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 →

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@Reds 4, Brewers 3: While Bronson Arroyo was holding Milwaukee hitless through 7, winless Marco Estrada was racking up 12 strikeouts through 6 innings. But Estrada was bitten again by his pet varmint, the gopher — a 3-run shot by Jay Bruce in Estrada’s final stanza. It was Bruce’s 3rd HR (and second 3-run job) in 11 ABs off Estrada, who has now allowed 10 HRs in 42 IP. His rate of 2.14 HR/9 IP is so high that a 1-HR stint actually lowered his average, but it’s still the highest among those with at least 40 IP.

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As if crafting the first double-complete-game in almost a calendar year wasn’t enough, Luke Hochevar and Alex Cobb enhanced the oddity by taking opposite paths to that end: no runs, 7 singles, 8 Ks for Luke; 8 runs, 13 hits, 1 K for Alex. It was the first CG since 1998-07-05 allowing that many runs, and the first with that many hits since 2010-06-30. For Hochevar, it was his 2nd shutout and 4th CG in 111 career starts, and his first-ever consecutive scoreless starts. Both hurlers used 113 pitches, and Cobb (no walks; first CG) threw one more strike than Hochevar (74-73).

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In Monday’s action, Carlos Ruiz was a major contributor to the Phillies attack in an 8-3 romp over the Pirates, going 3 for 5 with 3 runs scored and a stolen base. That performance pushed Ruiz’s batting average back above the .350 mark, just 4 points behind current NL leader David Wright.

So far this year, Ruiz is having one of the best seasons ever for catchers aged 33 or older. Ruiz was last batting below .300 on Apr 27 and, since racing past .350 with a 4 for 5 game on May 17, has been above the .350 mark on all but 5 days, and never lower than .344. Yet, it seems hardly anyone outside Philly has noticed.

After the break, I’ll take a closer look on what is so far a quite remarkable season.

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Sunday

@Rangers 4, Rockies 2: An otherwise humdrum Colorado loss (their 14th in 17 games) was jazzed up by a 9th-inning rally that self-destructed in a baserunning/fielding blooper reel with compound gaffes by both sides. It’s not often you get one play that can illustrate four separate Little League teaching points, but here we go: Marco Scutaro, (1) Always watch the runner ahead of you, and (2) Never give yourself up until the umpire says you’re out; and as for you, Mike Napoli, (3) Don’t throw the ball until the runner fully commits towards a base, and you, Michael Young, (4) Don’t chase a runner towards the next base, and especially not the trail runner. What a sorry display by both sides; it’s a shame either team had to come out ahead.

• Oh, yeah — that comic rundown registered as the game’s top play on the WPA scale.
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On June 6th 2007, just over five years ago, I wrote a short blog entry titled “A-rod’s 9th inning performance“. That was my first contribution to the now-defunct Baseball-Reference.com blog.

More than 2,000 posts later (between the B-R blog, the temporary home of High  Heat Stats over at Blogspot, and its permanent home right here) I have decided to hang it up and retire from baseball writing. Even as I write that–it’s not a full retirement. See below for more information.

Over the last 5 years, I’ve gotten to do some really fun things. Aside from working with the great folks who run Sports Reference (Sean and Neil mainly) and the numerous fantastic writers I’ve rubbed shoulders with for each blog, I’ve had the opportunity to write pieces for the New York Times, USA Today’s baseball preview issue, and appear on a local ESPN radio affiliate. I got to visit MLB Network’s headquarters and studios.

Perhaps the thing that has brought me the most joy is the gradual development of a loyal audience. My fellow writers each deserve as much credit for that as I do. If you go back and look at that A-rod post, it received zero user comments. Most of the posts from the first couple of years received fewer than 5 comments, and more often than not, it was Raphy or me commenting on each other’s posts. Flash forward, and now most posts on this blog get quite a few responses, with just about all of them containing some useful information or opinion. That’s an amazing and wonderful thing. And while I love sharing this space with so many like-minded people, it’s actually our differences that make this place so great. (After all, we can agree on how much Joe Carter sucks for only so long…)

Going forward:

• This blog will remain open and all the other authors will continue to publish on whatever schedule they choose. I will keep footing the bill to keep the blog open even though we don’t get nearly enough in the way of donations to cover costs or pay our writers.
• You can still reach me at my email addressed (posted in the right sidebar) for any issues–admin, contributions, etc.
• I will be keeping a Twitter presence (@HighHeatStats) although at a lower volume than before. You can still expect to see daily tweets there.
• I will finish off the Mount Rushmore post series, so those are still coming and will be published here.
• I will continue to write the occasional odd post, but I don’t expect that to be even as often as 1 post per week.
• I will also continue to do some outside work with other publications, as well as book reviews. I remain available to do guest spots in print and live media.

So this isn’t really goodbye. I’m just taking myself out of the lineup and moving to the end of the bench. I’ll be like Pete Rose as a player-manager, overseeing things and on rare occasions inserting myself into the action…only I have a much better haircut, and I don’t plan to bet on any of the action here.

So far in 2012, more major league homers have been hit from the third spot in the order (346 homers) than the fourth spot (337 homers).  It is quite rare over a full major league season for the cleanup spot not to be the place in the batting order with the most dingers.  Over the past seventy full seasons, only in 1955 and 2001 has any spot in the order other than cleanup been the source of the most homers in the majors.   But the percentage of homers that are hit from the fourth spot, as compared to the rest of lineup, has been headed generally downward for decades.    Some details after the jump. Continue reading →

@Orioles 2, Nationals 1: After Washington equalized on an error in the 5th, J.J. Hardy answered with a 2-out scoring double in the home half, ending an 8-game RBI drought. Hardy had been 3 for 18 (all singles) with 2 outs and RISP.

• For a veteran pitcher with consistently mediocre seasons, where is the line between “off to a good start” and “totally different pitcher”? If last Saturday’s 1-hitter in Atlanta didn’t mark that point for Jason Hammel, tonight’s 8-IP, 10-K, no-ER, no-walk outing surely must. Hammel is 8-2, 2.61 through 14 games, and 6-2 in 11 starts against winning teams.
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With R.A. Dickey scheduled to start Sunday night on 5 days’ rest, let’s look at the “days of rest” splits of the most prominent recent knuckleballers (in starts only). I have included all splits that cover at least 10 starts, but my comparative statements are based only on those lines with at least 30 starts.

Even if you care nothing for this topic, I urge you to savor the line of Wilbur Wood on 2 days’ rest.

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