On Tuesday, Fernando Rodney converted his 13th straight Save chance and 28th in 30 tries, while running his scoreless streak to 15 innings. Awaaay back on April 6, after the Rays-Yankees opener, some cynic wrote this:
@Phillies 7, Brewers 6: It was 1-1 through 5. Four HRs later, Cliff Lee was staring at a 1-7 record. But one bullpen acid flashback after that, Lee was off the hook, and the Phils were going home with a happy sense of deja vu.
With Ichiro‘s arrival in the Bronx, he joins Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriquez as Yankees with 2500 or more career hits.
How unusal is that? I’ll take a look after the jump.
There have been some funky things going on with 1-run games in 2012. The Orioles have played 25 of them already and won 19, a remarkably high percentage. (This is thanks mainly to luck and unlikely to be maintained the rest of the season.) The Athletics just swept four games from the Yankees and won each one by 1 run. The Phillies had been 11-18 in 1-run games until winning two such games in a row the last 2 days.
All of this 1-run-ness has me wondering if it’s more common in 2012. Certainly, it would seem likely that 1-run games would be more common when overall scoring is lower. When teams average closer to 4 runs a game than 5, it means that a higher fraction of final game scores will be 1-run decisions. There’s also something to be said for strategy–when overall scoring is lower, managers are more likely to “play for” 1 run, i.e. use sacrifices to advance runners, lessening the chance of a big inning.
Anyway, there’s a quick way to look up the basic numbers for such a study. Continue reading
Everyone has heard the news now of Seattle trading Ichiro to the Yankees. On one level, just a seller/buyer trade and one that probably wouldn’t have been made but for an injury on the buying team. But, perhaps more significantly, an icon moving from his only team late in his career and not voluntarily, leaving his fans a little perplexed and bewildered but, in this circumstance, also happy for the player who now has a good shot at finally winning a championship.
@Giants 7, Padres 1: Four in the 1st matched San Francisco’s season high, and Buster Posey broke it open with a 3-run shot towards the RF line. With a packed house, the Giants improved to 30-16 at home and maintained their game-and-a-half lead on the stabilized Dodgers.
June 1st this season was a milestone date for the New York Mets. The Mets hosted the Cardinals that day and achieved something never previously accomplished in the team’s first 50 seasons of play. That was the day, of course, of Johan Santana‘s no-hitter, the first ever by a Met.
After the break, I’ll take a look at this and other similar games.
Belated additions above the line:
@Diamondbacks 8, Astros 2: Houston took a 2-1 lead in the top of the 6th, but momentum may have swung on this failed squeeze — was Justin Maxwell‘s heart really in it? — and a 7-run retort gave Arizona the 3-game sweep by a combined 33-13 margin.
My apologies for botching this quiz. I somehow left two names off the list below, which I’ve added now. The answer is that these are the only players since 1918 with careers including 50 or more games for each of the following:
– 3 or more walks
– 3 or more strikeouts
– 3 or more hits
Thanks for playing, and sorry again for messing this up.
Since 1918, these are the only players to appear on certain statistical lists at least 50 times. What are these these statistical lists?
| Player |
|---|
| Mickey Mantle |
| Harmon Killebrew |
| Jim Thome |
| Mark McGwire |
| Jeff Bagwell |
| Jack Clark |
| Eddie Mathews |
| Adam Dunn |
Hint: the third time is the charm
@Cardinals 12, Cubs 0: We’ve seen a 12-run inning before (right?) — but in the home 7th of a scoreless game? It began with an infield single, a pitching change and a failed sac attempt. Then: double, single, triple, walk, double, walk, popout, pitching change, double, double, double, walk, pitching change, double, double, and SO/reached on WP, before the carousel finally coasted to a halt.