Delayed recap of Monday games (4/30)

— The Pirates scored more than 5 runs for the first time this year. Their streak of 21 straight games of 5 runs or less is the longest to start a season since 1972, when the Brewers went 31 games. (That club ended up scoring 6+ 26 times and finished 9th out of 12 teams in both R/G and OPS+.) Pittsburgh’s streak was the longest in the NL since the 1919 Braves went 23 games.

— Is Clay Buchholz this year’s John Lackey? He’s allowed 5+ earned runs in all five starts, for an 8.69 ERA and .964 OPS allowed — but his record is 3-1, thanks to run support averaging 9.0 R/G. All other MLB pitchers combined have just 4 wins when allowing 5+ ER.

  • Big Papi hit 2 HRs, the second quite entertaining, as he completed his best April ever with his first multi-HR game since July 2010, giving him a 214 OPS+. There have been 73 qualifying seasons by DHs age 36 and up, but Edgar Martinez is the only one to post an OPS+ over 150. Edgar (a.k.a. the original Papi) had 3 such years.

Ryan Braun went one better, swatting three homers — the first ever to do that at Petco Park — plus a triple. It’s the sixth known instance of that combination, and Braun (3 runs, 6 RBI) tied the lowest run production in such a game; the five prior games averaged 12 (R+RBI).

  • SD rookie Joe Wieland has lost all 4 starts this year. That ties the Padres record for consecutive losing starts from the start of a season and from the start of a career.
  • The Pads are 7-17 and have yet to win a series; they split one 4-game set. In the six prior seasons when they started 8-16 or worse, the Padres averaged 98 losses (pro rating the two strike years).

Yu Darvish improved to 4-0, 2.18 with his second straight 70+ Game Score. The last Rangers pitcher with a longer streak was Roger Pavlik, who had 4 straight in September ’95. Since a 4-run 1st inning in his debut, Darvish has allowed just 5 runs (4 ER) in his last 32 IP, a Gibsonian 1.12 ERA.

  • Kyle Drabek (6 IP, 2 R) has not allowed more than 2 runs in any of his 5 starts this year. He also started last year well, with a 3.30 ERA through 5 starts — then had a 7.38 ERA over his next 9 starts before being demoted.
  • Toronto’s next pitcher, the rookie Evan Crawford, served up HRs to Mitch Moreland and Craig Gentry and then was lifted, thus tying the known record for most HRs with [batters faced = HRs]. That’s been done 43 times previously, all by different pitchers. The last three to do it were all Pirates — Joe Beimel and Tony Watson last year, and Brian Rogers in 2007. In 227 minor-league innings, Crawford allowed just 6 HRs.
  • Texas (17-6) is the only team that has not yet had a losing streak.

— The Yankees eked out a 2-1 win that knocked the first-place Orioles off their perch. It was NYY’s first win this year while scoring 2 runs or less. They had just one such win last year (this memorable duel); every other club had three or more.

  • Eric Chavez‘s 3rd HR of the year provided all of New York’s scoring. He already has as many HRs as in his previous 3 seasons combined.
  • O’s relievers Matt Lindstrom and Jim Johnson have not allowed an ER in a total of 18.1 IP. Lindstrom has also stranded 5 of 6 inherited runners. The scoreless leaders through April are: 12.1 IP–Aroldis Chapman, CIN; 12.0 IP–Duane Below, DET (also no walks); 11.0 IP–David Robertson, NYY and Logan Ondrusek, CIN. The strand king is still Toronto’s Luis Perez, 11 for 11.

King Felix (8 IP, 1 R) logged his 5th high-quality start in 6 outings, but his record remains 2-1. Since his 2005 debut, Hernandez has 27 no-decisions in HQS, 4 more than any other pitcher. It’s also his 9th no-decision in a top-quality start (8+ IP, 1 R or less), tied with Cliff Lee for the most in MLB since 2005; no one else has more than 6.

— The Rays came home victorious from a 3-game set in Texas that drew 140,000 fans and left them in a first-place tie — and played before 9,458 customers.

— The Rockies beat LA, 6-2, scoring half a run below their home average this year. On the road, they’ve averaged 3.2 R/G. For Rockies and opponents combined: 12.2 R/G at Coors, 7.3 R/G in other parks.

  • With his 12th HR, Matt Kemp reached 11 games with at least one HR, tying the known mark for most such games within a team’s first 23 games. Here are the players since 1918 who equaled or surpassed Kemp in one or the other respect (stats shown are for games with a HR only):
Player ▾ Year #Gms PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Matt Kemp 2012 11 Ind. Games 50 41 19 0 0 12 20 9 9 .463 .560 1.341 1.901
Alex Rodriguez 2007 11 Ind. Games 54 48 20 2 0 14 30 6 11 .417 .481 1.333 1.815
Albert Pujols 2006 10 Ind. Games 45 36 18 4 0 13 24 8 4 .500 .578 1.694 2.272
Luis Gonzalez 2001 10 Ind. Games 45 43 18 0 0 13 24 2 7 .419 .444 1.326 1.770
Ken Griffey 1997 10 Ind. Games 50 40 19 1 0 13 23 9 5 .475 .580 1.475 2.055
Mike Schmidt 1976 9 Ind. Games 43 40 16 1 0 13 22 2 9 .400 .442 1.400 1.842
Willie Mays 1964 11 Ind. Games 48 44 24 0 0 13 26 3 0 .545 .563 1.432 1.994
Ken Keltner 1948 9 Ind. Games 43 41 16 1 0 12 21 2 6 .390 .419 1.293 1.711
Cy Williams 1923 10 Ind. Games 50 49 24 3 1 13 30 1 2 .490 .500 1.388 1.888
Babe Ruth 1921 11 Ind. Games 49 44 19 2 1 11 23 5 5 .432 .490 1.273 1.763
[Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used / Generated 5/1/2012.]
  • While looking that up, I found a hot start in 1971 by Willie Stargell — he missed the list above, but he had 11 HRs in Pittsburgh’s first 19 games, including two 3-HR games not two weeks apart, both against Atlanta.

