Following up on the Imperfect Trifecta post, thought I’d give Rollins and Pierre a break and let some others share the limelight. The guy on the left was one of our faves back at the B-R Blog, a player with some quite unusual statistical characteristics, although not ones customarily associated with winning.

WARNING: This post is definitely written tongue in cheek. My apologies, in advance, if you are offended by the tone – not my intention, just having a bit of fun.

This post is about players who simply abhor walking. At any cost (and it’s often substantial). Instead, these purists insist on getting on base (or trying, at least) the difficult way, with their bats and their legs. Alas, it is an awfully hard chore for many of them.

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Of all the words of baseball history I’ve come across, I think the most beautiful are these attributed to then-NL President Ford Frick, responding to rumors of a boycott against Jackie Robinson:

I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do it will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended and I don’t care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play as another.

The National League will go down the line with Robinson whatever the consequences. You will find if you go through with your intention that you have been guilty of complete madness.

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Matt Kemp smacked 2-run HRs in the 1st and 2nd innings as the Dodgers improved baseball’s best record to 8-1, their best start since 1981. Of course, they’ve only played San Diego and Pittsburgh so far. Kemp leads the majors with 5 HRs & 15 RBI and has a 1.458 OPS.

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Many of us have probably been to our 20 year (or more) high school reunion. There are some people you may have stayed in touch with all those years, others may have crossed your path just a few times, but for many of your classmates it could be the first time you’ve met since high school.

It can be like that in baseball too. Except, there aren’t nearly as many on-field reunions because most players don’t stay in the game for 20 years. Even when they do, their playing time at either or both ends of their careers can make reunions with other specific players pretty unlikely. And, of course, there’s always the difficulty of being in different leagues. But, it does happen sometimes. After the break, you can take a look at pairs of players who have appeared together in games separated by 20 or more seasons. Which players do you think have had the most “reunions”?

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Giants 5, Pirates 0: Now, that’s more like a $100-million man. Matt Cain retired the first 17 batters, gave up a clean single to opposing pitcher James McDonald (an .079 career hitter), then put away the last 10 Pirates, for his third career 1-hitter. He finished with 11 Ks, 1 off his career high, and a personal-best 96 Game Score. Pittsburgh, now hitting .178 with 7 walks, suffered their second shutout this year; they’ve scored 11 runs in 7 games.

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Couldn’t get around on the High Heat yesterday, so let’s play a little catch-up.

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We haven’t had a quiz in a while. So, let’s give this one a shot.

No HOFers here. A few all-stars, some jorneymen, and maybe one or two guys you don’t recognize at all.

Some are pitchers, but most aren’t. Several played for the Dodgers, and several had careers spent with LOTS of different teams.

But, since 1919, only these players have accomplished a certain feat. That feat involves two separate events that share a common characteristic.

The players are listed after the break. What is the common link connecting all of them?

The quiz has been solved. Congratulations to Atawerdi96! These are the only players to appear in both a regular season and post-season game on their birthday.

And congratulations also to John Nacca! He got the bonus answer identifying the bolded subset of players as those having both a regular season hit and a post-season hit on their birthday.

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The blog was down most of the day today thanks to a major outage at the ISP. Oops.

I have installed a new chat widget. It appears in the right sidebar on all pages. Please give it a try so I can see how well it works. I’m sure I’ll be updating options, etc., but I need to see it in action to improve it, so please do use it.

Blogger Paul E pointed out that Jimmy Rollins and Juan Pierre are leading the Phillies attack this year with identical batting averages, on-base percentages and slugging percentages. That unusual trifecta is, of course, usually only accomplished when a player has no walks and no extra-base hits.

After the jump, I’ll look a little more into this “phenomenon”.

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In 1996, Roger Clemens had an offseason by his standards, off enough that it may have been the spur to get him on steroids.  It certainly earned him a ticket out of Boston, off to a new team and a career rebirth in Toronto, and at the time, his departure might not have seemed unwarranted. By traditional metrics, 1996 was but a mediocre prelude for Clemens to winning back-to-back Cy Young awards and going 41-13 with a 2.33 ERA over 1997 and 1998. Clemens went 10-13 with a 3.63 ERA for the Red Sox in 1996, walking the most batters of his career with 106. Pushing 35, he looked to be on the decline, a shell of his once-dominant self.

Clemens did lead the American League in strikeouts in 1996 with 257. And in hindsight, we also know that he led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings with 9.5 and finished second in WAR with 7.7. In fact, it’s one of the best  losing seasons for a starting pitcher in baseball history.

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