 381 359 414 312 397 55 8 145 5 38 305 323 105 287 229 3 60 486 561 558 339 535 469 528 285 77 298 28 465 256 118 4 12 267 267 384 157 933 1156 557 418 163 315 12 372 59 45 5 0 40 77 245 132 279 278 171 144 81 211 18 191 64 81 6 0 4 24 108 70 96 59 61 74 64 175 14 76 65 86 7 0 1 4 58 55 35 10 29 62 57 151 17 84 42 57 8 0 0 0 25 55 5 3 64 490 29 120 50 62 22 19 9 0 0 0 1 27 1 0 1 0 1415 37 1467 20 18 21
The first row in the chart (the "-" row) is for the years when that particular stat didn't exist.
What this chart means, for example, is that during those years, 1531 teams got the most at-bats out the leadoff spot in the batting order; 381 got the most at-bats out of second place, and so on. The surprising thing to me are the 12 teams that got their most at-bats out of the cleanup spot. The last team to do this was the 2009 Anaheim Angels,
Here are the last (and in some cases only) teams to have had some of the weirder team leaders. If there was a particular player most responsible for the team's appearance on the list, he is listed in parenthesis.
Year Team 1987 OAK A 7th place hitters led team in runs scored 2006 ARI N 7th place hitters led team in hits 1982 DET A 9th place hitters led team in doubles (Alan Trammell) 1918 WAS A 9th place hitters led team in homers 1976 CHI A 8th place hitters led team in RBIs 1977 CHI A 9th place hitters led team in walks (Jim Essian) 1987 MIL A 2nd place hitters led team in intentional walks (Robin Yount)
Admit it. When you noticed that one team got more home runs from their ninth-place hitters than any others, you figured that it had to be from the DH-era. But in 1918, the Senators got half of all their home runs (okay, were only talking about a grand total of four) from their last-place hitters. One was hit by Walter Johnson and the other by Nick Altrock. Altrock's homer came in the final game of the season and is discussed in some detail in my review of 1918.
Here are the single-season leaders in first-inning intentional walks
Player Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG Barry Bonds 2004 SF N 47 11 15 4 1 2 17 42 24 4 1 0 .319 .645 .574 Willie McCovey 1969 SF N 73 13 25 4 0 5 26 25 11 9 0 0 .342 .510 .603 Barry Bonds 2003 SF N 61 17 21 4 0 3 12 23 11 5 1 0 .344 .529 .557 Willie McCovey 1970 SF N 82 18 23 5 1 6 31 29 10 8 0 0 .280 .465 .585 Barry Bonds 1993 SF N 53 14 15 5 0 3 18 20 9 10 2 0 .283 .480 .547 Barry Bonds 2006 SF N 50 11 17 4 0 4 17 21 9 5 1 0 .340 .554 .660 Barry Bonds 2002 SF N 87 20 33 6 0 9 24 32 8 8 2 0 .379 .557 .759 Willie McCovey 1971 SF N 49 6 15 5 0 1 12 15 7 8 0 0 .306 .455 .469 Ryan Howard 2006 PHI N 66 7 16 2 0 4 18 21 7 22 0 0 .242 .430 .455 Barry Bonds 2007 SF N 53 15 20 1 0 7 19 16 7 6 1 0 .377 .529 .792
I'm seeing a definite pattern here.
And here are the career extra-inning leaders:
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG Willie Mays 290* 53* 84* 11 6* 20* 42 55 26 40 6 2 .290 .405 .576 Pete Rose 283 43 83 19* 2 2 27 66 30 32 7 1 .293 .429 .396 Frank Robinson 250 45 76 7 1 16 44* 60 23 49 12 5 .304 .444 .532 Barry Bonds 195 48 51 9 3 11 28 90* 42* 38 15 2 .262 .497 .508 Reggie Jackson 202 27 41 8 0 10 21 39 12 68* 6 2 .203 .346 .391 Tim Raines 223 44 76 11 1 3 23 50 24 16 29* 0 .341 .458 .439 Lou Brock 253 33 77 8 2 5 27 35 14 48 15 12* .304 .387 .411
It turns out that we are missing play-by-play for two of Willie Mays' extra-inning home runs. So he actually hit 22. This will of course affect his other extra-inning stats as well. And since one of those homers came with a man on, adding those will also bump Frank Robinson out of the top spot in RBIs. The games we are missing were on June 4, 1955 and July 4, 1955.
Rickey Henderson was second with 27 extra-inning stolen bases and he also had a phenomenal success rate, getting caught only once.
And finally, I showed the single season walk-off RBI leaders above. Here are the career leaders (at least for the period covered by our play-by-play data):
Frank Robinson 27 Dusty Baker 25 Rickey Henderson 22 Roberto Clemente 21 Pete Rose 21 Manny Mota 20 Tony Perez 20 Ted Simmons 20 Andre Dawson 20 Lou Whitaker 20
Recently, Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times wrote an article on the most exciting post-season series of all time. And rather than simply picking them subjectively, he came up with a formula. You can read the linked article for the details of his formula, but it occurred to me that with a little modification, I could use the same method to come up with the most exciting post-season games as well.
For those who like the details, the basic modification was to drop the bonus for extra elimination games and give a simple 3, 5 and 8 point credit for the fifth, sixth and seventh game of a seven-game series, and a 2 and 8 point credit for the last two games of a best-of-five. Oh, and I dropped the fractional points (since this is sort of a seat of the pants method, we probably shouldn't make it seem more exact than it is). And, finally, I credit a game with 4 points for the 10th inning and 3 for each additional one; Chris gives them 7 points for the 10th inning and 4 from then on. This was originally simply a misunderstanding on my part, but by the time I discovered it, it sure seemed as if both of us were giving extra-innings too much credit so I left it alone.
So without dragging this out unnecessarily, here are the top games from 1903 to 2010:
PTS Date Teams 64 2005-10- 9 ATL N at HOU N 52 1960-10-13 NY A at PIT N 48 1999-10-19 NY N at ATL N 45 1986-10-15 NY N at HOU N 45 2003-10-16 BOS A at NY A 45 2008-10-16 TB A at BOS A 44 1975-10-21 CIN N at BOS A 43 1999-10-17 ATL N at NY N 42 1995-10- 3 BOS A at CLE A 42 1995-10- 4 SEA A at NY A 41 1976-10-14 KC A at NY A 41 1993-10-23 PHI N at TOR A
Again, this method probably gives a little more weight than it should to all the extra-innings in our top game, but this is still an pretty good list. And according to my pencil and paper calculations (working things out by hand isn't something I do particularly well, but I won't have computerized data on this game until the series ends), the sixth game of the 2011 World Series ended up with 47 points, good for fourth place on the list above.
After doing this, it occurred to me that we could use the same method (minus the credit for the late games of a series) to evaluate regular season games as well. Of course, many of these games had little meaning in the context of a pennant race, so it might be better to look at this as a list of games which would have been the most exciting had their outcomes mattered.
Here's the list from 1948 to 2011 (and we are missing some games prior to 1956):
PTS Date Teams 91 1984- 5- 8 MIL A at CHI A 82 1976- 4-17 PHI N at CHI N 80 2001- 8- 5 SEA A at CLE A 76 2004- 5- 8 DET A at TEX A 73 1956- 6-27 BAL A at CLE A 72 1993- 8-31 CLE A at MIN A 72 2008- 5-25 CIN N at SD N 70 1950- 9-15(2) CIN N at PHI N 70 1970- 5-23 SD N at SF N 68 1977- 7-28 CIN N at CHI N
These are all high-scoring extra-inning affairs, which makes sense given the premium placed on comebacks and bonus frames. So here is a list of the highest-scoring regulation affairs:
PTS Date Teams 67 1974- 7-20 OAK A at CLE A 65 1961- 9- 5(2) LA A at KC A 65 1993- 8-11 CHI N at FLA N 62 1984- 9-28 MIN A at CLE A 62 1996- 6-30 LA N at COL N 61 1948- 7- 4 NY N at BRO N 61 1961- 6- 9 MIL N at CHI N 61 1996- 7-17 NY A at BOS A 61 1996- 7-23(2) NY N at COL N 61 1999- 5- 4 COL N at CHI N
Three of these games occurred with a month of each other in 1996, two of them at Coors Field.
Of course, context is everything and most of these games, coming in the first four months of the season, wouldn't make most people's lists of baseball's most exciting games. For example, the final game of the 1951 regular season only ranked third that year by this method, behind this game and that game. Which only means that perhaps this isn't the best method to evaluate regular season games.
And finally, speaking of games that don't count, here are the top ranked All-Star Games:
PTS Date Teams 42 2008- 7-15 NL at AL 41 1955- 7-12 AL at NL 34 1941- 7- 8 NL at AL 33 1970- 7-14 AL at NL 32 1994- 7-12 AL at NL
Only the 1941 game, won by Ted Williams' two-out, three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, was a regulation affair.
While writing another article, I noticed that on April 18, 1931, Freddie Lindstrom and Mel Ott both extended long hitting streaks at the Baker Bowl, Lindstrom hitting in his 36th straight game there and Ott in his 29th straight. Of course, a hitting streak in a specific ball park is a rather obscure record and I'm sure few if any people knew about it at the time. The story in The New York Times the next day didn't mention it.
But that got me to wondering about whether or not there were other long hitting streaks of the normal variety, the ones newspaper reporters do like to write about, that were extended in the same game. Well, I didn't find a pair as long as 29 consecutive games from 1918 to 2011, but I came close. A little more than a month after the game mentioned above, Earle Combs and Al Simmons both got hits to push their hitting streaks to 27 and 26 games, respectively. As expected, these streaks were mentioned in the game story in the next day's New York Times.
The teams would end their six-game series that day, and the two would go hitless a few games after that. Here are the longest pairs I found:
Date Players (Length) 5-28-1931 Earle Combs (27), Al Simmons (26) 8-24-1922 Ken Williams (28), George Sisler (22) 8-11-1938(2) Mel Almada (29), George McQuinn (21) 7-30-1936 Hal Trosky (25), Odell Hale (21) 9- 9-1980 Mickey Rivers (24), Al Oliver (21) 6-20-1927 Paul Waner (23), Clyde Barnhart (21)
All of these pairs were teammates except for Combs and Simmons. George Sisler's streak would eventually reach 41 games, an American League record before Joe DiMaggio broke it in 1941. Mike Norris held both Rivers and Oliver hitless the next day.
Now I'm defining the longest pair as the one in which the shorter of the two is the greatest. If I had simply used the sum of the two longest streaks, the top three would have been these:
7-13-1941(1) Joe DiMaggio (52), Phil Rizzuto (16) 7-15-1941 Joe DiMaggio (55), Luke Appling (10) 8-25-1987 Paul Molitor (39), Brett Butler (19)
Both Molitor and Butler's streak ended the next day in a 1-0 pitching duel won by Teddy Higuera. Both Higuera and rookie John Farrell allowed only three hits and no runs. Farrell left after nine before Doug Jones took the loss in the bottom of the tenth.
So, using my maximum of the minimum definition, what were the longest three streaks in the same game?
