Tuesday game notes

Shutouts, shutouts everywhere….

@Yankees 3, Rangers 0Hiroki Kuroda lost his no-no on an infield single in the 7th when the game was scoreless, but he went the route on 2 hits for his first 9-inning shutout since his rookie year, 2008. Nick Swisher got the party started once again, with a 2-run HR in the 7th, and “Me-too” Mark Teixeira followed with his 23rd — the first 2 batters faced by Alexi Ogando.

  • Ogando started twice against the Yanks last year and was hammered both times, totaling 11 ER in 8 IP.
  • New York had gone 13 months since their last 9-IP CG shutout — July 2011, by CC Sabathia.

Phillies 1, @Marlins 0Jimmy Rollins drilled 2nd pitch into the 2nd deck for the game’s only run. Kyle Kendrick went 7, departing for a PH with a man in scoring position; his only CG shutout came this May.

  • Josh Johnson gave up just 3 hits and a walk in 8 IP, but fell to 7-9. Ten times in his 24 starts Miami scored 1 run or less; his run support per inning ranked 64th out of 71 NL SPs before tonight.
  • First time in club history that the Marlins were blanked in 3 straight.
  • Two straight Philly shutouts; their last time with 3+ was 1969 (4 straight, by Jerry JohnsonWoodie FrymanGrant Jackson and Rick Wise).
  • Philly’s last 1-0 win was on Opening Day, when the world was young.
  • Rollins has 184 HRs, 12th in franchise history, just 1 behind Johnny Callison and 11 shy of Bobby Abreu.

@Braves 6, Padres 0Tim Hudson breezed through 6.1 innings, Michael Bourn started the offense with a leadoff triple and scored twice, and Atlanta stopped their first 2-game skid since July 22-23.

  • Hudson is 193-101 career and 5th on the Atlanta Braves career wins list with 101. I don’t think he’ll be moving up that list, though; next is Greg Maddux with 194.
  • Chipper (4-0-2-1) tied Craig Biggio for 31st on the Total Bases list, one behind Rogers Hornsby. Career double #545 (27th), extra-base hit #1,047 (24th).

@Reds 3, Mets 0: Well, at least we didn’t have to face Chapman. Cincinnati left 14 men aboard and went 0-9 with RISP through 8 innings, but New York couldn’t break through against Mat Latos (3 runs in his last 4 starts), and they’re not built to win a battle of the bullpens. Rookie southpaw Josh Edgin had held lefties to 4 for 31 with 14 Ks and got to 1-and-2 on Jay Bruce 1-and-2, whence the slugger had a .134 BA with 1 HR this year. But Bruce fouled off 3 in a row and then rocked it over the LF wall. That bought some redemption for Bruce, who had stranded 3 in scoring position.

  • Wish I had seen this play: With men on the corners and 1 out in the 3rd, Ryan Ludwick’s fly to right advanced the trail runner to 2nd, but the lead man stayed put.

Royals 5, @Athletics 0: “… and that’s why they play the games.” Jarrod Parker vs. Jeremy Guthrie was a mismatch on paper, but the veteran with the 6.10 ERA threw blanks for the 2nd straight game. Oakland mustered just 3 singles all night and fell a game-and-a-half back in the wild-card race.

  • KC has 9 shutouts this year, with 4 in 7 games against Oakland.

Dodgers 11, @Pirates 0Chad Billingsley went 8 to win his 5th straight start, and Pittsburgh fell 6 back in the division for the first time since May 11.

  • As goes Andrew…: The Bucs are 4-9 in starts when their star hasn’t reached base; he was 0 for 4 tonight.

Tigers 8, @Twins 4: After Detroit gave away its lead (Doug Fister should have had 8 shutout innings), Andy Dirks got it back with a solo HR; his 3-2-2-1 (with 2 IBBs) raised his slashes to .339/.390/.526 in 189 PAs.

  • Haven’t we seen this before? Fister is 5-1, 1.52 in 7 starts since the Break, averaging almost 8 IP.
  • Miguel Cabrera (5-1-3-2) is the first player with 100 RBI this year, reaching that standard for the 9th straight year.
  • The early 4-0 lead was wiped out by infield miscues in the home 3rd: Three errors (two on one play by Prince Fielder) brought in a run, and with 2 outs, Josh Willingham‘s 30th HR scored 3 to tie it.
  • When historians assess the 2012 Tigers, a team that expected (and was expected) to win its division, they’ll wonder just how it came to pass that, with this particular collection of talent, Delmon Young wound up as the regular DH. Detroit’s designated “hitters” rank next-to-last in OBP, Runs and RBI, and 12th in OPS.

