trivial occurrences 2020

With four straight home runs, the White Sox tied a major league record in their game yesterday against the Cardinals. Yoan Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, and Jose Abreu were also the first three Cuban-born players to go back-to-back-to-back in MLB history.

washington's luis garcia is the first player born in the 2000s to homer in the major leagues

and apparently he was starting in place of starlin catro...the first player born in the 1990s to hit a home run

awooooooo

*castro

The @Padres are the first team EVER to hit a grand slam in four consecutive games.

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) August 21, 2020

holy shit they did it

before yesterday

We have a winner.

Last time there were multiple MLB games played on a day, and none of them lasted 9 innings: Jun 21 1943. American League off-day. pic.twitter.com/E1H9PnYj64

— Doug Kern (@dakern74) August 28, 2020

Padres and Rockies combined for 14 runs and 28 hits at Coors tonight with only 1 Home Run. Got me looking for the highest scoring games with no extra base hits and it led me to this wild 2005 Phillies vs Marlins game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200509170.shtml

D-train takes a complete game shutout into the 9th with a 2 run lead and ends up losing 10-2, on a ton of hits, errors, and hit batsmen.

Jacob deGrom just became the first pitcher to induce at least 31 swings and misses in a game and LOSE since Pedro Martinez had 37 misses (and 17 K's) in a 1-0 loss to Steve Trachsel on May 6, 2000.

— David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) August 31, 2020

because of the marlins' earlier covid-related schedule issues, new outfielder starling marte could possibly play 65 games in a 60-game season

MILWAUKEE -- Josh Hader and the Brewers closed their homestand with a Major League record.

Hader finished the Brewers’ 8-5 win over the Tigers on Wednesday night at Miller Park with a record-setting 12th consecutive hitless appearance to begin the season, snapping a tie he had shared with three others and capping a winning homestand that kept Milwaukee in the thick of the postseason chase -- losing record and all.

Nobody’s perfect, and Hader certainly hasn’t been. His velocity is a tick down this season and his walks were up even before an outing Saturday against the Pirates when he blew a save by walking five of the six batters he faced, forcing home the tying and go-ahead runs. The Brewers bailed him out that night with Eric Sogard’s walk-off home run, and the next day, Hader threw a rare bullpen session to, in his words, “make sure I was able to throw it over the plate, at least.”

Back on the mound on Monday, Hader struck out the side in a win over Pittsburgh. On Wednesday against Detroit, he hit the first man he faced before retiring the next three.

With that, Hader had 12 straight hitless games spanning 11 2/3 innings to begin 2020. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s the longest season-opening streak of appearances without allowing a hit in history, snapping a tie he had shared with 2017 Tiger Justin Wilson, 1999 Phillie Scott Aldred and 1987 Red John Franco.

...“He's good at baseball,” Christian Yelich said.

Do people even care about hitless streaks anymore if you're walking 5 straight batters in the thick of it?

it's pretty trivial, i'd say

Today is just the 23rd day in MLB history with 20+ games. First time since 1974 pic.twitter.com/Xxx6TRWCco

— Dan Hirsch (@DanHirsch) September 4, 2020

13 XBH today is a brewers franchise record

19 runs, of which yelich got 1, which feels representative of his season so far

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29863609/tampa-bay-rays-first-mlb-modern-history-start-all-lefties

Luke Voit hit a game-ending sacrifice fly leading off the 10th inning

Cavan Biggio is the 7th player (since stolen bases became an official stat) to steal 20 bases without being caught to begin a career.#BlueJays

— Rodney Hiemstra (@therodbot) September 18, 2020

SABR-approved percentage

From Jon Couture:

Jon Lester, regular season with Red Sox: .636 winning pct. (110-63), 3.64 ERA
Jon Lester, regular season with Cubs: .636 winning pct. (77-44), 3.64 ERA

who led MLB in HR, RBI, and Runs from 1950-1959?

ugh, a hint: not MLB, but just one of the leagues. this player was 1st in MLB in 2 of the categories, and 2nd in MLB in the other

I know this because this player played in 3* different HOME stadiums during this stretch. He would have had even better numbers if his team had stayed put.