Date Players (Length) 8-24-1922 Ken Williams (28), George Sisler (22), George Burns (18) 7-28-1936 Hal Trosky (22), Roy Weatherly (20), Odell Hale (18)
One of these is the same and the other similar to one above.
And the longest four:
Date Players (Length) 7-26-1936(1) Hal Trosky (20), Roy Weatherly (18), Odell Hale (16), Joe Vosmik (16)
The odd thing about this game is that the Indians were shut out 13-0 by Buck Ross. He allowed only six hits in the game, and the four Cleveland teammates above accounted for all of them. One of those held hitless in the game was Earl Averill, which should explain the game with the longest five streaks:
Date Players (Length) 7-25-1936 Earl Averill (20), Hal Trosky (19), Roy Weatherly (17), Odell Hale (15), Joe Vosmik (15)
So how did the Indians do in the fifteen games with these five players hitting in each game? They went 12-3. I mentioned that they lost the next day 13-0. The also lost the game before they all started hitting at once, this one by a score of 18-0. Between those two routs, they scored an average of 8.3 runs a game.
Finally, here are the only two games I found with six players who had hit in ten or more straight games. One should look familiar:
Date Players (Length) 7-19-1936(2) Earl Averill (15), Hal Trosky (14), Cecil Travis (13), Roy Weatherly (12), Odell Hale (10), Joe Vosmik (10) 8- 6-1929(1) Joe Judge (11), Sam Rice (11), Earle Combs (11), Mark Koenig (10), Tony Lazzeri (10), Babe Ruth (10)
Of the players listed in this last game, only Sam Rice's run would eventually reach twenty or more games. Five of the Indians would reach that mark, the ones shown above as well as Joe Vosmik, who was injured in the July 26th game but hit in four more games upon his return before being stopped on August 5th.
While working on my Retro-review of 1965 (coming soon to an article near you), I noticed that Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron became the homering-est teammates on August 20th of that year when Mathews went deep in the Braves 4-3 victory over Don Cardwell and the Pirates. The home run gave them a combined 794, one more than Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig had managed from 1923 to 1934 (only part of Ruth's homers from 1923 and 1924 counted since Gehrig spent most of those two years playing for Hartford). 1 By the time Mathews was traded to Houston after the 1966 season, their total had reached 863. Here are the top combos in history:2
HRS Teammates 863 Hank Aaron (442), Eddie Mathews (421) 793 Babe Ruth (445), Lou Gehrig (348) 781 Willie Mays (410), Willie McCovey (371) 744 Duke Snider (391), Gil Hodges (353) 732 Harmon Killebrew (476), Bob Allison (256) 730 Jim Rice (382), Dwight Evans (348) 706 Andruw Jones (368), Chipper Jones (338) 704 Billy Williams (376), Ron Santo (328)
So who held the record before Ruth and Gehrig? Here is a chronology of the record holders back t0 1888, as close as I can determine:
HRS Set Record Teammates 124 1888- 9-15 Cap Anson (64), Ned Williamson (60) 133 1889- 6- 3 Jeff Pfeffer (69), Cap Anson (64) 151 1890- 7-23 Dan Brouthers (83), Hardy Richardson (68) 152 1896- 7-10 Jeff Pfeffer (78), Cap Anson (74) 161 1896- 8-28 Sam Thompson (94), Jack Clements (67) 184 1918- 7-25 Gavvy Cravath (117), Fred Luderus (67) 207 1922- 8-18 Babe Ruth (204), Carl Mays (3) 613 1923- 5-19 Babe Ruth (467), Bob Meusel (146) 793 1932- 6-12 Babe Ruth (445), Lou Gehrig (348)
The number in parenthesis after each player's name is the amount they had when their record was broken by the players on the following line.
And here are what I think are the top combos in some other categories:3
Cat # Teammates G 4617 Lou Whitaker (2390), Alan Trammell (2227) AB 16665 Lou Whitaker (8570), Alan Trammell (8095) R 3083 Craig Biggio (1566), Jeff Bagwell (1517) H 5152 Sam Rice (2861), Joe Judge (2291) 2B 1041 Craig Biggio (553), Jeff Bagwell (488) 3B 384 Sam Crawford (201), Ty Cobb (183) RBI 2952 Lou Gehrig (1798), Tony Lazzeri (1154) BB 2389 Jeff Bagwell (1401), Craig Biggio (988) SO 3021 Derek Jeter (1568), Jorge Posada (1453) HBP 392 Craig Biggio (264), Jeff Bagwell (128) SB 1091 Ty Cobb (689), Donie Bush (402)
So much for the hitters. What pair of pitching teammates have combined for the most wins?4
W Teammates 440 Eddie Plank (247), Chief Bender (193) 433 Christy Mathewson (297), Hooks Wiltse (136) 418 Tim Keefe (215), Mickey Welch (203) 412 Warren Spahn (233), Lew Burdette (179) 408 Lefty Grove (257), Rube Walberg (151) 407 Red Ruffing (219), Lefty Gomez (188) 406 Cy Young (252), Nig Cuppy (154)
And some leaders in a few other categories:5
Cat # Teammates G 1167 Mariana Rivera (769), Andy Pettitte (398) GS 820 Tom Glavine (454), John Smoltz (366) CG 687 Tim Keefe (350), Mickey Welch (337) SV 429 Mariano Rivera (429), Andy Pettitte (0) BB 2122 Hal Newhouser (1209), Dizzy Trout (913) SO 4477 Sandy Koufax (2366), Don Drysdale (2111) SHO 94 Ed Walsh (55), Doc White (39) L 314 Bob Friend (190), Vern Law (124)
While Rivera and Pettitte do have more saves than any other pair of teammates, the distribution is a little unequal, to say the least. One of the problems with saves is that almost all of them are distributed to the closer. I could find only two examples of two teammates each collecting at least 80 saves:6
Greg Minton (115), Gary Lavelle (89) Ron Reed (90), Tug McGraw (80)
Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell both debuted on September 9, 1977 in the Tigers 8-6 loss to the Red Sox. And that got me to wondering if it was unusual for two future long-time regulars to debut for a team in the same game. This time there is no requirement that they be teammates for any but their first game. So here are the most combined career at-bats for a pair of players appearing for the first time in the same game (or day) for the same team:
ABS Date Team Players 20234 1989- 4- 3 SEA A Omar Vizquel (10433), Ken Griffey (9801) 16858 1977- 9- 9 DET A Lou Whitaker (8570), Alan Trammell (8288) 15193* 1968- 9-23 PIT N Al Oliver (9049), Richie Hebner (6144) 14583 1890- 4-19 BOS N Patsy Donovan (7505), Bobby Lowe (7078) 14458 1915- 9-29 WAS A Joe Judge (7898), Charlie Jamieson (6560) 13957 1961- 4-11 BOS A Carl Yastrzemski (11988), Chuck Schilling (1969) 13616 1963- 9-21 HOU N Joe Morgan (9277), Jerry Grote (4339) 13435 1955- 4-12 STL N Ken Boyer (7455), Bill Virdon (5980) 13324 1967- 9- 6 MIN A Graig Nettles (8986), Pat Kelly (4338) 13253 1924- 4-15 PHI A Al Simmons (8759), Max Bishop (4494)
* - same day but in different games
And a similar list for three teammates:
ABS Date Team Players 15848 1958- 4-15 SF N Orlando Cepeda (7927), Jim Davenport (4427), Willie Kirkland (3494) 15380 1880- 5- 1 WOR N Harry Stovey (6138), George Wood (5371), Arthur Irwin (3871) 14451 1971- 9- 4 BOS A Ben Oglivie (5913), Juan Beniquez (4651), Rick Miller (3887) 13912 1963- 9-21 HOU N Joe Morgan (9277), Jerry Grote (4339), Mike White (296) 13479 1955- 4-12 STL N Ken Boyer (7455), Bill Virdon (5980), Herb Moford (44)
Next, have there been instances where two pitchers with long careers debuted for a team in the same game? Here are the cases where two pitchers had careers of at least 1000 innings each:
IPS Date Team Players 6039.1 1898- 4-22 WAS N Bill Dineen (3074.2), Bill Donovan (2964.2) 4543.1 1923- 4-19* BOS N Larry Benton (2297), Bob Smith (2246.1) 4306.2 1920- 4-19 PHI A Eddie Rommel (2556.1), Slim Harriss (1750.1) 3712.2 1995- 4-29 MIN A Brad Radke (2451), LaTroy Hawkins (1261.1) 3507 1967- 5-31 DET A Pat Dobson (2120.1), Mike Marshall (1386.2) 2875.1 1901- 4-26 DET A Ed Siever (1507), Frank Owen (1368.1)
* - first game of a double-header. Smith debuted as a pinch-runner.
And the games with three pitchers whose careers lasted at least 200 innings each:
IPS Date Team Players 2795.1 1990- 9- 8 SEA A Dave Burba (1777.2), Rich DeLucia (624), Mike Gardiner (393.2) 1791.1 2003- 4- 2 DET A Jeremy Bonderman (1176), Wil Ledezma (396.1), Chris Spurling (219)
That last game also saw the debut of another pitcher, Matt Roney, who pitched 104.2 innings in the major leagues, the only game with debuts by four pitchers with careers that long.
Finally, I wondered if there were ever two pitchers on opposing teams with long careers who first appeared in the same game. Here is a list of the games where two opposing pitchers threw at least 1500 innings in their careers. And we've seen the top game before:
Date Team Pitcher Team Pitcher 1923- 4-19 NY N Red Lucas (2542) BOS N Larry Benton (2297) 1917- 4-13 CHI N Dutch Ruether (2124.2) PIT N Hal Carlson (2002) 1902- 4-19 CIN N Bob Ewing (2301) CHI N Bob Rhoads (1691.2) 1939- 4-25 DET A Dizzy Trout (2725.2) STL N Jack Kramer (1637.1) 1882- 5- 2 LOU a Guy Hecker (2924) STL a Jumbo McGinnis (1603.2)
Notes:
1"Mathews, Aaron Shatter Record for HR Combos," Bob Wolf. The Sporting News. October 2, 1965. Page 16.
2This doesn't include the following:
The seventeen homers Mays hit in 1959 before McCovey arrived on July 30th, the three that Mays hits in 1960 while McCovey was playing for Tacoma, or the thirteen McCovey hit in 1972 after Mays had been traded.
The eight homers Hodges hit in 1948 while Snider was playing for Montreal, and the seven that Snider hit for the Mets in 1963 after Hodges was traded to the Senators.
The seven homers Evans hit in 1974 while Rice was playing for Pawtucket.
The twenty-five homers Chipper Jones hit in 1996 while Andruw Jones was playing in the minors.
The nine homers Santo hit in 1960 while Williams was playing for Houston.
3Determining these leaders can be far from straight-forward. Some notes:
Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski had a total of 16735 at-bats between them from 1956 to 1972, but Clemente had 195 at-bats in 1956 before Mazeroski joined the team on July 6th of that year.