— Don’t you wonder what chain of events led to Austin Kearns starting in the cleanup slot for Miami? For 2008-11 combined, Kearns batted .229 and slugged .340, with an 83 OPS+. And if you say it’s because Arizona started a lefty, I’ll counter that Kearns has no significant lefty/righty split for his career, and in recent years has actually hit worse against southpaws. But darned if he didn’t bang a homer … which I suppose is why Ozzie’s there and I’m here. (Now if he could turn his genius towards getting some production out of the other three corner positions, the Marlins might actually win a game or two.)

  • Miami is the first team this year to lose despite getting two pinch-hits from the #9 spot. (Yeah, I know — I’m stretching.)

— The AL East has four teams above .500; the rest of the AL has two. The AL East is 40-23 against the other divisions; the Central is 29-46, the West 39-39.

— Half of all NL teams have a sub-.300 OBP from the leadoff spot. As if Dee Gordon‘s .253 OBP weren’t bad enough, but the Reds’ three-headed monster — Zabrandrew Cozilliubbs — has a .186 OBP, 8 runs scored and zero RBI.

— We still haven’t had a HR or a SB by a pitcher (though Randy Wolf and Kevin Correia attempted steals). These are the game highs by a pitcher through April: 2 hits, 2 RBI, 1 Run, 3 total bases, 1 double, 1 triple, 2 walks (J.A. Happ), 4 strikeouts (Matt Garza), 2 sac bunts (including last night’s debut winner Patrick Corbin), 1 sac fly, 1 GIDP, 1 reached on error, 0.136 WPA.

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Shping
Shping
12 years ago

Watching Braun was fun last night, esp. when Brewers got a couple 2-out baserunners in 9th to give him another AB, even more so when he just missed his 4th hr with the triple. Wouldnt it have been something if he got #4 with an inside-the-parker? Anyone know if any of the previous 4-hr guys had an inside-the-parker that day? I guess it wouldnt surprise me if the pre-1900 guys did, so i guess i’m wondering about 4-hr games in the outfield-fence-era. Which leads to another question: When did it become standard for all or most parks to have definite… Read more »

kds
kds
12 years ago
Reply to  Shping

Certainly by Ruth’s time. Probably most parks long before. You have to fence the grounds to keep non-paying fans out. With almost all the big league parks tucked into the city grid, there was not room to have really wide open spaces and control access. Especially before the concrete and steel parks started to open in 1909, the capacity was so small that big crowds would fill the seats and the overflow would be placed behind ropes in the outfield. Most (all?) of the new parks (1909-1923) had their seating expanded in the years after. I don’t know when the… Read more »

Shping
Shping
12 years ago
Reply to  kds

Thanks kds. Maybe i’ll have to dig out some Ken Burns Baseball, Inn. 2 or so, and pay close attn to the photos.

Hartvig
Hartvig
12 years ago
Reply to  Shping

I know when Bobby Lowe did it in 1894 they were all over the fence, although apparently in other seasons balls hit there only counted as doubles.

John Nacca
John Nacca
12 years ago

According to wikipedia, ALL FOUR of Ed Delahanty’s homers were inside-the-park

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
12 years ago
Reply to  John Nacca

From Baseball Almanac: “Recent research into the game has shown that only two of the four home runs were hit inside the park thus making ‘Big’ Ed Delahanty the only member of the four home run club to have ANY hit inside the park.” I read a description of this game decades ago, but from what I remember the last of the four HR was hit so far into a very deep center field that it might as well have been over-the-fence, and the CFer didn’t even bother to throw the ball back. It was at West Side Grounds in… Read more »

Hartvig
Hartvig
12 years ago

This is looking like it may be a historic season for Kemp. Of the other players listed, 4 went on to hit over 50 home runs and others hit 49 & 47. Only Keltner & Schmidt failed to hit at least 40 and only Keltner, Gonzalez and Pujols failed to lead the league in home runs (Keltner & Gonzalez finished 3rd in the league, Pujols finished second.).

bstar
bstar
12 years ago
Reply to  Hartvig

It would be a nice boon to the game of baseball itself if Kemp continues to run out and post a really impressive first half where he’s leading all the triple crown stats at the break. Anything to create some more excitement in the game I’m a fan of, so I’ll be rooting for Kemp to continue his red-hot start.

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
12 years ago
Reply to  bstar

OK, here’s the sort of question I would only have confidence in this crowd to answer:

What was the latest in the season (since 1967) a player has been leading in all three of the Triple Crown categories?

I recall that Sheffield in 1992 came pretty close, till his RBI’s fell off in September.