*Kind of a trick question but I'm shameless: Name all 3

Ebbetts, the LA Coliseum, and...?

For some reason I watched his HOF speech last night (maybe the first one I’ve ever sat all the way through?)

He spent the entire speech telling stories about teammates and family, it was great

It was used for 15 "home" games by the Brooklyn Dodgers during their last two seasons in Brooklyn – seven in 1956 and eight in 1957.[7] The games were played partly as a negotiating tactic with the Borough of Brooklyn, in pursuit of a new stadium to replace Ebbets Field.[8] While it had just 24,000 seats as opposed to Ebbets Field's 31,497, Roosevelt Stadium had 10,000 parking spaces compared to Ebbets Field's 700. The Dodgers' negotiation came to naught, and the team moved to Los Angeles in 1958.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Stadium#Sports

Incredible to think back at how much power BigAuto used to have.

(Dodger Stadium has 16k parking spaces... if you've ever gone to a game there you'll never forget the hour plus spent coming in & out Chavez Ravine).

Don't know where to put this--it's not an occurrence, it is trivial.

Posnanski mentioned Alex Gordon today, so I was looking at the 2005 draft (Gordon was drafted second). Within the first 11 picks, there were three guys who seemed like a very good bet for the HOF at one point midway through their careers, then all three, for one reason or another, fell off a cliff: Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, and Andrew McCutchen. (Two are still active, and McCutchen's playing reasonably well at 33, but he'd have to stage some kind of a comeback to make up for time wasted.) Justin Upton, and Ryan Zimmerman were also in the top 11--add Gordon, and that's six guys between 30-50 WAR. I would think that counts as a strong draft, I don't know--the value is spread around, at least, rather than one or two imposing players.

6 of top 11 with 30/50 WARs is extremely impressive, i would think! tough to comprehensively compare that draft year until all the players from it are retired, but that's gotta be up there for a top 10 cumulative WAR

Found this piece, which counts 2005 as the best ("sickest," actually, but I'm up on my lingo, so I know that means good) first-round ever, and the fifth-best overall. It was written in 2012, though, when the three headed-for-the-Hall guys were all at their peak--might get a bit of a downgrade today. But it does seem to be one of the best ever.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1462043-which-mlb-draft-class-is-the-best-of-all-time

Looking at their rankings today, think I'd go with the '85 class as the best (third on their list). Bonds, Randy Johnson, Larkin, Smoltz, Palmeiro--wow. And Will Clark still may make the HOF one day via the Veteran's Committee.

i knew that pitchers sucked at hitting. i didn't realize they suck a little more each year!

https://i.imgur.com/snOJv8M.png

(xposts) The first round of the 2011 draft is looking pretty great right now. All mid-career, among the first 11 picks: Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer, Anthony Rendon, Francisco Lindor, George Springer.

I love to get excited about Opening Day starters, especially when they have outings that could be mistaken for bad openers. 1.1 IP, 6 R for Brad Keller (KC), 0.1 IP, 5 R for Kyle Gibson (TEX) https://t.co/e2rmJurMR7

— Jay Jaffe (@jay_jaffe) April 1, 2021

This is the Giants' first 10-run FIRST INNING since June 29, 1967 at the Cardinals, when they scored 11 in the 1st

Scoring summary from that inning ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/shoem2nEZD

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 4, 2021

Is this what they mean by a "counting stat"?

https://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2021/5/6/22422240/blue-jays-pitchers-matz-kay-ray-ryu-ties-mlb-name-record

just wait until the diamondbacks promote the Ng quadruplets

How do you hit .000 and match Babe Ruth in the record books?

You do what White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal just did -- go 0-for-3 with 13 walks in four games. With the strange stat line, Grandal joined the Bambino (1930) as the only players in American League history to walk 13 or more times in a four-game span.

