The off-season is upon us (sigh). Yeah, I know. It’s a letdown.

For some distraction, here’s a quirky bit of trivia. The players below have the only seasons since 1901 with a particular batting feat. And, if you look closely, only one of these players has had such a season in the expansion era. What is this feat that has become so rare?

Hint: each of these players accomplished this feat only once

Congratulations to Christopher Kamka! He correctly identified that these are the only players having a qualifying .300/.400/.500 season with an equal number of HRs and triples. Those seasons are after the jump.
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This post is for voting and discussion in the 35th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round begins to add those players born in 1940.  Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan each appeared on exactly 26 of 58 ballots in the 1941 round of the Circle of Greats (COG) voting, just ahead of Jim Palmer, who appeared on 23 ballots.   To resolve the tie between Rose and Ryan, this post opens a runoff vote.  Unlike ordinary COG rounds, your ballots in this runoff should include one name, instead of the usual three names.  And unlike in ordinary rounds, where you have many choices of who to vote for, here you are choosing only between the two guys, Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan.  As always, feel free to explain why you are choosing who you are choosing, or if you merely prefer to state your choice without further explanation, that’s fine too.   Continue reading →

If Shane Victorino’s 3-run double in the 3rd made you think, Series over, the weight of history was in your corner. Twelve World Series teams won Game 6 on the road to level the Series when facing elimination, and six of those went all the way. But none of them overcame more than a one-run deficit in Game 6. Here’s the list; Series winners in bold:

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The Red Sox go for all the marbles tonight. But to do it, they’ll have to find an answer to young Michael Wacha. In game 2, Wacha became the 16th pitcher to start and win 4 games in a single post-season. With another W tonight, Wacha can become the first starter to reach 5 (Randy Johnson won 5 games in 2001, one of them in relief; before recording the first decision of his regular season career, the Angels’ Francisco Rodriguez won 5 post-season games in 2002, all in relief). Wacha would also become the first starter with more career wins in the post-season than in the regular season.

For the Cardinals, it’s a bigger hill to climb. They will be trying to come back from 3-2 down, on the road. No team has done that since the 1979 Pirates (who came back from 3-1 down).

More after the jump.

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Heading back to Fenway now.  Five players have hit more than one homer at Fenway during a single World Series. Three of those guys played for the home team: Yaz had three homers at Fenway in the 1967 Series, Rico Petrocelli had two homers at Fenway in 1967, and Big Papi has two at home so far in the current Series.  The other two guys with multiple homers at Fenway during a World Series both did it for the Mets: Gary Carter had two in Game 4 in 1986 and Lenny Dykstra had one in Game 3 and one in Game 4 that same year.  Continue reading →

The top WPA performance so far in the 2013 Series goes to David Ortiz, with a 0.386 score in a losing cause for the Red Sox in game 2. That mark just misses making the table below for the top WPA games by players on the winning and losing teams in each game of the World Series.

After the twists and turns (and stumbles) of game 3, it’s on to game 4. What other series have run the same course of this one?

This is the 52nd World Series in which the the first two games were split and, of those, the 27th in which the home team won game 3. That game 3 winner went on to win 17 of those 26 earlier series, a .654 winning clip. While there have been 26 previous series that fit this year’s mold, this is only the 5th time it’s happened since another memorable series involving the Red Sox – their 1975 tilt with the Big Red Machine.

More after the jump on other series that have followed the pattern of the 2013 Classic.

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Some final opinions (oh, sure) about the play that ended Game 3:

We should not judge too harshly Boston’s postgame comments questioning Jim Joyce’s call. But I don’t think any of their points holds water.

• Jake Peavy: “It’s a joke … it’s just amazing to me that it would end on a call like that that’s not black and white.”

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On Grantland, Jonah Keri argues that John Farrell should have used Koji Uehara in the 7th inning of Game 2, rather than Craig Breslow, once the Cards had two men on with one out. I agree — but rather than take up that argument, I want to discuss the historical precedent for such a move.

There isn’t any.

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