You’d think that relief pitchers don’t homer all that often. Depending on how you define “often”, you might be wrong.
Here are the last 20 times that a relief pitcher has homered in a game:
As you might expect, a fair number of these were guys brought in early to games, as typical relief appearances rarely result in a plate appearance.
Eagle-eyes readers will pick out the names of Micah Owings and Brooks Kieschnick, both of whom have hit very well for pitchers (or players who pitch, in Kieschnick’s case.)
Neat that Danny Graves appears twice as well.
Going back to 1919, here are the pitchers with the most different games homering as a relief pitcher:
Rk | Player | #Matching | PA | HR | RBI | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Mickey McDermott | 6 | Ind. Games | 10 | 6 | 7 |
2 | Chad Kimsey | 6 | Ind. Games | 10 | 6 | 8 |
3 | Ken Tatum | 4 | Ind. Games | 5 | 4 | 6 |
4 | Lou Sleater | 4 | Ind. Games | 6 | 4 | 8 |
5 | Dixie Howell | 4 | Ind. Games | 6 | 5 | 6 |
6 | Clint Hartung | 4 | Ind. Games | 6 | 4 | 6 |
7 | Tommy Byrne | 4 | Ind. Games | 8 | 4 | 7 |
8 | Ralph Winegarner | 3 | Ind. Games | 5 | 3 | 4 |
9 | Jim Tobin | 3 | Ind. Games | 7 | 3 | 6 |
10 | Schoolboy Rowe | 3 | Ind. Games | 4 | 3 | 5 |
11 | Don Robinson | 3 | Ind. Games | 3 | 3 | 6 |
12 | Lynn Nelson | 3 | Ind. Games | 7 | 3 | 8 |
13 | Cal McLish | 3 | Ind. Games | 10 | 3 | 6 |
14 | Bob Lemon | 3 | Ind. Games | 5 | 3 | 4 |
15 | Brooks Kieschnick | 3 | Ind. Games | 3 | 3 | 5 |
16 | Chief Hogsett | 3 | Ind. Games | 4 | 3 | 4 |
Graves is tied with a bunch of other guys for 2 such games.