If you add in the National League, you're only going to add one more player to the list -- Bryce Harper, who accomplished the feat in 2016.

wow, grandal's current line is:

.121/.388/.259

Carlos Martínez, a nine-year veteran, raised his career ERA from 3.55 to 3.64 in less than an inning.

— Foolish Baseball (@FoolishBB) June 3, 2021

It was a tough day

yankees (taillon) vs red sox (eovaldi) today is the first MLB game in which both starters have had multiple tommy johns

Since 1901, the Twins are just the 4th team to hit 7 HR in a 9-inning game and lose.

White Sox (6/25/16 vs Blue Jays)
Tigers (8/8/04 vs Red Sox)
Tigers (5/28/95 vs White Sox)https://t.co/fHLzbRR4BO

— Stathead (@Stathead) July 28, 2021

OK I’m interrupting my vacation one more time for this incredible tidbit.

2 teams in the last 100 years had scored in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th innings of any game. And then last night 2 teams did it in the same game! #Royals #Yankees

Baseball!

Now back to the beach

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) August 10, 2021

HISTORY at Dodger Stadium: Austin Adams ties the all-time record for hit batters in a season in the modern era (21) by plunking Will Smith in the ninth inning. He's done it in 47 2/3 innings. Most recent guy to hit 21 (Kerry Wood in '03) needed 211

— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) September 12, 2021

Paul Goldschmidt is now the all-time leader in hits for a player born in Delaware with 1,549. He surpassed Delino DeShields with that double.

That makes him first in hits for the First State.#Cardinals #stlcards #MLB

— Derrick S. Goold (@dgoold) September 15, 2021

Gavin Sheets with a hit off Lance McCullers, Jr., radio broadcast just said there's family history as Gavin's dad Larry had a hit off Lance McCullers, Sr.

Terrance Gore:

- 102 MLB career games
- 0 career Home Runs
- 1 career RBI
- 2 career Doubles
- 3 World Series rings. He has more World Series rings than Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, and Mike Trout combined (2).@LoCronitaTV pic.twitter.com/IwRVNwUHiH

— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) November 3, 2021

guy's a winner

https://i.postimg.cc/qMwKTR7r/Screenshot-2025-05-30-at-10-49-12-AM.png

Heliot Ramos has done McCovey Cove, has also homered at PNC & Chase (to right in the latter case!), probably the only righty with a chance.

Took at look at Gausman's splits, and this does check out:

In a remarkable feat of precision and performance, Kevin Gausman of the Toronto Blue Jays etched his name alongside some legendary pitchers this past May. According to @CodifyBaseball, Gausman joined an elite roster in baseball history.

We’re talking a statistical oddity--33 or more strikeouts, no more than one walk, and zero hit batters or wild pitches within a single calendar month. It’s a tiny club that’s only seen the likes of Ray Sadecki, Bret Saberhagen, David Price, Hisashi Iwakuma, Freddy Peralta, and now, fittingly, Gausman himself.

The 12 shutouts on Wednesday and Thursday are tied with August 26th and 27th, 1968 for the most shutouts during back-to-back days in MLB history.

here's a question: have the same two players ever gone back-to-back twice in the same game?

i looked it up and: yes. this somehow happened 24 times!!!!

I don't know how you look that up, but I'm guessing Ruth/Gehrig and Mantle/Maris are on that list.

Mays/McCovey? Canseco/McGwire?

Aaron/Matthews...whole bunch of possibilities.

21yo James Wood had 4x IBBs yesterday, making him the 7th player in MLB history to be given that treatment.

Name the other 6.

I'm sure Barry Bonds is on that list. I remember Andre Dawson getting walked every time up in a game once, back in his Cubs days.

I goofed. Wood is only the 6th player, not 7th.

yes, Barry Bonds on 4 different occasions.

Also correct on Dawson

3 more players: 1 this millennium, one in the 80s, one in the 60s.

Maris? Williams? Mantle?