Honus Wagner and Fred Clarke combined for 5287 hits for the Pirates from 1897 to 1911 and 1913 to 1915. But Clarke was the Pirates manager during those years and in 1914 and 1915 made only three token appearances. If you do not count them as teammates during those last two years, then their 295 combined hits (all but one by Wagner) drops them below 5000. If you want to count them as true teammates during those years, then you'll probably need to subtract the hits that Clarke collected in 1897 before Wagner joined the team. And Clarke was only active as a player briefly in 1913 as well.
Joe Judge and Sam Rice combined for 5152 hits for the Senators from the September 20, 1915 to 1932. But for most of 1918, Rice was in the military, appearing in only three series while on furlough. If you count only the hits the two got into those games, their total drops to 5029. I figured this was over-thinking things and so credited them with 5152.
Wagner and Clarke also combined for 412 triples. All the same issues apply as before, since Wagner hit 26 of those in 1914 and 1915. And Clarke no doubt hit several of his 13 triples during 1897 before Wagner arrived in July.
Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford hit 391 triples between them from 1905 to 1917. But Cobb didn't join the team until late in 1905 and I think Crawford hit seven of his triples that year before then.
Derek Jeter struck out eleven times in 1995 before Jorge Posada was called up that September. And Posada shuttled back and forth between New York and Columbus in 1996, appearing on the big league roster from April 3rd to 18th, May 22nd to 25th, June 29th to July 7th and from September 2nd to the end of the season. Jeter struck out 28 times that season while they were both on the roster.
Ty Cobb stole 29 bases before Donie Bush arrived in September, 1908 and stole ten after he had been waived to the Senators in 1921.
4This doesn't include the following:
The twenty-one wins Welch had in 1880 before Keefe arrived in the beginning of August and the two wins Welch had in 1891 after Keefe was released.
The seventeen wins Spahn had in 1951 before Burdette arrived in 1951 and the fourteen wins Spahn had after Burdette was traded away in 1963.
The twelve wins Young had in 1901 after Cuppy was released.
The first win, of Lefty Gomez's career, picked up the day before Red Ruffing was traded to New York.
5Some notes on these:
Both Rivera and Pettitte spent time with Columbus during 1995. I think they were first on the Yankees roster together on May 27th, but Rivera was subsequently sent down from June 12th to early July (I'm not sure of the exact date) as well as from August 10th to 22nd. So it looks like Rivera's debut came while Pettitte was with Columbus and that seven of Pettitte's games came with Rivera in the minors.
Glavine's starts does not include the twenty he made in 1988 before Smoltz was called up from Richmond.
Welch's complete games does not include forty from 1880 or seven from 1891.
Dizzy Trout's walk total is missing the 65 walks he recorded in 1939 before Newhouser was called up after the end of the Texas League season on September 8th. Newhouser's total does not include the ten walks he surrendered after Trout was traded in 1952.
6Lavelle did have 127 saves during those years, but I think that 38 of the saves he collected from 1975 to 1978 came while Minton was pitching in the minors.
There was a discussion recently on SABR-L about whether we can reliably determine that a player was slow from his offensive statistics. Several markers were proposed: low stolen base totals, a poor SB success rate, and few triples were some of those that were mentioned. So was a high number of grounded into double-plays (GIDP). During the discussion that followed, one of the contributors mentioned that Jackie Jensen had set the major league record (since broken) when he grounded into 32 DPs in 1954, but also hit seven triples and had a league-leading 22 stolen bases with an above average (75.9) success rate. Someone else then suggested that perhaps Jensen simply had an extraordinarily high number of GIDP opportunities that year, what with Ted Williams (an OBP machine) hitting in front of him much of the year. Mike Lynch (of seamheads fame) then contacted me and suggested that it might be nice if we had some, you know, actual data on the subject.
So here's what I did: for each player's season from 1952 to 2011, I computed his total plate-appearances (PA), the number of those where a GIDP was possible (GPA), the number of ground-outs in those situations (GO), and the number of times he grounded into a double-play (GIDP). I also computed the percentage of plate-appearances in situations where a GIDP was possible, the percentage of those plate-appearances that resulted in a ground-out, and the percentage of those ground-outs that resulted in a GIDP.
So let's start with Jackie Jensen's 1954 season:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Jackie Jensen 1954 BOS A 674 179 .266 53 .296 32 .604 League Rank 7 3 4 1 5 1 2
In the percentage categories, a minimum of 500 plate appearances was used.
So it seems that the record was a combination of Jensen being among the league leaders in all three risk factors:
1) He was fourth in the league in the percentage of plate appearances with a man on first and less than two outs. The players ahead of him:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Ted Williams 1954 BOS A 526 145 .276 27 .186 11 .407 Minnie Minoso 1954 CHI A 676 183 .271 45 .246 20 .444 Mickey Vernon 1954 WAS A 674 180 .267 37 .206 9 .243
2) He was fifth in the league in the percentage of ground-outs in these situations. Again, those ahead of him:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Al Kaline 1954 DET A 535 137 .256 50 .365 21 .420 Dave Philley 1954 CLE A 522 125 .239 40 .320 16 .400 Spook Jacobs 1954 PHI A 565 72 .127 23 .319 7 .304 Jim Finigan 1954 PHI A 547 108 .197 34 .315 17 .500
And perhaps most importantly:
He trailed only one other player in the league in the percentage of those ground-outs that resulted in double-plays:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Harvey Kuenn 1954 DET A 696 111 .159 30 .270 19 .633
So I'm not sure how to reconcile his obvious speed with his lack of success in beating out potential double-play grounders. I mean, 36-year-old first-baseman Mickey Vernon, with one stolen base in five attempts that season (although he did have fourteen triples), was doubled-up only 9 out of 37 times, a huge improvement over Jensen's rate.
Here are some historic extremes in this data. Let's start with the players from 1952 to 2011 with the highest percentage of ground-outs in these situations that resulted in double-plays:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Mark McGwire 1996 OAK A 548 106 .193 15 .142 14 .933 Mike Piazza 2004 NY N 528 97 .184 16 .165 14 .875 Rocky Colavito 1966 CLE A 614 97 .158 28 .289 24 .857 Dale Murphy 1990 2 tms 629 103 .164 26 .252 22 .846 Jim Edmonds 2003 STL N 531 105 .198 13 .124 11 .846 Carlos Lee 2010 HOU N 649 121 .186 24 .198 20 .833 Bobby Darwin 1972 MIN A 562 121 .215 29 .240 24 .828 Dave Kingman 1975 NY N 543 100 .184 16 .160 13 .812 Manny Ramirez 2002 BOS A 518 91 .176 16 .176 13 .812 Mike Piazza 2002 NY N 541 121 .224 32 .264 26 .812
And the other end of the spectrum:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Dick McAuliffe 1968 DET A 658 78 .119 14 .179 0 .000 Rob Deer 1990 MIL A 511 87 .170 8 .092 0 .000 Craig Biggio 1997 HOU N 744 78 .105 13 .167 0 .000 Richie Ashburn 1953 PHI N 604 117 .194 34 .291 1 .029 Ichiro Suzuki 2009 SEA A 678 93 .137 25 .269 1 .040 David Justice 1992 ATL N 571 106 .186 24 .226 1 .042 Curtis Granderson 2009 DET A 710 106 .149 24 .226 1 .042 Michael Bourn 2009 HOU N 678 80 .118 23 .287 1 .043 Carl Crawford 2010 TB A 663 132 .199 37 .280 2 .054 Kenny Lofton 2002 2 tms 611 86 .141 18 .209 1 .056
With the exception of Rob Deer, who hit only eight ground-outs all year with a man on first and less than two outs, all of the people on the second list are a lot faster than those on the first.
Here are the players who were at risk of grounding into a double-play in the highest percentage of their plate-appearances:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Paul O'Neill 1995 NY A 543 169 .311 41 .243 25 .610 Ted Williams 1958 BOS A 517 160 .309 40 .250 21 .525 Minnie Minoso 1953 CHI A 657 198 .301 46 .232 24 .522 Earl Torgeson 1954 PHI N 544 162 .298 29 .179 11 .379 Jim Rice 1983 BOS A 689 201 .292 51 .254 31 .608 Ted Williams 1956 BOS A 503 144 .286 31 .215 13 .419 Jim Rice 1984 BOS A 708 202 .285 58 .287 36 .621 Frank Thomas 1996 CHI A 649 183 .282 33 .180 25 .758 Stan Musial 1953 STL N 512 144 .281 35 .243 10 .286 Jim Rice 1985 BOS A 608 171 .281 45 .263 35 .778
Since major league baseball started keeping track of GIDPs, there have been eleven seasons of more than thirty. Jim Rice is responsible for three of them (including the top two) and all three show up on this list.
The players with the fewest GIDP opportunities:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Tim Foli 1980 PIT N 540 33 .061 10 .303 5 .500 Luis Castillo 2001 FLA N 612 52 .085 16 .308 6 .375 Juan Pierre 2006 CHI N 750 65 .087 17 .262 6 .353 Don Kessinger 1967 CHI N 628 55 .088 10 .182 3 .300 Fernando Vina 2001 STL N 690 63 .091 17 .270 7 .412 Bill North 1980 SF N 500 46 .092 12 .261 4 .333 Matty Alou 1969 PIT N 746 70 .094 22 .314 5 .227 Willie Wilson 1979 KC A 640 61 .095 10 .164 1 .100 Pete Rose 1971 CIN N 709 68 .096 20 .294 9 .450 Pete Rose 1978 CIN N 731 70 .096 19 .271 8 .421
All of these players hit leadoff except for Tim Foli. But he hit second behind Omar Moreno, a player whose low on-base percentage and 129 steal attempts kept first base unoccupied for Foli most of the season.
Here are the players who grounded out the most in these situations:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Roberto Clemente 1968 PIT N 557 81 .145 39 .481 13 .333 Rey Ordonez 1996 NY N 530 96 .181 46 .479 12 .261 Billy Ripken 1988 BAL A 559 88 .157 41 .466 14 .341 Willie McGee 1993 SF N 519 86 .166 40 .465 12 .300 Enos Cabell 1979 HOU N 630 94 .149 42 .447 18 .429 John Wathan 1982 KC A 502 101 .201 45 .446 26 .578 Maury Wills 1960 LA N 559 70 .125 31 .443 11 .355 Roberto Clemente 1963 PIT N 642 143 .223 63 .441 23 .365 Julio Franco 1987 CLE A 560 116 .207 51 .440 23 .451 Davey Lopes 1974 LA N 613 66 .108 29 .439 10 .345
And the least:
Player Year Team PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Rob Deer 1986 MIL A 546 117 .214 8 .068 4 .500 Howard Johnson 1989 NY N 655 127 .194 10 .079 4 .400 Jose Valentin 1996 MIL A 628 139 .221 11 .079 4 .364 Mark McGwire 1998 STL N 681 137 .201 11 .080 8 .727 Ellis Burks 1987 BOS A 606 72 .119 6 .083 1 .167 Jonny Gomes 2010 CIN N 571 132 .231 11 .083 4 .364 Chris Young 2011 ARI N 659 114 .173 10 .088 3 .300 Reggie Smith 1978 LA N 531 100 .188 9 .090 4 .444 Rob Deer 1988 MIL A 556 98 .176 9 .092 4 .444 Rob Deer 1990 MIL A 511 87 .170 8 .092 0 .000
Of course, neither of these last two lists tell us much about the speed of the players, only about their tendencies to strike, ground or fly out. Fast players are often encouraged to make contact and hit the ball on the ground, so the first list contains a somewhat faster group of players than the second.
