Two series down and the final two to be decided tonight. What an LDS round we have had:

• first time all series have gone the distance
• first comeback from 0-2, having to win every road game
• most strikeouts in an LDS series (Justin Verlander‘s 22 Ks)
• most game 5 LDS complete games (two; tied with 1981)
• two HR performance by a pinch-hitter, for a 9th inning tie and an extra-inning win
• melt-down by a closer (actually, make that two melt-downs) with a 2-run lead and 3 outs to win the series
• four walk-off games and counting, already the most ever in an LDS round (thanks to ATarwerdi96 for confirming this)
• a chance for both wild cards (or neither) to advance (both advanced to LCS in 5 out of 6 seasons from 1999 to 2004, but in no other year)
• the league’s highest paid player (I think that’s still true) benched for the deciding game (that’s actually happened before, in the LCS round)

Enjoy the games and tell us what catches your attention.

As the Tigers celebrate their ALDS victory, news comes (thanks to HHS reader Steven for this alert) of the passing of a former fan favorite in the motor city, albeit in a brief stint with the Tigers.

Champ Summers (so nicknamed, according to Wikipedia, by his prize-fighter father who remarked at Champ’s birth that he looked like he had just gone 10 rounds with Joe Louis) came up with Oakland in 1974 and, through 1978, bounced between the majors and minors with the Cubs and Reds, being used with the big club mostly as a pinch-hitter. His fortunes changed early in the 1979 season with a trade to Detroit where, under new Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, Summers finally got to play on at least a semi-regular basis.

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Four more games today, including two winner-take-all contests.

The early game is in the books, with the Giants completing their comeback from 0-2, the first team to do so with three straight away wins in a 5-game series.

Washington survived with a walk-off win (the third in less than 24 hours) on a Jayson Werth homer, to pull even with the defending champion Cardinals and force a deciding game tomorrow.

Tell us what’s caught your attention today!

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Nobody got swept, so we’re still in business with another quad-play day.

Let us know what grabs you about today’s games.

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Former major league pitcher Jim Kaat is providing the TV color commentary for MLB Network coverage of the Tigers-Athletics series. In an HHS reader discussion of that series (and others), a side discussion arose on Jim Kaat’s HOF credentials, during which I offered up the unusual factoid that Kaat’s “historical span” (for want of a better term) covers some 69 seasons of major-league baseball, from 1939 to 2007. This notion is based on the fact that Kaat pitched to both Ted Williams and Julio Franco.

HHS reader RJ thought this might make an interesting blog topic, so let’s find out.

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Following are the only players since at least 1918 with an unusual, three-part accomplishment. What have these players done that distinguishes them from all of their brethren?

Hint: a player active in 2012 is on track to join this list

Looks like HHS readers could solve only 2/3 of the puzzle. The three-part accomplishment for which the group above has exclusive domain reads like this:

1. played in the post-season of his rookie season (kudos to reader Josh)
2. had a hit streak of at least 4 games to start his post-season career (more kudos to reader RJ)
3. hit safely in each of the first two regular season starts of his rookie season (this was the stumper)

Congratulations to Yoenis Céspedes, who on October 10th joined this group with hits in his first four post-season games.

The 2011 card image on the left identifies Omar Vizquel as a third baseman. Vizquel, though, wrapped up his 24-year career this week as the all-time leader in games played at shortstop, a mark that Derek Jeter may surpass in 2014 or later. Over his career, Vizquel has competed against rival shortstops ranging from Alan Trammell to Elvis Andrus. Among all those opponents, I was curious which one, paired with Vizquel, represented the most combined game experience ever at the position.

After the jump, I’ll look at the question of which historical games featured  starters having the most combined games experience at each position.

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This season has witnessed offensive contributions from the catcher position at levels seldom seen before.

After the jump, I’ll look a bit closer at the different dimensions of this phenomenon.

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In a recent post looking at pitchers recording higher ratios of unearned to total runs, some commenters wondered about the effect that official scorer bias may have on such results. More specifically, would official scorers be more inclined to score errors on debatable plays when the home team is fielding (thereby protecting the home team’s pitchers’ ERAs), and score hits on similar plays when the home team is batting (thereby enhancing the home team’s batters’ batting stats)?

After the jump, I’ll take a look at this question, and see what the numbers tell us.
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The Yankees are known for their unmatched post-season success, including the most World Series titles and appearances. In fact, the Yankees have lost more World Series than any other franchise has won.

This game is Jeopardy but, in this incarnation, could also be called box score sleuthing. There are many pieces to the game, each of which can be solved independently. So I expect this will work best as a group exercise with different individuals working on different pieces.

Following are a list of dates. These dates are the answers to Jeopardy questions. Your job is to determine the questions. Each question is in the form of “When was the last time a Yankee/the Yankees had a World Series game with …. ?”.

Note that the question format includes “a Yankee” rather than a specific name. Thus, none of the answers (er, questions) reference a specific player – so, nothing like “When was the last time in the World Series that Babe Ruth struck out with the bases loaded?”, or that sort of thing.

Thanks to everyone for playing. You found lots of interesting factoids that I never noticed. A box score is truly a treasure trove if you look closely. The questions and answers are posted after the jump. The ones you found are in black, and the remaining ones in blue.

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