Andre Dawson one is funny because he never led the leagues in intentional walks unlike Bonds and yet he was once walked 5 times in a game. (Extra innings and the team that walked him still lost.)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199005220.shtml

Wow, Dawson was IBB'd 5x in that game, lol

Yes to Maris, not in 1961 but in 62 (probably when Mantle was injured)

re: 2x back-to-backs... wrong on all counts. there's not much in the way of very obvious answers. list is hidden below

• Rob Refsnyder and Tyler O’Neill, Red Sox, Sept. 9, 2024
• Matt Olson and Travis d’Arnaud, Braves, July 31, 2024
• Mauricio Dubón and Jose Altuve, Astros, Sept. 4, 2023
• Brent Rooker and Jesús Aguilar, A’s, April 24, 2023
• Brian Anderson and Garrett Mitchell, Brewers, April 4, 2023
• Kyle Seager and Tom Murphy, Mariners, Aug. 13, 2019
• Neil Walker and Gaby Sanchez, Pirates, April 14, 2014
• Colby Rasmus and José Bautista, Blue Jays, June 19, 2012
• Craig Biggio and Lance Berkman, Astros, July 25, 2005
• Jeromy Burnitz and Matt Holliday, Rockies, May 18, 2004
• Mike Cameron and Bret Boone, Mariners, May 2, 2002
• Richie Sexson and Jeromy Burnitz, Brewers, Sept. 25, 2001
• Raul Mondesi and Carlos Delgado, Blue Jays, April 20, 2001
• Mo Vaughn and Tim Salmon, Angels, April 21, 2000
• Javy Lopez and Andruw Jones, Braves, June 13, 1998
• Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martínez, Mariners, April 21, 1996
• Robin Ventura and Julio Franco, White Sox, April 24, 1994
• Mo Vaughn and Tim Naehring, Red Sox, April 19, 1994
• Fred McGriff and David Justice, Braves, Aug. 25, 1993
• Barry Bonds and Matt Williams, Giants, Aug. 15, 1993
• Gary Sheffield and Fred McGriff, Padres, Aug. 6, 1992
• Don Money and Greg Luzinski, Phillies, Oct. 3, 1972
• Chuck Hinton and Rocky Colavito, Cleveland, July 17, 1966
• Walt Bond and John Romano, Cleveland, Sept. 19, 1962

for 4 IBB, only player from this millennium who's not Bonds that i could think of that would get that treatment is Sosa, or Trout. possibly A-Rod or Judge, but they were usually in pretty good lineups

Dawson was walked five times in a game at a point in the season where he was hitting as good if not better than he’d ever hit before. Tom Browning pitched 9 shutout innings and Mike Bielecki(!) pitched 10(!!) shutout innings w/132 pitches. He followed that up five days later with a 122 pitch outing and then shockingly had a number of games where it looks like he was serving up batting practice and his slide from relevance as a key member of the Cubs staff ended shortly thereafter.

it appears the 2025 Pirates are the first NL team since the 1906 Cubs to score 37+ runs over a 4-game stretch while holding opponents to 4 total runs

despite this, they still rank 28th in the majors in team OPS

(xpost) The back-to-backs...What a list. Only looks to be seven or eight cases where both players were HOF'ers or close.

St. Louis has gone a franchise-record 49 innings in a row without scoring against a fellow NL Central team.

nl central hard to score on, is no fair

speaking of cardinals trivia, i knew sonny gray's line last week was very good (a 'maddux') but didn't realize that

No pitcher in recorded history has EVER thrown a shutout with 11+ Ks and no walks in fewer than 90 pitches before!
[source: reddit]

From 1964-96, only six men started at third base for the American League All-Star team. Who, you ask? Answers below.

Wade Boggs did it 11 times, Brooks Robinson and George Brett nine times each, Graig Nettles twice, and Sal Bando and Harmon Killebrew once each.

My guess before checking:

Robinson, obviously.
Nettles
Boggs
Ripken
A-Rod
Ventura?

Embarrassed to have left off Brett. Would never have guessed Killebrew in a million years.

Forgot that A-Rod was strictly a SS till 2004.

