John was at the Stadium tonight for the home sendoff for Mariano. So, a few quick notes on tonight’s abbreviated schedule from your pinch-hitting reporter.
You have to hand it to the AL wild card hopefuls. Down to the last week and all three have gone into refuse-to-lose mode. The Rays and Indians have now both won seven straight and the Rangers have won their last four. But, the playoff chances for Texas have now dipped below 20%, while the Rays and Indians are both north of 80%.
Only 9 games on the sched, but 6 were decided by just one run, including two walk-off wins. More after the jump.
The lead changed hands 4 times before the Angels tied it in the 7th on Mark Trumbo‘s single, his 100th RBI of the season. That set the stage for Jurickson Profar who led off the home 9th with a blast to the short porch in right field. It was the 7th homer of Jurickson’s career, 5 of which have put the Rangers ahead, but this was the first one to also end the game.
Ron Washington sent out closer Joe Nathan to pitch the 9th inning of a tie game, but Mike Scioscia wouldn’t follow suit, leaving Ernesto Frieri in the pen and sending out Michael Kohn instead. Wrong move.
Trumbo is the 3rd Angel to reach 280 RBI in the first 450 games of a career. Quiz: who are the two players ahead of him.
You wouldn’t know it from the final score but the Indians had this game well in hand, taking a 6-1 lead into the home 9th. But, then Chris Perez came in to pitch. Perez had actually been quite sharp with four scoreless appearances before Tuesday’s game with the White Sox. Chris blew that save but was bailed out by Jason Giambi’s walk-off homer. Tonight was worse. Single, triple, ground out, single, fly out, homer added up to 4 runs for Minnesota. With the bases now clear, Terry Francona took the opportunity to bring in Joe Smith for the save. Smith allowed the first two to reach before striking out pinch-hitter Oswaldo Arcia to end the game.
Andrew Albers took the loss for Minnesota to fall to 2-5. At least he had one run to work with tonight – that’s one more than the total run support he had received in his three previous starts.
Tampa Bay completed the sweep as Alex Cobb went 7 strong innings for the visitors. It was Cobb’s 3rd straight start of 7+ innings with two or fewer runs allowed, but his first scoreless start since June 5th. Evan Longoria delivered a two out, two run single in the 8th to give the Rays some breathing room. Mariano then came in to close out the 8th and get the first two outs of the 9th. Joe Girardi took him out at that point to give Rivera center stage one last time in front of the adoring crowd.
The Yankees were just one game back of the second wild card on September 12th. But, when the other contenders shifted into a higher gear, New York had no answer, going 3-9 since that point. It’s actually quite remarkable what the Bombers have accomplished with most of their regulars out for much of the season. Still, they’re an old club with mostly ordinary pitching, especially in the relief corps. Expect a major overhaul this off-season.
The Friars took 3 of 4 from Arizona, winning the finale in walk-off fashion with a nobody out, bases loaded single in the 11th by Alexi Amarista. The bullpens for both teams were outstanding, each notching 6 scoreless frames before Amarista ended things. This was the 15th game this season with 6 relievers on both teams pitching at least one inning and allowing no runs and no hits. For the Padres, it was their first game of the year with 3 relievers pitching at least one inning and allowing no runs, hits or walks.
San Francisco took two of three from LA, with Angel Pagan‘s leadoff homer in the 8th providing the margin of victory.
Paul Konerko homered early and Adam Dunn‘s blast tied tied the game in the 6th. But, the Royals went ahead for good in the 7th with single, bunt, bunt resulting in no outs and a run scored, thanks to a throwing error by Sox catcher Bryan Anderson.
Chicago needs one more win to avoid losing 100. Konerko notched just his 12th homer of the season, but it was the 4th time that he and Dunn have both gone yard. Konerko’s .248/.317/.355 slash, good for just 81 OPS+, doesn’t augur well for a 37 year-old who will be a free agent after this season. Adam Dunn already has two of the top 3 OPS+ seasons with 450 PA and a batting average of .215 or less. If he can shed a point off his average, he’ll have 3 seasons in the top 15.
This game was over early as starter Tyler Cloyd surrendered all of Atlanta’s runs before retiring a batter in the 2nd. It was just the 17th searchable game with a Phillie starter allowing 7+ runs in one inning or less, and the first since Jamie Moyer was pummelled by the Red Sox in 2010. For Cloyd, it was his 4th straight start allowing 5 or more runs. He becomes the 31st starting pitcher since 1901 with 11+ starts and fewer than 60 IP.
