Nobody can possibly do what John Autin does with his amazing game reviews, but he’s been quiet for a couple of days, so I humbly chip in a few notes on yesterday’s games, and welcome others to add their own.
–Felix Hernandez’s Game Score of 93 was the highest against the Rangers since a Johan Santana 17K, 0BB game in August 2007.
–Jeff Francoeur of the Royals actually had two hits, a walk and an RBI, all in the same game, for the first time since April last season.
–Craig Kimbrel has now had 21 appearances in a row in which he has pitched at least one full inning and also allowed zero walks. There have been only five longer such streaks in MLB history (two by Mariano Rivera), the longest being a 26-game streak by John Smoltz that ran from September 2003 to June 2004.
–Oakland got home runs from four different hitters for the first time since they got homers from five guys on September 11, 2009.
–The Braves have now scored at least 7 runs in their last four games against the Mets and won all four. The last team to do that to the Mets was Arizona in 2002. The only team to beat the Mets five times in a row while scoring 7 or more every time was the Milwaukee Braves back in 1964.
–Andrew McCutchen has a homer and at least one additional time on base in each of his last three games. The last Pirate to do that three games in a row was Ryan Doumit in 2008.
So, birtelcom, when they sing “aux armes, citoyens” are they talking lefties or righties?
Um, Mike L, it’s so gauche of you to ask. You should be more a-droit with your questions. 🙂
Marchons, marchons, pattes du sud!
Thanks for picking up the torch, birtelcom. I thought it had been awhile since Texas had been SO shut down. It’s starting to feel like a bad day if McCutchen ONLY gets 2 hits. Did something happen to WAR at baseball-reference.com? I thought Brett Lawrie was top 5 only last week and now he’s nowhere close.
There was a known error in DRS, the defensive metric used in br-WAR 2003-present. It would give full credit to the third-baseman playing on the other side of second with the shift, as if he were making the play from his regular positioning, not as if the ball was hit right at him. Since the Jays shift lots this and Lawrie is a very good fielder to start with, it made him look like B Robby and the Wizard of OZ combined. I noticed some other smaller adjustments.
Now the fielding “anamoly” is Brendan Ryan. He has 22 fielding runs which means he could break the record of 39 by Darin Erstad 2012. Only 7 players have had a season with 35 or more. Only one of those seasons occurred before 1975 (Frankie Frisch with 37 in 1927).
Or maybe it’s Darwin Barney, who actually has 23 fielding runs right now. But neither Barney nor Brendan Ryan have enough offense to push their WAR to near the top of the league, so I don’t think it’s going to be anywhere near the issue it was with Brett Lawrie. Also, Andrelton Simmons of the Braves was cranking out dWAR at a faster pace than Lawrie, but he’s out til probably September.
Thanks Bstar, good catch on Barney! He is #8 in the NL in total WAR so not completely out of the picture but unlikely to climb into the top 5 unless there are injuries.
OK, phenomenal, they’ve fixed it!!! Great job by B-Ref or DRS, whoever was responsible for making the changes. I noticed this in the early a.m. hours and thought maybe I was dreaming. Great job by people recognizing the error(s) and changing them. I think ultimately this will help Lawrie because he was starting to become a scapegoat in this, and it will certainly help save the reputation of bWAR!
Here’s a post-Bastille Day note. It was just mentioned on today’s Yankee game that they now have a streak of 39 games with 3+ runs scored. In the game-searchable era only 4 other teams have had longer streaks: the Yankees from 1950 into 1951 with 49; the Indians in 1994 with 48; the A’s in 1930 with 41 and the A’s from 2001 into 2002 with 40.
The Astros are now 0-9 in extra-inning games this year. They have yet to score a run in extra-innings and they have yet to have a walk-off win.
Right around the time the Padres were stealing a win from the Dodgers, Maxwell scored the tying run from second on a dropped third strike by the Giants. Considering the rate the Astros are striking out (I think it was 16 last night) the dropped third strike is one of their more formidable offensive weapons.