After writing the original piece, Dave Pugh was wondering how much the batter's handedness affected his GIDP rate. Here are the stats for right and left-handed hitters (and for switch-hitters, I determined the side they hit from in each at-bat) from 1952 to 2011:
R/L PA GPA Pct GO Pct GDP Pct Right 5348968 1011889 .189 251619 .249 117732 .468 Left 3570819 666946 .187 165904 .249 61322 .370
So right-handed batters hit into a lot more DPs than their lefty counterparts. I expected their rate to be higher, but not that much higher.
The seasonal data (in csv format) for all players from 1952 to 2011 with at least 200 plate appearances can be found here.
While working on my Retro-review of 1966, the subject naturally turned to triple crown winners. In researching Frank Robinson's great season, I looked at players who had led their leagues in home runs, RBIs and batting average at various points during the year. Before I get too far into this piece, however, I wanted to make it clear that I am not looking at these three metrics because of their overwhelming importance. I think that RBIs and batting average, in particular, are among the most over-rated offensive statistics, but there is no denying the popular interest in these kinds of things. I will also only be looking at the daily leaders since 1920, when RBIs became an official statistic and people starting noticing hitters who led their league in all three categories.
So... who was the first player to be the triple-crown leader for a day? Babe Ruth, on April 24, 1921. By the next day, Riggs Stephenson had topped his batting average by a point, ending Ruth's brief run. If you skip the very early days of the season and only start with the beginning of May, the first triple crown leader was the Giants' High Pockets Kelly on May 1, 1922. He held on for about a week and a short time later there was a new leader: Rogers Hornsby. He was at the top for a handful of days in May and June before taking over for good on July 6th, winning the first post-1920 triple crown in a runaway.
Since most of us know the players who won triple crowns, I thought I'd focus on the players who didn't. Here is a list of the players who have led in all three categories the latest in a season without winning a triple crown:
First Last Player Team Passed By 1949- 8- 3 10- 1 Ted Williams BOS A George Kell (AVG) 1926- 5-28 9-25 Babe Ruth NY A Heinie Manush (AVG) 1924- 7-15 9-20 Babe Ruth NY A Goose Goslin (RBI) 1931- 7- 1 9-16 Chuck Klein PHI N Bill Terry (AVG) 1940- 9-14 9-14 Johnny Mize STL N Stan Hack (AVG) 1935- 9-13 9-13 Hank Greenberg DET A Jimmie Foxx (AVG) 1972- 8-27 9- 8 Dick Allen CHI A Rod Carew (AVG) 1953- 8-23 8-24 Al Rosen CLE A Mickey Vernon (AVG) 1992- 8-22 8-23 Gary Sheffield SD N Fred McGriff (HR) and Darren Daulton (RBI) 1946- 5- 7 8-21 Ted Williams BOS A Mickey Vernon (AVG) 1957- 5-19 8-15 Hank Aaron MIL N Stan Musial (AVG) 1932- 8- 6 8- 7 Chuck Klein PHI N Don Hurst (RBI) and Lefty O'Doul (AVG) 1955- 7-26 7-29 Al Kaline DET A Ray Boone (RBI) 2005- 5- 2 7-22 Derrek Lee CHI N Carlos Lee (RBI) 1945- 7-15 7-17 Tommie Holmes BOS N Dixie Walker (RBI) 1970- 5- 1 7-17 Tony Perez CIN N Rico Carty (AVG) 1943- 7-15 7-15 Vern Stephens STL A Nick Etten (RBI)
October 2, 1949, was a bad day for Ted Williams. Not only did his team lose the day's game (and as a result the pennant) to the Yankees, but Williams went hitless in two at-bats while George Kell was going 2-3 in the Tigers' loss to the Indians to deny the Red Sox slugger what would have been his third triple-crown.
In 1926, Ruth lost his triple-crown on the last day of the season. That morning, he had a slightly higher average than runner-up Heinie Manush (.37247 to .37219). But the Tiger center-fielder collected six hits in his double-header that day while Ruth, resting up for the World Series, made only a token appearance, striking out in his only at-bat.
On September 15, 1924, Ruth seemingly had his triple-crown locked up, with a six-RBI lead over Goose Goslin in the only race left in doubt. But Ruth would drive in only one more run that year, while Goslin would add another sixteen. Officially, Ruth's lead was even more secure that day, since the official scorer had failed to report any of the runs either team had driven in during the Senator's game on July 24th. So while Goslin is officially credited with 129 RBIs, he actually had one in that game as well.
And here are a few early-season triple-crown leaders I didn't expect to see:
First Last Player Team Passed By 1931- 5-26 5-29 Buzz Arlett PHI N Chuck Klein (HR) 1937- 5- 8 5-10 Gee Walker DET A Beau Bell (AVG) 1956- 5-23 6- 3 Dale Long PIT N Ken Boyer (RBI) 1958- 5- 3 5- 3 Bob Cerv KC A Sherm Lollar (AVG) 1972- 5- 1 5- 5 Bobby Darwin MIN A Steve Braun (AVG) 1991- 5-11 5-12 Dave Henderson OAK A Wally Joyner (AVG)
Buzz Arlett, a minor league legend who had won 29 games for Oakland in the PCL as a 21-year-old pitcher and later hit 54 homers with Baltimore of the International League, played only one season in the major leagues. He took the league by storm in the early going as a 32-year-old rookie, before a series of injuries slowed him down.
Dale Long was in the middle of hitting home runs in eight straight games when he took over the triple-crown leadership briefly in 1956.
If you came up with a list of all the players with 430 or more hits in a two-year span, Beau Bell would almost certainly be the most obscure player on it. He had his big years in 1936 and 1937, helped by his home park, the always accomodating (at least to hitters) Sportsman's Park. His home/road splits those two years:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO HBP SH SB CS AVG OBP SLG
Home 155 628 112 249 47 8 14 125 56 53 0 2 5 0 .396 .446 .564
Away 156 630 70 181 44 12 11 115 57 56 2 7 1 3 .287 .348 .448
With the greater number of teams in each league, it is much harder to lead the league in homers, RBIs and batting average these days. As a result, there hasn't been a triple crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. But what if the leagues had never expanded? How many more triple crown winners would we have seen? Back in 1960, one of the reasons the major leagues expanded was because of the threat of a third major league. Well, what if all of these new teams had been added to a new league instead? What if the NL and AL had continued with their eight original franchises, while this new entity, let's call it the Continental League, started out with two teams in 1961 and is now practically bursting with 14 teams (much like the current American League)?
So would we have had any additional triple crown winners in this alternate universe? Yes. Two (and both of them Dodgers): Mike Piazza in 1998 and Matt Kemp in 2011. I was a little surprised that the Continental League never produced a triple-crown winner, since there were only two and then four teams for their first eight years, but the closest anyone came was Frank Howard who was in the lead as late as September 27, 1965, with the rather modest line of 21 homers, 81 RBIs and a .291 batting average. But the Astros' Jim Wynn hit his 22nd home run the next day, edging out Howard and the Continental League hasn't come close to a pretend triple-crown winner since.
In doing research on the Deadball Era, I became interested in what teams did the most and least in-game substitutions. So I decided to take a look at the teams with the highest and lowest percentage of complete games by position. As in their pitching counterparts, a player can get credit for a complete game at a position if he is pinch-hit or ran for in the last half-inning of a game.
First of all, I figured it might be interesting in looking at the teams with the highest percentage of complete games at all positions. Here is the leaderboard from 1916 to 2011:
Year Team CG IG Pct W L 1918 BRO N 1071 63 .944 57 69 1920 CHI A 1303 83 .940 96 58 1918 PHI A 1097 73 .938 52 76 1918 BOS N 1045 71 .936 53 71 1941 CHI A 1308 96 .932 77 77 1920 PIT N 1299 96 .931 79 75 1949 BOS A 1299 96 .931 96 58 1939 NY A 1272 96 .930 106 45 1918 CIN N 1078 83 .929 68 60 1919 CIN N 1170 90 .929 96 44
Of course, including pitchers in the data above pretty much eliminates any modern team. So here is the same list with pitchers removed:
Year Team CG IG Pct W L 1949 BOS A 1215 25 .980 96 58 1918 BRO N 986 22 .978 57 69 1918 PHI A 1017 23 .978 52 76 1940 WAS A 1205 27 .978 64 90 1934 STL A 1202 30 .976 67 85 1920 STL A 1201 31 .975 76 77 1939 NY A 1185 31 .975 106 45 1941 WAS A 1216 32 .974 70 84 1920 PIT N 1207 33 .973 96 58 1940 NY A 1206 34 .973 88 66 1943 CHI A 1206 34 .973 82 72
Again, no modern teams make the list. I'm not sure why, but I had expected the lists above to be dominated by excellent teams. I guess I figured that teams who did a lot of in-game substitution had starters with obvious flaws (good hitters who were poor fielders, hitters who couldn't hit with a platoon disadvantage, and so on). But while there are great teams on the lists above (in particular, the 1939 Yankees and the 1919 Reds), there are also a fair number of mediocre teams, teams that perhaps failed to substitute more often because they selcom had any better options on the bench.
Here are the teams (again, with pitchers removed), who had the fewest complete games from 1916 to 2011:
Year Team CG IG Pct W L 1978 OAK A 898 398 .693 69 93 1959 STL N 860 372 .698 71 83 1995 MIL A 809 343 .702 65 79 1958 BAL A 866 366 .703 74 79 1977 BAL A 909 379 .706 97 64 1999 MON N 923 373 .712 68 94 1955 BAL A 892 356 .715 57 97 1983 PHI N 935 369 .717 90 72 1986 SD N 931 365 .718 74 88 1991 TEX A 930 366 .718 85 77
I also expected to see this list dominated by a few managers who couldn't sit still on the bench, but the only manager to direct more than one of the teams on the list above was Paul Richards, who was at the helm of the both the 1955 and 1957 Orioles.
Here are the teams with the highest and lowest percentage of complete games at each position, along with the player who started most often.
Pitcher: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1918 BOS A 105 21 .833 Carl Mays (30/3) 1918 BOS N 96 28 .774 Art Nehf (28/3) 1917 BOS A 115 42 .732 Babe Ruth (35/3) 1920 CHI A 109 45 .708 Red Faber (28/11) 1918 CHI N 92 39 .702 Hippo Vaughn (27/6) Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 2007 WAS N 0 162 .000 Matt Chico (0/31) 2007 TEX A 0 162 .000 Kevin Millwood (0/31) 2007 FLA N 0 162 .000 Dontrelle Willis (0/35) 2011 SD N 0 162 .000 Mat Latos (0/31) and Tim Stauffer (0/31) 2007 SD N 1 162 .006 Jake Peavy (0/34) and Greg Maddux (1/33)
Catcher: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 2002 TB A 160 1 .994 Toby Hall (82/1) 1970 CLE A 160 2 .988 Ray Fosse (118/2) 1973 BOS A 160 2 .988 Carlton Fisk (129/2) 2010 MIL N 160 2 .988 Jonathan Lucroy (74/0) 2011 COL N 160 2 .988 Chris Iannetta (103/2) Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1975 OAK A 80 82 .494 Gene Tenace (61/53) 2006 SD N 80 82 .494 Mike Piazza (29/70) 1965 CHI A 81 81 .500 John Romano (42/65) 1941 BOS N 79 77 .506 Ray Berres (47/64) 1977 CAL A 83 79 .512 Terry Humphrey (57/54)
Ray Fosse, the mainstay of the 1970 Indians, was also a backup catcher on the 1975 Athletics, finishing only 17 of this 41 starts.