Marietta, Georgia native David Hale picked up his first major league win, scattering 7 hits over 6 innings and lowering his ERA to 0.82. For his first two starts, Hale has 14 strikeouts to go with just one walk. That is the highest strikeout total for any Braves pitcher starting a career with two starts of 5+ innings and one walk or less
Milwaukee cooled off the Mets, winners of 5 of 6 going into this tilt. Josh Satin homered in the 9th, knocking the Mets out of the top 5 for the most power-challenged teams of the past 20 seasons. It was Satin’s 3rd homer of the year, reducing to 7 the number of Mets with 2 homers or less in 100+ PAs. Looking on the bright side, 2nd on that list with 9 players was last year’s Red Sox team.
Mark Buehrle completed his 13th straight season of 30 starts and 200 IP. No other pitcher has more than 8 such seasons in the same period.
That’s all, folks.
If the Indians make the postseason, it will be interesting to see what they do with Chris Perez. Personally, I can’t see a reason for having him on the post-season roster. Since August, he has a 7.52 ERA, a 1.869 WHIP, and has allowed a home run every 2.87 innings pitched. (John mentioned him being “sharp” in 4 straight outings but he actually allowed multiple baserunners in 3 of those).
Meanwhile, the Indians have 5 guys in the bullpen (Allen, Smith, Albers, Shaw, and Rzepczynski) who are pitching well plus at least two starters who need to be in the bullpen for the playoffs.
What role does Perez really have at this point???
Tito’s been here before. In 2007, Eric Gagne had a 6.75 ERA and a 1.875 WHIP in 20 appearances for Boston. He made the postseason roster and pitched in all three series, even starting the 11th inning of Game 2 of the ALCS against Cleveland. He faced three batters and was charged with 2 runs and the loss. From there, he was limited to garbage time in two blowout wins.
Francona is loyal to a fault. Don’t expect him to give up on Perez until he knows he’s got nothing. I’m not sure if we’ve reached that point yet.
Ugh, I hate Yost and his small ball. However, the ChiSox may be the worst defensive team I have ever seen and small ball against them works. That 7th inning by their defense was a travesty. After the leadoff hitter was on, Yost predictably bunts with a hitter who hit a HR in his last AB. It is a very good bunt up the first base line. Because the runner was also going with the pitch, the only real play is first base but Konerko for some reason looks at 2nd, meaning both runners are safe (the scorer generously gave Lough a hit for that). Then Kottaras is asked to bunt and he puts down a good bunt too, this time only the catcher has a play but he throws the ball down the RF line. A good throw probably gets Kottaras at first (it would have been close) but the scorer again generously gives him a hit.
Of course, then with the player on the team that probably should bunt up (Getz), Yost lets him hit away and he grounds out to third first pitch and the Royals eventually leave the runner stranded at third.
Greg Holland got his 46th save, breaking the Royals record for saves previously held by the Quiz (1983) and Jeff Montgomery (1993).
On a personal note, I get to see the Royals in person tonight at the Cell. When I bought the tickets on Monday, they still might have been playing for the playoffs tonight, but after Scoreless in Seattle for 2 games, that went down the tubes. Oh well, I get to see Big Game James in person and hopefully see a Royals win.
Other Angels to have 280 RBI in their first 450 games:
Tim Salmon
Wally Joyner
FWIW, Trout needs 87 RBI in the next 117 games to become the fourth.
Right you are, Andrew.
Trumbo ranks 10th in the majors for RBI since 2011. But, 5 of the 9 players ahead of him have at least 200 more PAs and a 6th has 150 more.
“Mark Buehrle completed his 13th straight season of 30 starts and 200 IP”
I credit a lot of that to his not messing around for 30 or 40 seconds between each pitch. He works fast which means the games he pitches in tend to be shorter plus it helps keep his fielders on their toes.
From the B-R bullpen about another pitcher who didn’t screw around on the mound:
“He worked fast on the mound. According to the New Historical Abstract by Bill James, Kaat said that after 2 hours, his fastball turned into a pumpkin.”
It also makes for a hell of a lot more enjoyable game to watch and that’s at least part of the reason that Buehrle has long been a favorite of mine.
The MLB rule book allows the pitcher 12 seconds to deliver the pitch after receiving the ball from the catcher or umpire. The rule book also emphasizes that umpires should enforce this rule strictly to avoid delaying tactics. Hitters are also forbidden from leaving the batter’s box between pitches.
If you want a good chuckle, you could do worse than reading the MLB rule book.
I remember when Mike Hargrove was called “The Human Rain Delay” for his antics between pitches. I have a feeling that what he did between pitches would not even be noticed nowadays as it would be considered normal.
I wonder what would have happened if Carlton Fisk and Buehrle had ever been on the ChiSox together. What is that old adage about an immovable object and an unstoppable force?