I always ride my bike through the Alsace on Bastille Day to view the festivities of the small villes. The wine (Rieslings, Muscats, Gewuerztraminers, Tokays, etc.) is spectacular and the cheese (especially the goat cheese, which they roll in ash) equally so, and of course you keep tabs on the Tour and cheer for a Frenchman to win the etappe.
Chicago had a decent Bastille Day celebration (which is actually called La Fête Nationale over here, or Le quatorze juillet in the vox populi) but Milwaukee had the best one outside of France I’ve ever attended (it’s actually a multi-day affair). Anyone ever attend a memorable one in their city? Did it ever somehow include baseball?
I even lived in Green Bay for about a year and a half almost 35 years ago and while I recall a rather spirited Oktoberfest in Milwaukee, Bastille Day eluded me.
Almost everywhere does something for St. Patricks Day, of course, and over the past couple of decades Cinco de Mayo has become almost as widely celebrated as St. Pat’s. and here in North Dakota you can always find something going on for Canada Day and syttende mai for us Norwegians. But I still have never heard of anything special for Bastille Day, although a day celebrated by eating French cooking and drinking French wine sounds like a helluva good idea to me.
RE: Craig Kimbrel
He also has 20 straight appearances of at least 1 IP, zero walks, AND at least one strikeout. Smoltz didn’t do this in his 2003-2004 streak; I’m not sure about the others.
Kimbrel is also sporting a .118 BA against and a -5 OPS+ against. The all-time single-season records, with at least 50 IP, were set by Eric Gagne in 2003 with a .133 BAA and a 4 OPS+.
Speaking as a Mets fan: Can I have one of those?
Well, actually the Braves will need a third baseman next year after Chipper’s departure, and I like the cut of #5’s jib. So I’m sure a swap could be arranged. 🙂
The others, Gagne, Rivera and Gregerson, did not have at least one SO in each of their games during their streaks.
Gagne had a separate streak of 35 games with one IP and one SO but with 9 BB interspersed. Ditto Rivera but for a streak of 22 games with 15 BB.
It was speculated on prior to the A-S break, and Zack Greinke did indeed start 3 consecutive games for the Brewers.
During that discussion, mention was made by Richard Chester of Wilbur Wood famously starting both ends of a double-header in 1972. I was surprised to find this was only the most recent occurrence. Here are some others.
– Al Santorini, Astros, May 26, 1971
– Don Newcombe, Dodgers, Sep 6, 1950 (pitched CG in 1st game and 7 IP in 2nd)
– Monty Kennedy, Giants, May 20, 1950
– Bob Newsom, As, Aug 21, 1945 (pitched 6 and 8 innings in two games)
– Ken Heintzelman, Pirates, Aug 3, 1941
– Bobo Newsom, Browns, Aug 7, 1938 (pitched CG in first game)
– Bobo Newsom, Red Sox, Sep 27, 1937 (pitched CG in first game)
– Bill Lee, Cubs, Jul 5, 1937
From 1918 to 1936, there were 97 occurrences of a pitcher starting the 2nd game of a double-header after APPEARING in the first game (only 19 occurrences of this since 1937). So, it wasn’t nearly so uncommon in the old days.
Baseball Almanac has a list of pitchers to record complete game victories twice in the same day. See http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats24.shtml. Happened 24 times since 1901, the last by Dutch Levsen of the Indians on Aug 28, 1926. Joe McGinnity did this twice in 8 days and 3 times in a calendar month in 1903 (Aug 1, 8 and 31).
Of particular note is:
Ed Reulbach, Chicago Cubs, 09-26-1908
He is the _only_ pitcher to threw two complete-game shutouts in the same day, and he did it in the midst of one of the tightest and most exciting pennant races ever, the 1908 Cubs/Giants battle.