Quick hits on Thursday’s games

Phillies 2, @Braves 0: A streak-buster on two fronts. Atlanta had won Kris Medlen‘s last 23 regular-season starts, back to May 2010. Cliff Lee had lost his last 9 decisions when backed by 0-2 runs. The veteran was completely dominant, allowing just 2 singles, one of them promptly erased, in posting his highest Game Score since mid-2011.

 

  • Counting last year, Lee now has 4 straight games with no walks in 6+ IP. He’s the first to do that since 2010, when … he also did it.

@Yankees 4, Red Sox 2: Digging into his official Crafty Lefties Club membership kit, Andy Pettitte scattered 8 hits, 7 of them singles, over 8 efficient innings. He threw 20 first-pitch strikes, and 13 of 29 batters saw 2 pitches or less. The active leader in GDPs got 3 more of ’em, including this instructional video on the 1-6-3: Be in position for the comebacker. Don’t rush the throw. Deliver a chest-high strike on the bag. Textbook.

  • In 17 prior seasons, Pettitte had never gone past 7 IP in his first game.
  • Shane Victorino tried to snag an uncovered dish after a “wild pitch”. But Francisco Cervelli beat him home for the third out. Rather aggressive for the 1st inning, with lefty-killer Jonny Gomes at bat and another runner already in scoring position. Has the Flyin’ Hawaiian been trying to impress his new teams of late, or is he just slowing down in his 30s? In 56 games since leaving the Phils last summer, he’s run into 4 outs at home plate; he had just one such from 2008 through the trade.

Orioles 6, @Rays 3: Those of us who pegged the O’s out of the playoffs this year didn’t realize that Chris Davis is really Roy Hobbs. He has 3+ RBI each of the first 3 games — a MLB first, at least since 1916. No other Oriole/Brown ever had more than 1 such game to start a season.

  • I wouldn’t say that stealing a base up 4 runs in the 9th is a bad idea for everyone. But maybe for Brian Roberts, who’s missed three-quarters of the last 3 seasons. He “felt something kind of pop” behind his right knee as he approached the bag; sounds like he’ll be spectating for a while.

Padres 2, @Mets 1: In his 50th career start, Dillon Gee (1 run in 6.1 IP) absorbed his first tough loss. He’d won all 8 prior starts allowing exactly 1 run, and he’s 3-0 in 7 starts giving 2 runs.

  • Luke Gregerson bailed his team out in the 7th, then whiffed 3 in the 8th. He’s stranded 80% of inherited runners in his career (97/121) — 3rd-best out of 97 righties with at least 60 IR in that span. (I don’t include lefties in this stat any more. Too many of their “strands” consist of one out and pass the jam to a righty.)
  • Twice in the opening series, San Diego got the game’s first batter to 1st base, and then sacrificed. Neither one scored. Thursday’s leadoff man was Everth Cabrera, who went 44-for-48 in steals last year and did swipe one later in the game. OK, Will Venable‘s a good bunter, so maybe he was looking for the hit. But when you’re hitting Mark Kotsay #3, giving away outs just doesn’t seem wise.

@Blue Jays 10, Indians 8J.P. Arencibia homered twice in a game once as a rookie (his debut), twice in 2011, thrice last year, and again Thursday. That’s 14 of his 45 career taters. Five of those games were at home, the other two in Texas.

Royals 3, @White Sox 1: Chicago’s #8-9 hitters reached safely in all 8 trips, including 4 hits by last man Gordon Beckham. In the DH era, there have been 277 regulation AL games in which a single #9 hitter had 4 safeties. One team got shut out, and four scored just once. The average team scored 9.7 runs, with a median of 9. They won almost 80% of those games; I thought that would be higher.

Cubs 3, @Pirates 2: Last year it was June before the Cuddlies won a “road” series, and July when they actually did it out of town.  Travis Wood sparkled in his 6 hilltop measures; he also singled and scored the game’s first run with some solid baserunning.

  • In the 9th, Carlos Marmol walked right up to the edge and leaned over, letting 2 runs score and the tying run to 3rd with no outs. And then he escaped, with a 3-pitch whiff of Pedro Alvarez and a pitcher’s best friend.
  • Through 8 innings, the teams had combined for 3 hits and 1 run.

 

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BryanM
BryanM
10 years ago

JA I feel so lucky to be able to read these witty game notes whenever you have the time to produce them. . Re the Jays , I beleive Edwin and Lind are alternating at 1b and DH in order to share the embarrassment and keep morale up.

Doug
Editor
10 years ago
Reply to  BryanM

Is Adam Lind really still in the majors? His 2009 season was great, 35 HR, 114 RBI, 141 OPS+. But, he’s had three straight years since then with OPS+ below 100, and with a 3:1 SO/BB ratio. He gives you nothing on defense, playing DH, LF and 1B (DH is his best spot, by far).