Per the McGuire Sisters: “Something’s Gotta Give”.
Would seem that Fisk would be the one to give.
I looked at the White Sox 1991 schedule, the last season that Fisk played regularly, catching in 106 games including 91 starts. Fisk didn’t start in any of Charlie Hough’s 29 game starts, so it would seem that Fisk was the regular catcher for the rest of the starting staff.
Sorting the Sox schedule by length of game, the name that jumps out is Jack McDowell. He had the decision in 3 of the 4 quickest Sox games (2:22 or less), 9 of the top 20 (2:33 or less), and 16 of the top 50 (2:45 or less). So, one-third of McDowell’s 27 decisions came in the quickest 12% of Chicago’s games (and the 2:33 maximum time would be considered quick or at least below average), and 59% came in the quickest 31% of games.
That said, I suspect McDowell would likely have been quicker still with another catcher. That 2:45 mark for the 50 quickest games was still pretty slow, probably just a bit higher than the average game time of 1991 (just gut feel, there – googled it but didn’t come up with anything).
Here’s a list that includes Mariano. It’s the top 10 in a career counting stat, regular season, over the past 100 years. Quick, what is the counting stat?
1. Dennis Eckersley
2. Nolan Ryan
3. Phil Niekro
4. Hoyt Wilhelm
5. Don Sutton
6. Mariano Rivera
7. Lee Smith
8. Gaylord Perry
9. Greg Maddux
10. Jesse Orosco
That’s a real stumper.
A birtelcom conundrum! Thinking out loud …
– Five 300-game winners make the list, but nine more are omitted, including nos. 1, 3 and 4 in the last 100 years (Spahn, Clemens, Carlton).
– No SP with less than 314 wins.
– Mariano yes, Hoffman no. Wilhelm and Orosco yes, Franco no.
Color me confounded.
Birtelcom, is it season-searchable with a “Totals for Combined Seasons or Careers” filter?
Don’t use the Pitching Season Finder at all.
In that connection, note that I could only search back to 1916, but because no one was sufficiently close to the top 10 that they could have gotten there with 1914-1915 numbers, I was able to stretch the coverage to a nice round 100 years.
Got it!
That advice makes me think this might be a pseudo-counting stat, like Most Times in League Top 5 of something.
But, I checked and nothing looks like your list.
Try the Game Finder
Carlton is 11th, Hoffman 14th, Clemens 16th, Spahn 19th, Franco 22nd.
Games pitched with a strikeout?
Yes!
When I ran across this leaderboard result, I was intrigued that a rather simple concept, most career games with at least one strikeout, would weave starters and relievers so neatly into a leaderboard.
Most consecutive games with 1 strikeout or more:
1. Nolan Ryan, ’79-’92: 382
2. Randy Johnson, ’89-’00: 351
3. Javier Vazquez? ’00-’10: 349
3. Dwight Gooden, ’84-’97: 349
5. Curt Schilling, ’94-’05: 331
Atlanta shut out Philadelphia 1-0 tonight. It was the 5th game of the year with both teams getting 3 hits or less. Here’s the odd bit – Atlanta has been involved in 3 of those 5 games.
Cliff Lee went the distance for the Phils, allowing only an 8th inning home run by Chris Johnson. It’s the first complete game 1-0 loss on a home run this season, after 3 such games in 2012. There are now 311 such searchable games of 9 innings or longer.
Mike Krukow is the last pitcher to lose such a game in extra innings, on 8-20-86. Among games for which there is play-by-play data, only two pitchers have twice lost such games in extra innings – Juan Marichal and Lerrin LaGrow. LaGrow’s two games came in the space of 15 days in the 1974 season.
A starting pitcher hasn’t lost in extra innings since 1986?!? That’s amazing! How many CG-W’s have their been since then too, probably not that many…
Did we really just see that? With Bucs fans chanting his name, Cueto dropped the ball out of his glove, evoking a roar. As they started up again, his very next pitch was launched out by Russell Martin, the second home run of the inning.
Can Martin or Byrd get a second homer tonight? No Pirate has ever totaled two homers in a post-season game. Three, yes (Bob Robertson, in 1971, a game I remember well — I was living in Pittsburgh at the time). But never two. That’s despite the fact that Pirates have been hitting post-season homers since the very first World Series game of all (Jimmy Sebring, an inside-the-park job off Cy Young)
Query to fellow members of the HHS staff: wouldn’t it be a good thing to do an “open thread” sort of post on playoff game days, as a convenient spot for the HHS community to comment on games as they happen?
birtelcom, did you ever see the original Star Trek episode, “Shore Leave”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKh6XxYbbIc