Robinson Cano is an outstanding hitter, but much less so when there are runners in scoring position (RISP). This fact is well known to those who follow the Yankees, but the extent of his struggles, compared to other good hitters, might surprise you.

To be clear, this is not an anti-Cano piece; I’d be thrilled to have him on either of the teams I root for. And I have no theory to explain his difficulty or prove its predictive value; although I know these numbers, I’m still terrified when he comes up in a big spot with men on against my Mets or Tigers.

I just think it’s fascinating.

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Since 1916, what game accomplishment is shared by only these pitchers?

Hint #1: none of these pitchers has done this more than once

Hint #2: no pitcher has accomplished this feat in the post-season

Congratulations to Richard Chester! He identified the players in the quiz as the only pitchers to hit a homerun on their birthday. Since Randy Wolf did this in 2002, pitchers have batted on their birthday in 93 games, but have all come up empty in the long ball department.

Our list includes none of the 13 pitchers who batted most often on their birthday, led by Sad Sam Jones with 9 birthday games and Bobo Newsom with 7. Tied for 14th spot are a large group of 44 pitchers who batted in 3 birthday games including Turk Lown, Bob Hooper, Freddie Fitzsimmons and Don Drysdale, as well as active pitchers Edwin Jackson of the Cubs and John Lannan of the Phillies. Bubba Church and Jack Harshman homered in their only birthday games, but both took the loss.

@Padres 2, D-backs 1: The Snakes reached Eric Stults for a double and a run in the opening minutes. And though they wouldn’t reach safely again until the 9th, for most of that time it seemed the early scratch would suffice. Escape artist Trevor Cahill — .274 BA/.795 OPS with the bases empty, but .193/.479 in RBI spots — had stranded 4 in the first 5 innings. Now, with one more strike, he’d have the ultimate escape: 3 straight whiffs and 3 ducks orphaned with a 1-0 lead.

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What is the season statistical feat achieved by only these pitchers since 1961?

Hint: none of these pitchers achieved this feat more than once

Congrats to –Bill ! He identified the players in today’s quiz as the only pitchers since 1961 with a season win total matching or exceeding their age. No pitcher has managed this feat since Roger Clemens recorded 24 wins as a 23 year-old in 1986, a year after 20 year-old Dwight Gooden also won 24 games.

Wally Bunker, at age 19, is the youngest to do this since the 19th century, while Steve Carlton is the oldest in our list with 27 wins at age 27 in 1972. The last pitcher to do this more than once – Hal Newhouser in 1944-46 with 29, 25 and 26 wins, aged 23-25. Bob Feller is the only other three-peater in the live ball era with 24, 27 and 25 wins aged 20-22 in 1939-41. The last pitcher to do this aged 30 or older – Lefty Grove with 31 wins at age 31 in 1931.

On our recent podcast (now available on iTunes–just search for High Heat Stats), Adam raised the question of variability in hit-by-pitch totals over the years, and none of us had an exact answer right away.

I’ve delved into it a bit, and was quite surprised by the results.

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Royals 10, @Rays 1: Ervin Santana has given his team a chance in every one of his 13 starts this year, and he faced one over the minimum through 5 innings. But so did Jeremy Hellickson, giving him 11 straight zeroes over 2 starts. And then, the deluge: 8 hits and 8 runs in the 6th, the blitz begun by ex-Ray Elliot Johnson and emphatically capped by him on Hellickson’s 37th pitch of the frame.

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Wednesday

Angels 9, @Orioles 5: Since sliding into the rotation on May 5, Jerome Williams is 4-2, 3.48 in 7 starts. All other Angels starters are 16-27 this year.

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Early last season, I did a piece highlighting Matt Kemp’s fast start. Coming off a near-MVP season in 2011 when he flirted with the Triple Crown with a .324/.399/.586 slash and league-leading HR (39) and RBI (126) totals, Kemp kept right on rolling, going 2 for 5 on opening day and maintaining that .400 batting average for all but 3 of his first 30 games. Kemp’s April looked like .417/.490/.893 with 12 home runs.

Kemp would go down with an injury in mid-May, and then re-injured himself in his second game back at the end of that month. Returning after the All-Star break, he finished just .280/.331/.461 with 11 home runs over his last 70 games.

For 2013, the power circuits are off for Kemp, with just two home runs on the season and a .251/.305/.335 slash before he injured his hamstring a couple of weeks ago. After the jump, I’ll take a closer look at Kemp’s decline and what might be causing his struggles.

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A major-league pitcher is 20-3 in his last 33 starts, covering one calendar year. Here are his full stats in that span, along with his rank among all qualified pitchers in the last 365 days:

The start of the 2013 season marked the 16th year of professional baseball in Tampa Bay, Florida, and in that short amount of time the franchise has been many different things. Back in 1998, the Devil Rays were a cause for excitement even with the losses piling up. In the 5 years that followed the Devil Rays became something worse, something almost sad, finishing dead last in the AL East year after year. Lou Piniella came to Tampa and was able to end the streak, finally finishing in 4th in 2004, but the Rays were still a pitching-starved, meager hitting, lousy fielding team content to win 70 games.

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