Actually, once you get past the battery, all of the other positions have had several instances where there were no game substitutions, ranging from a high of 44 at first base to 14 at right-field. So from here on out, I will focus on the positions with the fewest complete games.
First Baseman: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1983 CHI A 62 100 .383 Tom Paciorek (23/43) 1977 PHI N 75 87 .463 Richie Hebner (57/43) 2003 PIT N 77 85 .475 Randall Simon (37/39) 1972 MIN A 75 79 .487 Harmon Killebrew (52/76) 1965 CAL A 79 83 .488 Joe Adcock (32/62) 1999 ATL N 79 83 .488 Ryan Klesco (23/43)
Mike Squires played 122 games at first for the 1983 White Sox, starting only 27 of them. That season, he played in 143 games while coming to the plate only 180 times.
Second Baseman: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 2008 LA N 75 87 .463 Jeff Kent (50/64) 1999 PHI N 76 86 .469 Marlon Anderson (57/64) 1973 OAK A 81 81 .500 Dick Green (55/67) 1966 CHI A 85 78 .521 Al Weis (24/21) 2009 STL N 85 77 .525 Skip Schumaker (61/63)
Third Baseman: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1974 CIN N 62 101 .380 Dan Driessen (36/86) 1969 MIN A 68 94 .420 Harmon Killebrew (38/58) 1965 LA N 74 88 .457 Jim Gilliam (25/52) 1984 TOR A 79 84 .485 Rance Mulliniks (44/57) 2007 PHI N 80 82 .494 Greg Dobbs (14/43)
Killebrew also made the list as a first baseman.
Shortstop: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1992 ATL N 75 87 .463 Rafael Belliard (53/37) 1980 TEX A 77 86 .472 Bud Harrelson (34/43) 1954 NY A 74 81 .477 Phil Rizzuto (50/47) 1979 SEA A 83 79 .512 Mario Mendoza (70/62) 1990 TEX A 83 79 .512 Jeff Huson (47/42)
Left Fielder: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 2007 PHI N 58 104 .358 Pat Burrell (46/92) 1994 ATL N 42 72 .368 Ryan Klesko (15/56) 1984 CHI N 61 100 .379 Gary Matthews (51/93) 2008 PHI N 62 100 .383 Pat Burrell (58/96) 1998 CHI N 64 99 .393 Henry Rodriguez (41/71)
And Ryan Klesko also appeared on the first base list, while Burrell is the only player to appear on a single list twice.
Center Fielder: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1980 CIN N 73 90 .448 Dave Collins (38/81) 1962 MIN A 83 80 .509 Lenny Green (67/80) 1974 ATL N 87 76 .534 Dusty Baker (31/68) 1959 STL N 85 69 .552 Gino Cimoli (35/55) 1963 MIN A 89 72 .553 Jimmie Hall (40/50)
Right Fielder: Year Team CG IG Pct Player(s) (CG/IG) 1988 MIN A 71 91 .438 Randy Bush (33/62) 1978 BAL A 72 89 .447 Ken Singleton (54/81) 1982 CAL A 77 85 .475 Reggie Jackson (59/78) 2011 DET A 78 84 .481 Magglio Ordonez (24/44) 1987 STL N 79 83 .488 Curt Ford (27/23) 2003 STL N 79 83 .488 J.D. Drew (27/20)
So what players have had the most incomplete games in a season? Well, not too surprisingly, you've seen some of these before:
Player Year CG IG Position(s) Pat Burrell 2008 58 96 LF Dave Collins 1980 48 93 CF(81), LF(10), RF(2) Gary Matthews 1984 51 93 LF Pat Burrell 2007 46 92 LF Dan Driessen 1974 39 88 1B(86), RF(2) Mickey Mantle 1964 48 84 CF(64), LF(12), RF(8) Harmon Killebrew 1969 78 84 3B(58), 1B(26) Ken Singleton 1978 55 84 RF(81), LF(2) Frank Howard 1967 59 83 LF(82), 1B(1) Greg Luzinski 1976 61 83 LF
And finally, here are the players who completed the fewest of their starts (50 starts minimum):
Player Year CG IG Pct Position(s) Stan Musial 1963 16 78 .170 LF Greg Walker 1983 11 46 .193 1B Ryan Klesko 1994 16 56 .222 LF,1B Al Martin 2001 16 55 .225 LF Mike Diaz 1986 12 40 .231 LF,1B,RF Dane Iorg 1981 13 43 .232 LF,RF,1B Dan Peltier 1993 13 38 .255 RF,LF Pat Burrell 2011 13 37 .260 LF Johnny Mize 1951 24 67 .264 1B Brant Alyea 1970 20 55 .267 LF,RF
Recently, Rob Neyer pointed out a game in which Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon made six defensive moves at one time (including five players changing positions) and wondered if this constituted a historical amount of maneuvering.
Well, not really. There have been several cases since the 1948 where a team replaced or repositioned it's entire team prior to an inning or play. Here they are, along with the number of players who moved from one position to another (rather than entered the game at that point):
Team Date Inn Moved CHI A 1959- 9-27 6 0 CLE A 1971- 6-20(2) 8 4 PHI N 1977- 9-18 6 2 CHI A 1983- 9-15 7 0 NY A 1993- 9-15 8 2 NY N 1997- 9- 8 8 1 BOS A 2002- 9-22 9 2 ANA A 2004- 9-11 9 0 NY A 2010- 9-23 8 2 NY A 2011- 9-24 9 2
Not too surprisingly, all but one of these occurred during September. And that game was a contest that was suspended in June and resumed (with all those defensive changes) near the end of September.
So what teams moved the greatest number of defenders to new positions at one time? Well, five is the most I found. Here they are (not including Maddon's Rays), along with the total number of subs on the play:
Team Date Inn Total BAL A 1958- 6-14 8 7 LA N 1960- 6- 3 10 6 ATL N 1966- 4-21 8 6 BAL A 1973- 9-23 6 6 CAL A 1976- 7- 9 8 6 TEX A 2000- 9- 6 7 7 NY A 2004- 7- 1 13 6 STL N 2006- 7-17 9 8 NY N 2011- 8- 7 8 6
Two things of note. First, in that 1973 Orioles game, Earl Weaver had moved four defenders around two innings earlier. And second, the 2000 Rangers game was the one in which Scott Sheldon entered in the 4th inning with his team down 10-1 and proceeded to play all nine positions.
So which team had the most total defensive shifts and substitutions in a game? Well here are the teams that shifted positions the most time, along with the total number of substitutions:
Team Date Moved Total TOR A 1988- 5- 2 37 41 CLE A 1959- 6-28(1) 34 35 CLE A 1959- 6-27 32 34 TOR A 1988- 5- 3 26 29 STL N 1988- 5-14 24 35 CHI N 1977- 7-28 23 33 DET A 2000-10- 1 19 29 MIN A 1968- 9-22 18 22
It's probably a good thing that Cleveland manager Joe Gordon gave up on his Woody Held/Granny Hamner experiment after two games. And the last two games on this list also featured players (Shane Halter and Cesar Tovar) who made the grand tour of all nine positions during the game.
The New York Yankees and Washington Nationals with play each other tomorrow night, and barring a tie, a six-game winning streak will end. This got me to wondering how often teams with winning streaks that long have played each other.
It was rarer that I thought.
The last matchup between two teams with streaks of six games or longer occurred on September 19, 2008, when the hot Phillies (winners of seven straight) met the even hotter Marlins (winners of eight straight). The Marlins pounded Brett Myers for a career-high ten runs and held on to win 14-8. The Phillies returned the favor the next night, ending the Marlins streak in a low-scoring but pitcher-filled 3-2 contest.
You have to go back to 1999 to find the next occurrence of two winning streaks of at least six games colliding. Here are the previous seven, along with the scores of the first two games of their series:
Date Visiting Home Score(s) 1999- 7-27 TEX A ( 8) BAL A ( 6) 8- 6 TEX 8- 6 BAL 1992- 6-18 CIN N ( 6) ATL N ( 7) 7- 5 CIN 3- 2 ATL 1992- 4-13 NY A ( 6) TOR A ( 7) 5- 2 NY 12- 6 TOR 1985- 5- 1 TOR A ( 6) CAL A ( 6) 6- 3 TOR 3- 2 CAL 1977- 8-10 CAL A ( 6) BOS A (10) 11-10 BOS 7- 3 CAL 1976- 5- 7 LA N (11) PHI N ( 6) 10- 8 LA 6- 4 PHI 1975- 6-30 OAK A ( 8) CHI A ( 8) 6- 1 CHI 10- 1 OAK 1971- 9-28(1) BOS A ( 6) BAL A ( 8) 10- 2 BAL 5- 4 BAL
The winning streaks of the Yankees and Blue Jays in 1992 both included the last game of their previous year. And the Blue Jays win in that 1985 contest featured the first win as a starter in Jimmy Key's major league career.
So you have to go back to 1971 to find a matchup that did not result in a split of the series' first two games.
Here are the only three times that teams met with winning streaks of at least nine games each:
Date Visiting Home Score(s) 1901- 9- 7 PIT N (10) PHI N ( 9) 4- 1 PHI 11- 5 PIT 1884- 9-13 STL U (12) WAS U (11) 12- 1 STL 9- 5 STL 1875- 5-18 BOS n (16) HAR n (15) 10- 5 BOS 13- 2 BOS
Both Boston and Hartford were undefeated when they met in 1875. The last loss for the Boston Red Stockings had come at the hands of Hartford in their last game of 1874 and Hartford's streak included three games from the previous year.
I would probably be remiss if I didn't at least take a brief look at the flip side of the coin: teams who met following skids of at least six games. It turns out that this has been more common lately, with four occurrences in the last four years. Here are the last time teams with losing streaks of at least six, seven, eight, nine and ten games met:
# Date Visiting Home Score(s) 6 2011- 5-16 MIN A ( 8) SEA A ( 6) 5- 2 SEA 2- 1 MIN 7 2009- 9-25 BAL A ( 7) CLE A (11) 4- 2 CLE 9- 8 CLE 8 1919- 9-19 STL A ( 8) PHI A ( 8) 3- 2 PHI 4- 0 STL 9 1890- 9- 4 CLE N ( 9) PIT N (23) 6- 2 PIT - a one-game series 10 1875- 5-26 NH n (12) ATL n (10) 14- 4 ATL - a one-game series
The Cleveland Spiders' loss to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys that day was part of a 2-18 skid. Which I suppose doesn't look so bad compared to their opponent's season ending 7-71 mark. Cleveland went on a tear right after their bad spell ended, winning ten straight. It was not as impressive as it sounds, however, since it included five games with Pittsburgh.