Edgar Martinez at the AS break, 1996 (game was on July 9):

42 2B, 2 3B, 22 HR; 79 runs, 78 RBI; .346/.471/.702.

(Got hurt soon after, "only" ended up with 52 doubles.)

Walk off catchers interference Phillies/Redsox. First time to happen without a hit in the inning in which it happened surely? Extra inning runner, walk, passed ball, catchers interference

asterisk for manfred man . . . but also, nice

Trivial occurrences, 2014...I'm looking at Jose Ramirez's career box, just because he's so awesome, and his last sacrifice bunt was in 2016. Two years before that, he led the league with 13 sacrifice bunts. I guess Cleveland hadn't yet figured out who they had.

Turned up on Facebook, truly incredible (probably well known, but new to me):

Mark Lemke - 3,664 career PA, 0 HBP.

Also: 252 postseason PA, 0 HBP.

(I know he wasn't anyone you needed to keep off the plate, but still.)

https://i.postimg.cc/QMXKcyX3/slangsinors.jpg

I've been fooling around with that Dodgers' infield streak of 8-1/2 years, comparing it to teams today, and I stumbled over something that made me laugh...In 1975, Bill Russell was hurt for a good part of the year, but he still played more games at SS than anybody else (keeping the streak intact). Russell played 83 games at short; the number-two guy, Rick Auerbach, played 81.

The Dodgers split shortstop duties that year between one guy named Bill Russell and another guy named Auerbach.

This is cool:

https://www.mlb.com/news/top-four-active-mlb-home-run-leaders-play-in-same-game

I wasn’t even close to guessing the 4 guys from 1956

I didn't try, but no way I would have got it. I would have spent my time on Williams and three American Leaguers. And no one remembers Hank Sauer, even though he was an MVP in '52...well, maybe Immaculate Grid players.

Article seems to have been updated: "According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Monday’s game marked the first time since at least 1900 in which the top four active home run hitters played in the same game. They were all in the lineup again on Tuesday night." Which makes sense--in the initial post, I think they forgot about Ted Williams and listed a game from the mid-'50s where you had the four active leaders from one league. (Initially, they had Musial, Snider, Hodges, and Hank Sauer.)

Sarah Langs

The Dodgers & Giants head-to-head all-time in the regular season is tied, 1,288 wins each (with 19 ties, h/t @EliasSports)

When the Dodgers led, 1,288 to 1,287, last year, it was the first time they led the all-time head-to-head since after a game on Aug 8, 1896, when they led 49-48

basically everything she posts is a trivial occurrence (complimentary)

iirc she recently mentioned that the blue jays went over .500 all-time?

I was writing about that just a few days ago: "...the Jays have been about as close to a .500 team over the long haul as you can get. Going into play tonight, they’re 3,862-3,866, four games under (but rounded to .500). They first reached .500 on April 9, 1977 (1-1), again on April 27, 1977 (9-9), then it took them until September of 1993 to get back there. They’ve crossed over and under a few times since." Also found out that the Orioles have the worst all-time record of the old franchises at .475, which might seem odd in view of their dominance from '66-'83; that's how bad the St. Louis Browns were.

Actually, I guess they reached .500 in their very first game, which they won.

slangsonsports

The Dodgers are the first team to score its first three runs of a game, all via wild pitches since the Phillies on August 14, 1969 against the Braves

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7261633/2026/05/08/oneil-cruz-home-run-foul-pole-pirates/?campaign=18045652&source=athletic_targeted_email&userId=3098904

"Oneil Cruz hit a home run off the top of the foul pole: 'Moon landing is probably easier'"

(Free Athletic link that may or may not work.)

Trivial occurrence: 7 hbp’s in one game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ob9UDWQWt0

last night josh bell stole a base. it was his first steal since september 27 2018, making bell's 978 games in between the longest such gap since (at least) 1900

Cecil Fielder stole 2 in 1,470 career games--both in the same season!

Mets just scored 10 runs in the 12th inning. That’s gotta be a rarity.

I saw Marlins put up right in extras the other day…this actually prompted a position player to enter the game

Eight