Monthly Archives: June 2012

The unremarkably remarkable career of DeWayne Wise

DeWayne Wise is 34 years old. He’s played for 6 teams over 10 years, has never had as many as 200 plate appearances in a season, and has an abysmal 62 OPS+.

And yet, for a guy whose baseball card tells a truly unremarkable story, the guy has been involved in quite a few memorable events:

Taken separately, none of these 3 things is all that unusual. Put together, though, and Wise is going to be remembered far longer than most other players with similar numbers.

Random player notes – Friday

No time for full game recaps. Here’s what I’ve got from players in action Friday:

Aaron Hill is the only player since at least 1918 to have 2 cycles with no other cycle(s) in between by anyone else.

Jim Johnson held on, and the Orioles are now 14-6 in one-run games, while the Tribe fell to 12-4. The run allowed by Johnson raised his ERA to 1.30, while Pedro Strop lowered his to 1.25. The only teammates with 60+ IP and ERAs of 1.35 or lower were Jack Pfiester and Carl Lundgren of the 1907 Cubs (team ERA 1.73).

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Quiz – Ewell Blackwell

Ewell Blackwell
Baseball-Reference.com

Sidearmer Ewell Blackwell was a top NL pitcher of the late 40s and early 50s (he may also possibly be a relative of Don “Ears” Mossi, don’t you think?). Nicknamed “The Whip” for his unusual delivery, Blackwell’s best season was 1947, when he led the senior circuit in wins and strikeouts, was the All-Star game starter and, in a close MVP vote, placed 2nd to Bob Elliott of the Braves. That season, Blackwell also nearly duplicated Johnny Vander Meer’s 1938 feat of consecutive no-hitters. After no-hitting the Braves on June 18, Blackwell took a no-hitter into the 9th inning against the Dodgers on June 22, only to be foiled by an Eddie Stanky single.

Blackwell is the subject of today’s quiz because of a peculiar singularity. He is the only pre-expansion pitcher in the game-searchable era to accomplish a particular feat.

What is it that Blackwell achieved, and that no other pitcher from 1918 to 1960 could duplicate?

Congratulations to Richard Chester! He identified that Ewell Blackwell in 1950 was the only pitcher from 1918 to 1960 to record more hit batsmen than wild pitches in a season with 10 or more of each.

My oh my, how closing times have changed

1988 Score #656 Steve Bedrosian HL / Saves Record

25 years ago today, on June 29th 1987, Steve Bedrosian recorded a save in a 6-5 Phillies win over the Pirates. It was the 19th save of his Cy Young-winning season, and it was the 12th straight appearance where he recorded a save.

Read the last part of that last sentence again…he got a save in 12 straight appearances. That doesn’t sound too unusual, right? Can you believe that at the time, he had just set the MLB record for most consecutive appearances with a save?

The card above actually celebrates that very streak. Read the back of the card, posted at the bottom here. At the time, Bedrosian’s record-breaking performance supplanted that of Sparky Lyle from 14 years prior.

In the 25 years that followed Bedrosian’s record, here are the longest streaks where a pitcher recorded a save in every appearance:

Rk Strk Start End Games
1 John Wetteland 1996-05-31 1996-07-14 24
2 Todd Jones 2005-07-19 2005-09-13 23
3 Lee Smith 1995-04-28 1995-06-25 19
4 J.J. Putz 2011-08-12 2011-09-25 18
5 Lee Smith 1993-05-24 1993-06-28 17
6 Randy Myers 1993-09-03 1993-10-03 16
7 Jose Valverde 2008-08-09 2008-09-10 15
8 Chad Cordero 2005-06-05 2005-07-02 15
9 Jose Mesa 2004-09-26 2005-05-10 15
10 Trevor Hoffman 2001-07-19 2001-09-01 15
11 Kazuhiro Sasaki 2000-06-20 2000-07-28 15
12 Jeff Shaw 1997-08-25 1997-09-19 15
13 Doug Jones 1988-05-13 1988-07-02 15
14 Mariano Rivera 2003-08-19 2003-09-19 14
15 John Smoltz 2002-06-03 2002-07-01 14
16 Rod Beck 1998-06-28 1998-07-26 14
17 Mariano Rivera 1998-06-02 1998-07-11 14
18 Jose Mesa 1995-05-20 1995-06-17 14
19 Jeff Montgomery 1994-07-08 1994-08-09 14
20 Ryan Franklin 2009-08-07 2009-09-05 13
21 Joakim Soria 2008-09-06 2009-04-22 13
22 Francisco Rodriguez 2008-04-14 2008-05-13 13
23 Francisco Rodriguez 2005-09-17 2006-04-10 13
24 Bob Wickman 2005-08-23 2005-09-23 13
25 Trevor Hoffman 2005-04-30 2005-05-29 13
Rk Strk Start End Games
26 Troy Percival 2003-06-08 2003-07-09 13
27 John Wetteland 2000-05-12 2000-06-05 13
28 Jeff Montgomery 1998-06-17 1998-07-24 13
29 Lee Smith 1993-10-01 1994-04-30 13
30 Rod Beck 1993-05-21 1993-06-21 13
31 Dennis Eckersley 1992-04-25 1992-05-29 13
32 Steve Bedrosian 1987-05-25 1987-06-30 13
33 Jonathan Broxton 2010-05-07 2010-05-30 12
34 Jason Isringhausen 2004-08-05 2004-09-01 12
35 Mariano Rivera 2004-05-26 2004-06-15 12
36 Joe Borowski 2003-09-04 2004-04-09 12
37 Troy Percival 2002-06-02 2002-07-03 12
38 Rod Beck 1996-09-28 1997-04-27 12
39 Mark Davis 1988-10-01 1989-04-29 12
40 John Franco 1988-07-05 1988-07-30 12
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/29/2012.