The Atlantics win against New Haven would be their last of the season, as they finished with 31 straight losses. New Haven would finally win the first game in their franchise's history when they defeated Washington on the last day of May, raising their season mark to 1-15.
On August 28, 1895, the St. Louis Browns, losers of seven straight, arrived in Washington to play the Nationals, winless in their previous six decisions. One of those teams would at last win a game. Well, not so fast. They battled to a 5-5 tie on the 28th and then came back the next day only to have that game end in a 9-9 deadlock.
For the Nationals, it marked their fourth tie in their last five games, the only time in major league history that a team has done that. The 1890 Rochester Hop Bitters came the next closest, tying four times in a seven-game span starting on September 24th. The shortest span since 1900 is eighteen games by the 1911 St. Louis Cardinals that began on September 14th.
But I digress.
By now, everyone has probably heard about R. A. Dickey's back-to-back one-hitters and how he is the first pitcher since Dave Steib in 1988 to throw two consecutive low-hit games (no-hitters or one-hitters). But has anyone ever thrown three consecutive low-hit games? Well, no. But one pitcher came really close. Here are the fewest number of consecutive starts that includes three low-hit games from 1916 to 2011:
GS Name First Last 4 Dave Stieb 9-24-1988 4-10-1989 8 Pete Alexander 6- 5-1915 7- 5-1915 12 Sam McDowell 8-31-1965(2) 5- 1-1966 13 Phil Douglas 8-27-1920(2) 6- 4-1921 * 13 Ewell Blackwell 9- 2-1950 5-15-1951 14 Bob Feller 9-26-1941(2) 4-30-1946 ** 14 Jim Tobin 4-23-1944(1) 6-22-1944(2) *** * - includes a 5-inning one-hitter ** - includes one no-hitter *** - includes two no-hitters, one a 5-inning game
Okay, I cheated with Pete Alexander. Knowing that he pitched four one-hitters in 1915, I checked his dailies by hand. And there may be other pitchers from 1915 and earlier who will be added to this list as the data becomes available (but not Rube Marquard, who pitched back-to-back one-hitters in 1911, because I checked his dailies by hand as well).
And if you wanted to be picky, you could argue that Stieb also belongs in second place with five starts, third place with six starts, and so on.
So who threw four low-hit games in the shortest span of starts? Here's that list:
GS Name First Last 21 Bob Feller 7-31-1946 5- 2-1947 23 Dave Stieb 5-31-1988 4-10-1989 29 Dave Stieb 9-24-1988 8-26-1989 30 Pete Alexander 6- 5-1915 9-29-1915 31 Bob Feller 9-19-1945 8- 8-1946(1) * 36 Bob Feller 9-26-1941(2) 7-31-1946 * 39 Nolan Ryan 4-23-1989 6-11-1990 * * - includes one no-hitter
I had a feeling that Nolan Ryan would eventually make an appearance on one of these lists.
And note that Feller's top entry on this list does not overlap at all with his entry on the earlier list.
Since, as everyone knows, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, here are the shortest span of starts containing five, six, seven and more low-hit games.
LHG GS Name First Last 5 38 Bob Feller 9-26-1941(2) 8- 8-1946(1) * 6 49 Bob Feller 9-19-1945 5- 2-1947 * 7 56 Bob Feller 9-26-1941(2) 5- 2-1947 * 8 113 Bob Feller 7-12-1940 5- 2-1947 * 9 132 Bob Feller 4-16-1940 5- 2-1947 ** 10 153 Bob Feller 6-27-1939 5- 2-1947 ** 11 160 Bob Feller 5-25-1939 5- 2-1947 ** * - includes one no-hitter ** - includes two no-hitters
For nearly an eight-year period, from early 1939 to early 1947, Bob Feller averaged a low-hit game about every fifteen starts.
Here is the same list, if you exclude Feller:
LHG GS Name First Last 5 48 Dave Stieb 5-31-1988 8-26-1989 6 81 Dave Stieb 5-31-1988 9- 2-1990 * 7 113 Nolan Ryan 7- 9-1972 6- 1-1975 ** 8 171 Nolan Ryan 7- 9-1972 4-15-1977 ** 9 211 Nolan Ryan 7- 9-1972 5- 5-1978 ** 10 256 Nolan Ryan 7- 9-1972 7-13-1979 ** 11 319 Nolan Ryan 4-18-1970 7-13-1979 ** * - includes one no-hitter ** - includes four no-hitters
So it took Nolan Ryan almost exactly twice as many starts as Feller to equal his eleven low-hit games.
And also note that, like Feller, there is no overlap between the entries on this list and his entry on the one above.
Finally, Cy Morong was wondering what starting pitcher had allowed the fewest hits over five consecutive starts. Here are the lowest from 1916 to 2011:
Name First Last IP H R ER BB SO W L Steve Barber 9-23-1966(1) 4-30-1967(1) 29.1 5 3 2 28 20 2 1 Joe Decker 6- 6-1975 8-25-1975 6.2 5 16 16 25 1 0 2 Steve Barber 7-26-1966 4-23-1967(1) 18 7 5 4 13 16 1 1 Frank MacCormack 7-22-1976(1) 5- 3-1977 8.2 7 9 9 18 4 0 1
Those five starts were the last five of Frank MacCormack's career.
Wait a second. I went back and looked at Cy's question a little more carefully. He mentioned that Johnny Vander Meer had allowed only 17 hits over SIX consecutive starts (spanning 55 innings) and wanted to know if anyone had ever allowed fewer. So increasing the number of starts from five to six and requiring them all to be complete games, not too surprisingly, gives us a entirely different list:
Name First Last IP H R ER BB SO W L Ferdie Schupp 9- 7-1916 9-27-1916(2) 54 17 3 2 10 24 6 0 Johnny Vander Meer 5-27-1938 6-19-1938 55 17 4 4 24 35 6 0 * Nolan Ryan 9-11-1974 4- 7-1975 54 18 12 11 32 64 5 1 ** Ewell Blackwell 8-28-1950 9-20-1950(1) 53 20 10 7 25 35 4 2 Bob Turley 4-15-1955 5-11-1955 54 20 11 11 36 57 5 1 Nolan Ryan 9-15-1974 4-11-1975 53 20 10 9 32 59 5 1 ** * - includes back-to-back no-hitters ** - includes one no-hitter
Ferdie Schupp's performance helped the Giants win a major league record 26 consecutive decisions that month. Bob Turley's streak occurred in his first six starts for the New York Yankees following an off-season seventeen-player trade with the Orioles.
So far this season, Cliff Lee has made eleven starts without a victory. Through the first ten of them (and I picked ten because it's a nice round number and because he had ten winless starts when I first began working on this), he had an 0-3 record despite a relatively low (3.18) ERA. I thought this might be an especially low ERA for pitchers going through a winless span that long and so I went looking for lower ones. And found them. Without including overlapping streaks, here are the lowest ERAs from 1916 to 2011 in streaks that long:
Start End Player CG IP H R ER BB SO W L ERA 5-27-1920 7-22-1920 Harry Harper 5 68.1 71 30 16 21 20 0 8 2.11 7-26-1916 9- 7-1916(1) George Mogridge 5 86 80 36 21 18 34 0 9 2.20 5-20-1917(1) 7-28-1917(2) Rube Schauer 6 81 74 46 21 29 23 0 9 2.33 5-12-1978 7-15-1978 Craig Swan 1 68.1 58 18 18 20 45 0 3 2.37 9-18-1974 9-15-1976 Al Downing 0 60 47 20 16 23 32 0 1 2.40 8- 3-1971 9-13-1971(2) Tom Murphy 3 74.1 51 23 20 20 29 0 4 2.42 8-10-1988 9-24-1988 Rick Mahler 2 76.2 64 30 21 14 40 0 6 2.47 9- 1-1917 7-15-1918 Dave Danforth 4 67.2 69 31 19 17 22 0 8 2.53 7-29-2009 10- 3-2009 Clayton Kershaw 0 56.1 40 17 16 27 71 0 3 2.56 4-12-1966 4-14-1967 Whitey Ford 0 59 60 29 17 13 27 0 5 2.59
Following his shutout on September 12, 1974, Al Downing would not win another start in his major league career, going 0-1 in his last twelve starts. And after pitching a shutout in his first start of 1978, Craig Swan went fifteen starts before his next win, but that started him on a seven-game winning-streak. He finished the year with a 9-6 mark and a league-leading 2.43 ERA.
Here are the longest streaks of winless starts from 1916 to 2011, along with their record in relief.
Start End Player GS CG IP H R ER BB SO W L ERA R-W R-L 9- 6-1978 8- 8-1979 Matt Keough 28 5 167 213 121 101 76 95 0 18 5.44 0 0 6-18-2008 5-25-2011 Jo-Jo Reyes 28 0 135 167 103 88 57 84 0 13 5.87 0 0 4-28-1916 9-28-1916 Jack Nabors 27 10 166.1 151 87 64 72 56 0 19 3.46 0 0 9-24-1960 9-23-1962 Bob Miller 27 0 135.1 158 104 88 64 83 0 15 5.85 1 2 4-14-1992 5- 1-1994 Anthony Young 27 1 153 183 100 85 47 105 0 17 5.00 2 15 6-14-1922 7-27-1923 Joe Oeschger 26 7 150.2 218 132 110 57 27 0 22 6.57 4 3 4-21-1953 8-10-1954 Charlie Bishop 24 1 132.2 168 103 101 72 50 0 18 6.85 2 1 8- 2-1976 9-23-1978 John D'Acquisto 24 0 90.2 95 66 56 80 77 0 6 5.56 4 2 5-25-1991 6- 2-1993 Matt Young 24 1 108.2 133 91 84 67 76 0 13 6.96 0 1
Matt Young's streak extended until the end of his career, although he did win one final game, in relief, after his last major league start.
Finally, I thought it might be interest to look at the highest and lowest totals over ten starts during those years. First, the "highest" list:
CAT Start End Name CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO W L ERA CG 6- 6-1985 7-24-1985 Bert Blyleven 10 1 88 60 23 22 22 71 6 4 2.25 occurred 757 times SHO 6- 6-1968 7-25-1968 Bob Gibson 10 8 90 51 2 2 12 75 10 0 0.20 IP 7-20-1918 4-23-1919 Walter Johnson 10 3 114.1 81 19 13 23 69 9 1 1.02 also had 114.1 IP from 7-25-1918 to 4-28-1919 H 6-24-1925 8- 3-1925 Howard Ehmke 9 0 82.1 121 67 46 27 25 1 9 5.03 occurred three times R 6-29-1940 4-29-1941 Chubby Dean 3 0 56.2 104 74 68 28 10 1 7 10.80 occurred twice ER 7- 9-1937 9-20-1937(2) Jim Walkup 1 0 65.1 112 74 72 40 17 2 6 9.92 BB 7- 4-1951(2) 8-28-1951 Tommy Byrne 4 1 81 65 37 33 77 38 2 5 3.67 SO 8-19-1999 4- 9-2000 Pedro Martinez 2 1 76.1 42 11 9 11 130 8 1 1.06 W 7-31-2011 9-18-2011 Justin Verlander 0 0 71 46 19 17 22 75 10 0 2.15 occurred 125 times L 9-26-1987 5-14-1988 Mike Boddicker 2 0 59.2 67 47 34 23 42 0 10 5.13 occurred 69 times ERA 4-10-1990 5-29-1992 Kevin Ritz 0 0 18.1 32 35 32 34 7 0 8 15.71
If this occurred multiple times, the number is noted and the last is displayed.