Jays should punt Lind and get a real first baseman so they can put Encarnacion at DH, where he belongs.

birtelcom
Editor
10 years ago

“J.P. Arencibia homered twice in a game once as a rookie (his debut), twice in 2011, thrice last year, and again Thursday. That’s 14 of his 45 career taters.”

So about 31% of J.P.’s homers came in multi-homer games. As a baseline, I count 709 homers by all players in their multi-homer games last season, out of 4,934 total regular season homers in 2012, or about 14%. So J.P. seems to be concentrating his homers in multi-homer games at more than double the normal rate.

Grzesio
Grzesio
10 years ago

Something interesting we had in Kansas@Phillies game

In 6th and 7th bases loaded triples.
back-to back situation in two consecutive innings.

Something rare I guess

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

And now Chris Davis has 3+ RBI in the first four games this year (5 RBI so far today). He’s also homered in every game so far. Anyone else homered in the first 4 games of the year? And he has 16 RBI in the first four games which is likely a record. His first three game total of 11 RBI was one less than the record of 12 set by Dolph Camilli in 1935.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

The following players homered in their first 4 games of the season:
Nelson Cruz 2011
Mark McGwire 1998
Willie Mays 1971

They each had 4 homers total.

Doug
Editor
10 years ago

If anyone was curious, none of those three extended the streak to a 5th game.

Three players have homered in 4 of their teams’ first 5 games in two different seasons: Mays, Cruz, and Jackie Jensen. Cruz did it in consecutive seasons, 2010 and 2011.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

I found two players with 12 RBI in their first 4 games, Camilli and Mark McGwire. Based on the fragmented PI search I did it appears that that is the record, until today of course.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

Richard – how did you do that search? I tried doing it myself but couldn’t figure out how.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Ed: Explaining what I did will be more difficult than running the search itself. Let me begin by saying that I cannot be certain that 12 RBI is actually the old record but I feel reasonably certain that 16 RBI is the new record. Here’s what I did. In order to drive in 16 runs in 4 games a player must have at least one game with 4 or more RBI. I ran the PI under Batting Game Finder, selected Players with Most Matching Games in a Season, RBI equal to or greater than 4 and in team’s first 4… Read more »

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Ed; I just realized that I explained in my post 10 how I determined the record for the 16 RBI, not for the 12 RBI. Anyhow now I just saw on mlb.com that Cruz, Mays and McGwire did hit the HR in the first 4 games and that 16 RBI is also the record. I beat them with my HR in 4 games post but trailed them by 2 minutes for the 16 RBI post. However it took me a while to type that latter post

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

You remain the master of the PI Richard!

Doug
Doug
10 years ago

Remember when Richard steadfastly refused to subscribe to P-I, using clever deductions to infer the top entries of search results that were hidden for non-subscribers.

So, Richard, next we have to introduce you to color TV. 🙂

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago

Doug: I remember very well. It was almost exactly one year ago that I became a subscriber and what a great move that was. PI is fantastic. However I did enjoy finding results without being a subscriber.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

Well I’m still holding out as a non-subscriber and using whatever tricks I can!

bstar
bstar
10 years ago

As someone who got a P-I subscription about a year ago also, Ed I heartily recommend taking the plunge, although the old way of deducing the hidden answers as Richard described was fun also! It was always a good test of your knowledge.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

Well I’m working on 2 1/2 years of unemployment (by choice!) so I have to watch my money a bit carefully. But my bday is in less than a month… 🙂

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago

Just looking ahead but if I have done my searches correctly Bobby Doerr holds the record for most RBI in the first 5 games with 14 and Pat Burrell holds the record for 6 games with 15. Burrell has 17 RBI in 7 games but I have not checked to see if that is the record.

Ed: I found a different method for that search as opposed to my post 10.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago

I meany to add that that means that Davis would hold the record for most RBI in 5 and 6 games also.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

And Davis got another RBI tonight putting him at 17 though 5 games. Me thinks he’s gonna gave these records for a long, long time.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

I just saw on ESPN on-line that 12 RBI was indeed the old record for 4 games. They did not mention the old record -holders but in addition to Camilli and McGwire, Charles Johnson also did it in 2000.

bstar
bstar
10 years ago

Wow, John, I’d completely forgotten to even consider Kris Medlen/Atlanta’s consecutive starts won streak. Medlen settled down and looked decent overall.

Also, this just in: Cliff Lee is really, really good.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

I know it’s early but the Astros could definitely shatter the team strikeout record. Through three games they’ve struck out 43 times. 97 PAs, 43 Ks. So they’re striking out in 44.3% of PAs. Meanwhile they’ve only drawn 4 walks. That’s barely comprehensible.