You can see Bedrock ran his streak to 13 games, but since setting his record, it’s been tied or broken 31 times. Insane.

The way that closers get used now is so exclusively in save situations, that any guy who doesn’t get a blown save for a couple of months will rack up a streak that ties Bedrosian’s 1987 record.

I don’t even really know where to begin with the stupidity of how closers are used today. The dumbest thing of all is a road team saving a closer for when they have a lead. If it’s the bottom of the 9th (or 10th or 11th, etc) and the score is tied, managers just about never use their closers. They “save” him (ironically enough) for the next inning in the hopes that their team scores in the top of the inning so they can then bring in the closer to protect the lead. That means that the manager puts in a lesser reliever to pitch that inning, and if he gives up a run, the game is over while your closer is still sitting on his ass, having never come into the game.

I do miss the days of Goose Gossage, who routinely came in during the 7th or 8th inning to pitch 2 to 3 innings to close out games. It seems to make a lot more sense. I understand, though, that limiting a closer to 1 inning (and usually fewer pitches) means he’ll throw harder, batters have less opportunity to see the pitcher, and generally he will be more effective. But I can’t help but feel that managers have swung too far in the other direction, limiting the user of closers far too much.

When Joe Torre started using Mariano Rivera in the playoffs in the 8th inning, I had hoped that this would carry over to the regular season and that Rivera would be the first of a new breed of closers who would come in for as many as 6 outs. But this hasn’t happened, presumably because on the rare occasions when a closer blows a game in such circumstances because he’s lost an MPH or two off his fastball, managers feel like they would have been better off saving him for the 9th. But the current prevailing strategy has been shown to be monumentally flawed…

It takes time I suppose. I feel pretty confident in saying that in another 10 years time, closers will not be used in such restricted circumstances. Joe Madden will probably be the first guy to figure it out.

If you’ve read this far, you get a prize. Take a look again at the picture of Bedrosian on the front of the card at the top of this post. Notice anything unusual?

There is a Montreal Expo in the background who is not a baserunner, but an infielder. This means that the photo can only be from the 1987 All-Star game, and that must be Hubie Brooks.

Thursday short-stack recap – Expanded

Tigers 5, @Rays 2: Huzzah! For the AL strikeout leader finally got his ERA below 5! It’s been a slow, careful descent for Max Scherzer, who gave up 7 runs in 2.2 IP in his first start. Austin Jackson and Miguel Cabrera each rapped out 4 hits, and all 3 Detroit relievers pitched a scoreless inning, not an everyday event for the team ranked 11th in AL bullpen ERA. James Shields allowed 14 hits, tying a Tampa club record done thrice before (most lately by Edwin Jackson, who coincidentally got knocked around last night).

  • Detroit is the only team that has not been blanked in 2012. Their scoring streak of 144 games is the longest since 2001.
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Wednesday mini-roundup — Expanded

@Yankees 5, Indians 4: On a day that left a big hole in the pinstriped rotation, Freddy Garcia and Robinson Cano made sure that the Wins column, at least, got filled. Garcia cleaned up the last of a mess made by 3 pitchers in the 5th, when Cleveland grabbed the lead, and retired all 7 men he faced through the 7th. Cano got the lead back with his 10th June HR, a 2-run drive in the 6th on a 1-and-2 pitch from Ubaldo Jimenez.

Stuck in Park: Homerless Hit Streaks

Of major league history’s five longest hit streaks (that is, sequences of consecutive games with at least one hit), three have come with the hitter hitting zero homers through the entire streak.

The five longest hit streaks in the majors have been:
Joe DiMaggio (1941), 56 games, 15 homers
Willie Keeler (1896-97), 45 games, 0 home runs
Pete Rose (1978), 44 games, 0 homers
Bill Dahlen (1894), 42 games, 4 home runs
George Sisler (1922), 41 games, 0 home runs

More on homerless hit streaks after the jump. Continue reading