And now, the "lowest" list, eliminating complete games, shutouts, wins and losses (where zero is pretty commonplace).
CAT Start End Name CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO W L ERA IP 4-10-1990 5-29-1992 Kevin Ritz 0 0 18.1 32 35 32 34 7 0 8 15.71 H 7-26-1966 5-14-1967 Steve Barber 1 1 38 19 17 13 41 27 2 4 3.08 R 6- 6-1968 7-25-1968 Bob Gibson 10 8 90 51 2 2 12 75 10 0 0.20 ER 6- 6-1968 7-25-1968 Bob Gibson 10 8 90 51 2 2 12 75 10 0 0.20 BB 8- 7-1962 9-20-1962 Bill Fischer 3 0 64 80 34 30 0 17 2 7 4.22 also had no walks from 8-12 to 9-26 SO 5-30-1928(2) 9-10-1928(1) Les Sweetland 0 0 42.2 60 49 41 28 2 1 6 8.65 occurred three times ERA 6- 6-1968 7-25-1968 Bob Gibson 10 8 90 51 2 2 12 75 10 0 0.20
In the last Retrosheet release, we added team batting, fielding and pitching logs. As an introduction to this new resource, I thought it might be interesting to look at some batting logs. And just so I don't have to keep saying it over and over again: whenever I mention that something is the most, longest, fewest or shortest, I mean that it holds true during the Retrosheet Era, which now extends from 1916 to 2011.
Okay, let's start with the batting log for the 1938 New York Yankees. What is unusual about this? Well, everyone knows that the 1932 Yankees and the 2000 Cincinnati Reds each went an entire season without being shut out once. And some even know that the 1979 Milwaukee Brewers would have joined the club had Jerry Koosman not shut them out in their season finale, or that the last-place 2001 Texas Rangers weren't blanked until their second-to-last game.
But the 1938 Yankees hold the distinction of going the longest without being held to fewer than two runs. And no one else is even close. From June 23rd to September 18th, they went 86 games without being held under two runs. Here are the streaks over 60, along with the starting pitchers who held them under on either side (and the runs allowed):
# Year Team First Last 86 1938 NY A 6-23 9-18(2) Johnny Allen (1) Lefty Mills (1) 66 1999 TEX A 4-21 7- 3 David Cone (0) John Halama (0) 65 1931 PHI A 4-22 7- 5 Herb Pennock (1) Bump Hadley (0) 63 1937 NY A 5-21 7-27 Thornton Lee (1) Elden Auker (1) 63 1994 CLE A 5-21 7-30 Pat Hentgen (0) Jimmy Key (1) 62 1933 NY A 5-14(2) 7-19 Ed Wells (1) Mel Harder (1) 61 1935 DET A 6-11(2) 8-15 Lefty Grove (1) Bump Hadley (1) 61 1987 DET A 5-12 7-21 Mike Witt (1) Dennis Lamp (1)
And here are the longest teams went scoring at least three, four, five - well, you get the idea:
>= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 3 48 1994 CLE A 5-21 7-15 41 1930 PHI A 6-27(2) 8- 5 4 28 1927 DET A 6-18 7-13(2) 27 1930 PHI A 7- 2(2) 7-28 5 18 1950 BOS A 8-12 8-30 17 1934 PHI N 7- 2 7-18 6 15 1929 NY N 6-11 6-23 14 1936 DET A 6-21 7- 9 7 11 1936 DET A 6-24 7- 9 11 1938 NY A 6-23 7- 4(1) 8 9 1930 PHI A 7-10 7-19 8 2001 CLE A 4-29 5- 8 * - happened 4 times, this is the last 9 9 1930 PHI A 7-10 7-19 6 1930 CHI N 6- 1 6- 7 * - happened 2 times, this is the last 10 6 1929 NY N 6-19(1) 6-22(2) 5 2006 ATL N 7-14 7-18 * - happened 5 times, this is the last
So what about the flip side? What teams went the longest without scoring more than one, two, three, ... runs in a game?
<= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 1 9 1963 HOU N 6-18 6-25 7 1978 OAK A 9-12 9-17 * - happened 3 times, this is the last 2 11 1947 WAS A 5-11(1) 5-19 11 1978 STL N 5-17 5-29(1) * - happened 3 times, these are the last two 3 19 1942 CLE A 8- 9(1) 8-26 17 1969 CAL A 5- 9 5-27 * - happened 2 times, this is the last 4 26 1931 BOS N 8-13(1) 9- 4 26 1969 CAL A 4-29 5-27 5 40 1971 PHI N 4-24 6- 8 40 1979 NY N 8-17 9-25(2) 6 63 1931 BOS N 7-12(1) 9-12 58 1918 BRO N 5-18 7-24 7 88 1931 BOS N 6-28(2) 9-27(1) 86 1967 NY A 5- 8 8- 5 8 148 1942 PHI N 4-14 9-25(1) 118 1917 PIT N 5-17 9-19(2)
Four teams in this period went an entire season without scoring ten or more runs in a game: the 1942 Phillies, 1964 Colt .45s, the 1982 Astros, and the 1988 Padres. The Colt .45s/Astros had one stretch of 411 games from July 11, 1962 to April 20, 1965 in which they managed to hit double-digits in runs scored only once, although that one game is pretty well-known.
So much for runs scored.1
Here are the teams with the longest streaks of getting ten or more hits in a game:
# Year Team First Last 18 1922 STL A 8- 9 8-26 18 1925 CLE A 7- 2 7-16 15 1929 NY N 6-11 6-23 15 1933 WAS A 6- 8(2) 6-25(2) 15 1936 DET A 6-20 7- 9 15 1937 STL A 7-15 7-27 15 2009 FLA N 8- 4 8-19
Here are the longest streaks of getting at least nine, eight, seven, six and five hits in a game:
>= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 9 33 1933 WAS A 5-25 6-29 8 33 1922 STL N 8-13 9-19 33 1933 WAS A 5-25 6-29 7 71 1930 NY N 7- 5 9-14(1) 6 86 1923 CLE A 6-20 9-27 5 121 1996 NY N 5-19(2) 9-29
The streak by the 1933 Senators began the day after they were held to one hit by Tommy Bridges (the one hit being an eighth-inning home run by Joe Kuhel). It was Bridges' third one-hitter in a span of nineteen starts dating back to 1932 and would be the last one of his major league career.
The streaks by the 1922 Browns and Cardinals overlapped by two weeks.
And admit it - you didn't expect to see the 1996 Mets on this list.
Several teams have gone a complete season without being held to fewer than four hits. The last one was the 2000 Texas Rangers. When five different Seattle Mariners pitchers held the Rangers to only two hits on October 6, 2001, it broke a streak of 352 consecutive games by the team with at least four hits, or ever since Brian Moehler held them to three singles on August 30, 1999.
And I realize I'm beating this topic to death by now, but here are the longest in which a team was held to two hits or less, three hits or less, and on on:
<= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 2 3 1969 CAL A 6- 7 6- 8(2) 3 4 2003 DET A 4- 2 4- 5 4 2010 WAS N 9-27 10- 1 4 5 2004 NY N 9- 3 9- 8 5 2003 DET A 3-31 4- 5 * - happened 6 times, these are the last two 5 8 1986 SEA A 4-16 4-24 6 11 1968 HOU N 6- 5 6-16(2) 7 16 1972 NY N 7- 2 7-20 8 22 1968 NY A 4-10 5- 5(1) 9 34 1972 NY N 6-16 7-23
The 2003 Tigers started the season by getting a total of sixteen hits in their first five games. At that point the team had a .108 batting average. They had also been held to two hits in the last game of 2002.
Four days after the streak ended, the 1986 Seattle Mariners were held to three hits by Roger Clemens, but that's not what people remember about that game. Most people remember his record-setting twenty strikeouts.
And the 1968 Yankees' streak hits twenty-seven if you include the last five games of 1967.
Moving on. Here are the most consecutive games with at least one double:
# Year Team First Last 75 1996 CLE A 5-30 8-19 51 1999 ATL N 7- 1 8-25 45 2001 TB A 8-12 10- 7 44 2008 PIT N 6-24 8-13 43 1924 DET A 7-26 9- 5(2)
The 1996 Indians were held without a double in the three games prior to their record streak.
Here are the teams walking ten or more times in three or more consecutive games:
# Year Team First Last 4 1916 DET A 5- 9 5-12 3 1948 STL A 7-21 7-24 3 1948 BOS A 8-20(2) 8-22
And the teams striking out ten or more times in the most consecutive games:
# Year Team First Last 8 2011 SD N 7- 9 7-20 6 1972 CIN N 5-29 6- 3 6 1997 SF N 5- 9 5-15 6 2004 CIN N 9-18 9-24 6 2009 FLA N 4-12 4-18 6 2010 ARI N 9-10 9-15 6 2010 CLE A 5- 1 5- 8
The six straight double-digit strikeout games by the 1972 Reds' hitters broke the mark of five set by the 1960 Phillies and were the first time that season they had struck out ten or more times in a game.
Here are the most consecutive games with at least one batter being hit by a pitch:
# Year Team First Last 10 2006 HOU N 7- 2 7-14 8 1918 CLE A 4-20 4-29 8 2003 TB A 9-15 9-22 8 2005 WAS N 7-17 7-24
There was a single hit batter in each of the Astros' ten games and I was a little surprised that Craig Biggio didn't get more than two of them. Chris Burke led the team during the streak with four.
The most consecutive games with a stolen base:
# Year Team First Last 29 1985 STL N 9- 4 10- 2 20 1981 PIT N 5-20 8-10 20 1986 STL N 6-17 7- 7 19 2009 TB A 4-28 5-17 17 1918 PIT N 7- 4(2) 7-20(2) 17 1919 PIT N 6- 2(2) 6-22 17 1976 OAK A 7- 8 7-26 17 2001 NY A 4-19 5- 6
Of course, the streak by the Pirates in 1981 included two months without games.
And finally, here are the most consecutive games without a stolen base:
# Year Team First Last 56 1950 CHI A 5-16 7- 7(1) 50 1935 BOS N 4-16 6-17(2) 49 1967 SF N 4-11 6- 6 46 1964 BOS A 8-14 10- 4 42 1951 PIT N 5-13(2) 6-28 41 1950 STL N 8-11 9-23(1) 40 1945 STL A 8-16 9-16(2) 40 1953 CIN N 8- 7 9-19
Both the 1935 Braves and 1967 Giants streaks were from the start of the season. If you count their previous seasons, the 1966-67 Giants hold the record with 62 straight games without a steal. By the time Willie McCovey had stolen the first base of the season for San Francisco, Lou Brock already had twenty-two.
