@Rangers 10, Angels 3: No foolin’ — at the exact moment that I flipped over from Mets postgame to the MLB Network, that man was up to bat. Five seconds and one pitch later, he had another HR — his 2nd of the game, 8th in 18 times up over 5 games, and 17th of the year. This is the Rangers’ 33rd game, Hamilton’s 30th.

• The Angels have 18 more games with Texas, and they may need to win ’em all to get back in the race. More likely, the ref stops this fight on cuts.
• Hamilton tied the mark for most HRs in the team’s first 33 games, set by Cy Williams in 1923 and by Frank Howard in 1968. Hondo had a similar barrage, homering in 6 straight games from #28-33 for a total of 10 HRs.
• Continue reading →

The title says it all…here are the guys since 1918 to have such a game:

This post was suggested by reader Paul E who remarked on the defensive accomplishments of Brett Lawrie of the Blue Jays. Toronto acquired Lawrie from the Brewers after the 2010 season, and brought him up to the big team in mid-summer last year. Other than a week missed to injury at the end of last season, he’s been the Jays’ regular third baseman since.

As of this writing, Lawrie has a career of slightly less than half of a 162 game season. Yet, he is in a tie for 13th place since 1901 among all non-pitchers in WAR fielding runs accumulated in the first two seasons of a career.

Continue reading →

[No, not this guy.]

In Baltimore Thursday, the Orioles hit 5 HRs in the first game of a doubleheader, accounting for all their runs in a 6-5 win over . All the runs and HRs came in 7 innings’ work by Colby Lewis, who allowed no other hits. Afterwards, Lewis said, “It seemed like one of those days where you have really good stuff and then you miss your spot or something and it’s just not a hit, it’s a homer. You can’t really look at it any other way. It was just kind of a weird game.”

I’ll say. This was one of the oddest pitching performances you’ll ever see.

Continue reading →

Recently, John Autin coined the term “disaster start” to denote starts where a pitcher allows more runs than innings pitched. So far this year, there have been 119 such starts, or about 3 a day. In 2011, there were 54 games where both starters were a disaster.

After the break, I’ll take a closer look at disaster starts and the pitchers most prone to them.

Continue reading →

From the beginning of the 2008 season through last night’s ninth-inning win, the Tampa Bay Rays have a .571 winning percentage in regular season games (388 wins, 291 losses). That’s the third best record in the majors over that period, behind the Yankees (.590) and the Phillies (.585).

To maintain at least a .571 record for the period 2008 through the full 2012 season, the Rays would have to finish with at least 95 wins this season, which is tough but possible.  They did won 97 games in ’08 and 96 games in 2010, and they are already at 20 wins in 31 games for the 2012 season, the second-best record in the majors at the moment.  As discussed after the jump, that .571 level over five seasons of play is an unusual level of sustained success for a franchise created after 1960. Continue reading →

It’s old news that Josh Hamilton and Matt Kemp are having career years. With the season roughly one-fifth complete, each man is hitting around .400, Hamilton a few days removed from a four home run night, Kemp already hearing “MVP” chants in Los Angeles. It’s no bold statement that Kemp and Hamilton each have a shot at being baseball’s first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Hamilton would win the award if the season ended today, and Kemp is trailing in the National League only for RBIs.

It would be wonderful for Hamilton and Kemp, their teams, and for baseball if either man made a run at the Triple Crown. And as it stands, Hamilton and Kemp have a shot at something rarer.

Continue reading →

Afternoon updates! Newer stuff is on top.

Marlins 5, @Astros 3 (12):

• Did Sports Illustrated do a cover story on closers? Through May 4, setup man Steve Cishek allowed just 1 run in 14 IP. Then he was anointed The One, and blew his very first save chance.
• Meanwhile, the demoted Heath Bell pitched a scoreless inning after the horse had left the barn. Naturally.
• Carlos Lee has 19 triples in almost 2,000 games. How many do you suppose went something like this?
• Houston used 21 players, ten of them in the #9 spot. Pitcher J.A. Happ (then with a career .100 BA) made the last out as a pinch hitter and careened off the Interstate, straight onto the Aughtobahn.
• Look, I don’t really know what to make of the new dWAR ratings, or the fact that Jordan Schafer is 3rd in TZR among CFs. But this is a nice play. He also had 4 hits and sports a respectable .352 OBP.
• Donnie Murphy got the start at 2B for Miami and finished with the year’s first 0-for-6+ without a single strikeout. He also was 0-3 with RISP. In 23 ABs, Murphy has 2 HRs, a double, and no other hits. He’s one of 5 active nonpitchers with a career BA under .200 and 500+ PAs. (But among that group, he’s a batting-and-OPS champ!)
• This highlight brought to you by Johnson & Johnson.
• Believe it or not, I found a clip to justify the inevitable groaner: “The Buck stopped here.” Incidentally, they’re the only two last-name Bucks ever to play in the majors.
• Jeff Luhnow must be secretly cackling with glee, if not actively sticking voodoo dolls. The longer the Closer Curse lasts, the higher the price on Brett Myers come July 31. He’s 8-for-8 in save opps.

__________

Continue reading →

I’m giving away my copy of Banzai Babe Ruth, a great book from Robert K. Fitts that I reviewed a couple of months ago.

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post below. I’d also appreciate if you’d follow us on Twitter @HighHeatStats and also “like” us on the Facebook widget below to the right, but neither is a necessity for you to enter. At some point I will close comments and use random.org to pick a random winning comment.

Meanwhile, I got the chance to ask Rob Fitts some questions, so here is my mini-interview:

Rob Fitts: It’s a really long story but here’s the short version.  In 1993 my wife was transferred to Tokyo.  I was working on my ph.d. so I could accompany her. We lived for there for two years.  I was a big American baseball fan when we went over there so I used my love of baseball to acclimate myself to Japan. I spend a couple afternoons each week scouring Tokyo’s flea markets looking for old Japanese baseball cards, went to games at night and even played on a company team.  The enthusiasm the Japanese showed for baseball was exciting. Remember this was 1993-4, right before the strike, American baseball was at an all-time low.  So during those two years I wanted to learn all I could about Japanese baseball.  This eventually lead me to do my own research and write the books.

Rob Fitts: The language barrier- no question.  I can only read a little Japanese so I had to use interpreters and translators.  that was time consuming, expensive and some times frustrating, but I was lucky to find a bilingual research assistant who really helped.

Rob Fitts: Most of the players who come over from Japan have the baseball skills to play in the Majors.  Their success is based on how they adapt to the United States both on the diamond and off.  The games are played a little differently.  MLB players are faster, stronger, and better hitters than the average  Japanese player.  Japanese pitchers must get used to facing good hitters throughout the lineup.  In Japan starters also usually pitch once a week.  In MLB that have to get used to pitching every 5 days.  But more important, the Japanese players have to adapt to their new surroundings. They have to get used to American culture, the food, the language, clubhouse culture, the media…  I think that might be the most difficult transition.

To enter the contest to win a copy of Rob’s great book, just leave a comment below. Or, you can buy your own copy directly right here.

TUESDAY:

— TEX 10, @BAL 3: Are you Joshing me? And who’s that HHS nut who called Hamilton “overrated”? (Well, if he was really all that, would he have settled for a double for his 5th hit? Shee-oot, the tattooed slacker didn’t even tie the record for total bases in a game!)

• Continue reading →