Note:
1Some readers might have noticed that in our normal game logs we already have the score of every major league game ever played. So there is no need to restrict our search for runs scored records to the 1916 to 2011 period. But that would miss the point of this article, which was to show off the batting logs for those years. But just so fans of early baseball don't feel slighted, here are the marks that were actually set from 1876 to 1915:
The longest a team went scoring at least three, four, ... runs in a game:
>= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 3 48 1887 PHI N 7-26 9-26 * - tied the 1994 Indians 4 34 1895 PHI N 8-20 9-24 5 25 1894 PHI N 8-23 9-29(1) 6 23 1894 BAL N 5-31 6-26 23 1894 BOS N 6-14 7-10 7 23 1894 BAL N 5-31 6-26 23 1894 BOS N 6-14 7-10 8 12 1895 PHI N 8-30 9-10 9 11 1876 CHI N 7- 8 8- 1 10 7 1894 BOS N 8- 4 8-11 7 1896 WAS N 6- 4 6-12 * - happened 3 times, these are the last two
And the longest a team went without scoring more than one, two, three, ... runs in a game:
<= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 2 12 1904 BRO N 7-22 8- 8 12 1907 BRO N 4-20 5- 7 4 26 1906 BOS N 6-23 7-22 * - tied the 1931 Braves and 1969 Angels 7 95 1909 WAS A 6- 1 9- 6
The 1907 Superbas scored only 39 runs in their first 27 games. And that included a 10-0 win on May 14th.
And in addition to the four teams mentioned earlier, both the 1908 Cardinals and the 1914 Chicago White Sox went their entire season without scoring ten or more runs in a game.
Well, you probably saw this one coming. Here is a look at some pitching logs. In the last piece, I looked at each team's batting exploits; this time, we focus on the pitchers. And once again: whenever I mention that something is the most, longest, fewest or shortest, I mean that it holds true during the Retrosheet Era, which now extends from 1916 to 2011.
Well, since we started the previous article with the 1938 New York Yankees and their record of scoring at least two runs in 86 consecutive games, I supposes it's fitting to begin this with a list of the pitching staffs that allowed at least one, two, three, ... runs over the longest period:
>= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 1 163 1993 COL N 4- 5 10- 3 157 1997 OAK A 4- 7 9-28 * - the entire 1993 Rockies season 2 80 1925 STL A 5-10 8- 6(2) 66 1996 DET A 4- 7 6-20 3 40 1927 PHI N 6-28 8- 7(1) 38 1925 BOS A 6-17(1) 7-25 4 28 2006 KC A 5- 9 6- 8 26 1923 PHI N 4-29 5-28(1) 5 20 1924 PHI N 9- 3(1) 9-24 15 2001 COL N 6-18 7- 4 * - happened 3 times, this is the last 6 11 1962 NY N 5-25 6- 3 11 2003 DET A 9-13 9-23 * - happened 3 times, these are the last two 7 10 1923 PHI N 5- 6 5-18 10 1936 STL A 4-29 5-11 8 7 2000 BAL A 6-17 6-23 7 2000 SEA A 8-13 8-20 * - happened 4 times, these are the last two 9 7 2000 SEA A 8-13 8-20 6 2002 KC A 9- 4 9-10 * - happened 7 times, this is the last 10 6 1929 PHI N 6-19(1) 6-22(2) 5 1928 PHI N 7-31 8- 4(2) * - happened 3 times, this is the last
The first shutout in the history of the Colorado Rockies didn't take place until David Nied and two relievers combined to hold the defending NL champion Philadelphia Phillies to two hits on April 14, 1994.
The 1997 Oakland A's streak without a shutout continued for 41 games into the 1998 season, until Jimmy Haynes pitched the only shutout of his major league career.
And the fact that five different Phillies teams from 1923 to 1929 show up on the list tells you a lot about both their wretched pitching staff and their home park. And the list doesn't even include their worst year, 1930.
And all of those double-digits games in 1929 came against the New York Giants.
It's time to accentuate the positive. What teams went the longest without allowing more than one, two, three, ... runs in a game?
<= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 1 8 1919 CHI N 5-31 6- 7 8 1966 KC A 9- 9 9-18 2 17 1917 CHI A 5-12 6- 4 16 1916 NY N 9-18(1) 9-30(1) 3 20 1917 CHI A 5-12 6- 7 19 1916 NY N 9-14 9-30(1) 4 29 1916 NY N 9- 6(1) 9-30(1) 24 1917 CHI A 5-12 6-12 * - happened 2 times, this is the last 5 42 1916 BOS N 5-27(1) 7-16 40 1916 NY N 8-25 9-30(1) 6 61 1961 BAL A 7-23 9-22 48 1917 PHI N 7-21(2) 9- 6(1) 7 93 1919 CHI N 5- 5 8-19(2) 89 1917 BOS A 6-16 9-12 8 129 1917 BOS A 4-24 9-12 105 1976 LA N 6-11 10- 3 9 152 1970 OAK A 4-19 10- 1 146 1967 CIN N 4-10 9-12
Most people probably aren't used to seeing the Kansas City Athletics at the top of a "good" list.
Those streaks by the 1916 Giants occurred while they were winning twenty-six consecutive decisions.
I was a little surprised that no team from 1916 to 2011 went an entire season without giving up ten or more runs in a game.
I guess that's enough for runs allowed.1
Here are the teams with the longest streaks of allowing ten or more hits in a game:
# Year Team First Last 21 1945 PHI N 6-12 6-30 19 1923 PHI N 5- 6 5-28(1) 19 1927 PHI N 7- 6(2) 7-28 19 1936 CLE A 7-19(2) 8- 6 15 1986 CHI N 8-30 9-15 14 1925 PHI N 6-26(1) 7- 7(1)
Another list dominated by the Phillies.
Here are the longest streaks of allowing at least nine, eight, seven, six and five hits in a game:
>= # Year Team First Last 9 29 1927 PHI N 7- 6(2) 8- 7(1) 8 32 1934 STL A 5-20 6-21(1) 7 57 1934 CIN N 4-17 6-23(1) 6 85 1935 STL A 6-11(1) 8-31 5 129 1922 BOS N 4-12 9- 5(2)
The streak by the 1922 Braves was from the start of the season and the game that broke it only went five innings.
Several teams have gone a complete season without allowing fewer than four hits in a game. The last one was the 2007 Houston Astros.
Back to the more favorable lists, here are the teams holding their opponents to two, three, four, ... nine hits or fewer in the most consecutive games:
<= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 2 3 1992 CAL A 7-11 7-16 3 2000 LA N 9-23 9-26 * - happened 5 times, these are the last two 3 5 2008 NY N 7- 8 7-12 4 5 1975 LA N 6-17 6-21 5 2008 NY N 7- 8 7-12 5 8 1918 WAS A 7-25 8- 1 6 11 1918 WAS A 7-22 8- 3 11 1968 BAL A 4-27 5- 7 7 14 1972 CLE A 5- 2 5-20 14 2004 SF N 9- 5 9-22 8 21 1968 CLE A 4-27 5-18 21 2002 ANA A 9- 4 9-25 9 35 1968 CLE A 4-27 5-31
It is a sign of the times that during the 2008 Mets' streak, their starting pitchers averaged five and a third innings and stuck around long enough to pick up only two of the victories.
Those twenty-one games by the 1968 Indians included four straight shutouts (with a total of fourteen hits allowed) by Luis Tiant.
Here are the most consecutive games with at least one, two, three, four and five home runs allowed:
>= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 1 26 2001 HOU N 5-14 6-12 26 2004 SEA A 7- 6 8- 3(2) 2 9 2001 CIN N 6-10 6-19 9 2003 SD N 5-13 5-21 3 5 1998 SF N 8- 6 8-10 4 4 1956 CHI N 5-29 5-31 4 2003 PIT N 6- 7 6-11 5 3 1977 NY A 6-17 6-19
I was surprised to see one team each from the 1950s and 1970s crash the list. All of the 1977 Yankees' games took place in Fenway Park, where the Red Sox demolished the visitors in a three game sweep: 9-4, 10-4 and 11-1. Carl Yastrzemski had nine hits in the series, including four home runs, and knocked in ten runs.
Here are the teams walking ten or batters in three or more consecutive games:
# Year Team First Last 4 1916 PHI A 5- 9 5-12 3 1948 WAS A 8-20(2) 8-22 3 1987 MIN A 6- 2 6- 5
We saw the opponents of the top two teams (the 1916 Tigers and the 1948 Red Sox) in the previous article.
And striking out ten or more batters:
# Year Team First Last 6 1990 NY N 4-15 4-20 6 2006 CHI N 9-18 9-24 6 2008 CHI N 7-26 7-31
The 2006 Cubs did it the hard way, since one of their games only went five innings. In that game, Rich Hill struck out ten. He pitched the only complete game by any starter during the three streaks above.
The first team to hit double-digits in strikeouts in five consecutive games was the 1970 Mets, from September 8th to 11th, but it has become almost commonplace, with nine such streaks in the last five years.
And finally, here are most consecutive games with at least one hit batter:
# Year Team First Last 10 2009 PHI N 9-19 9-28 8 1977 SEA A 4-23 4-30 8 2001 TEX A 9-20 9-28 8 2006 COL N 7- 9 7-19 8 2007 BAL A 5-16 5-25
After taking a day off from plunking batters on September 29th, the 2009 Phillies pitchers hit batters in each of their next three games.
Note:
1Of course, we could have included the 1876 to 1915 games as well when dealing with runs allowed. Here are the marks that were actually set from 1876 to 1915:
The longest a team went allowing at least one, two, three, ... runs in a game:
>= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 2 99 1899 CLE N 6-26 10-15(2) 3 53 1897 STL N 7-28 10- 3(2) 4 37 1889 KC a 5- 4 6-23 5 29 1894 LOU N 8-14 9-18 6 21 1890 PHI a 9-19 10-12 7 16 1890 PIT N 8-12 8-28 8 11 1890 PIT N 7- 5(1) 7-16 9 9 1887 NY a 8-25 9- 3(1) 10 7 1901 NY N 9- 3 9- 6(2) 7 1894 WAS N 6-16 6-23 * - happened 4 times, these are the last two
The 1890 Athletics' streak was part of a franchise-ending twenty-game losing streak. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders' run also represented the final games played by that franchise.
The 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys' make two appearances on the list, and the streaks don't even overlap.
And the longest a team went without allowing more than one, two, three, ... runs in a game:
<= # Year Team First Last # Year Team First Last 1 8 1906 NY N 7-25 8- 3 * - tied the 1919 White Sox and 1966 Athletics 4 29 1909 CHI N 9- 8 10- 6(2) * - tied the 1916 Giants 5 56 1908 PHI N 7- 6 9- 3(2) 8 145 1909 PIT N 4-14 9-27(2) 9 155 1909 CHI N 4-14 10- 6(2)
The streak by the 1909 Pirates was from the start of the season.
The 1909 Cubs are the only major league team to go an entire season without allowing ten or more runs in a game.