@Orioles 7, Red Sox 1: Eight of 10 for the resurgent O’s. Mark Reynolds, who had 13 multi-HR games in the past 4 years, finally got one this year, driving in 4.

  • Baltimore is 7-3 against the Sox this year; they haven’t won that season series since 2004.
  • Manny Machado‘s XBH streak ended at 4 games.

Astros 10, @Cubs 1: Houston had gone 57 games since their last double-digit outburst (45 losses). But if you think that streak is long, the 1981-83 Astros went more than 2 calendar years without scoring 10+ in a game — 284 games, including the entire ’82 season. (They only scored 9 once that year.)

Giants 2, Nationals 1 (8th): Bumgarner outworked Zimmermann , who left in the 6th. Brandon Belt drove in both runs with a pair of hits, after 1 RBI in his previous 15 games.

Rays 2, @Mariners 1 (t-8th): Six outs to go for 8 straight wins….

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Mark in Sydney
Mark in Sydney
12 years ago

Brandon Belt and base-running — thrown out twice. #1 was stretching a nicely hit double into a triple on the throw home, but jumping too late and getting pinged at 3rd. This one is forgivable on the grounds of being aggressive (if a little knuckle-headed). #2 was him getting thrown out going for 2nd on a hit that came off the outfield wall. This one is a true knuckle-head play. Note the prance at the start that shows he thinks this one is gone, but no. And by then too late. A couple of nice hits but someone please have… Read more »

RJ
RJ
12 years ago
Reply to  Mark in Sydney

“Baby giraffe” is not a nickname that suggests good baserunning. 🙂

MikeD
MikeD
12 years ago
Reply to  RJ

Have you ever seen a baby giraffe fun the bases? Quite spectacular. Oh, wait. Acid flashback.

Alan
Alan
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Hey J

Your email at work doesn’t seem to allow me to reply to you by email. I keep getting failure responses. 🙁 Can you try to fix it to accept e-mails from @yahoo.com? And email me again when you do, because I can receive your messages, it seems.

I wanted to reply to you regarding the Melky situation.

Thanks,

A

K&J
K&J
12 years ago

Hunter Pence misplayed a very catchable deep fly ball from Jayson Werth to right center at AT&T that ended up being a triple. Almost another shutout as Werth scored the only Nat run.

Voomo Zanzibar
12 years ago
Reply to  K&J

Pence is very, very twitchy.
I hadn’t seen him play before coming to the Giants.
Very twitchy.

bstar
bstar
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

Agreed, I like him overall but when he gets anywhere near the outfield wall on a fly ball, things tend to get messy.

deal
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

“Unconventional” would be the nice term I would use for Pence. In everything Hitting, Fielding Running. After a yr of watching him for a season, I am not sure that he has it in him to become a good OF. Makes lots of questionable decsisions out there and his athleticism doesn’t appear to make up for mistatkes.

zafrom
zafrom
12 years ago

I enjoy reading these daily notes and comments. Thanks very much. Because the Dodgers-Pirates game was rain-delayed I watched the Rangers-Yankees game instead (congrats to Hiroki and team!) — and so missed most of the biggest game so far of infielder Luis Cruz of the Dodgers. He’s been lots of fun to watch for the past 1+ months because — after spending most of the past 12 years in the minors — he’s been making the most of his playing time, driving in 20+ runs, and hitting his first major league home run. It’s looking to me like one of… Read more »

Abbott
Abbott
12 years ago

Has anybody watched Chris Carter play first for the A’s this year? At this point, I think Dick Stuart > Chris Carter.

Abbott
Abbott
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Not sure about that John. A ball has to be thrown between his head and his waist for him to catch it. A ground ball has to be hit directly at him with good speed and no spin for him to catch it. But either way, he’s a hell of a lot better than Darick Barton.

Tmckelv
Tmckelv
12 years ago
Reply to  Abbott

That is because he only catches Touchdowns.

bstar
bstar
12 years ago
Reply to  Tmckelv

Put that man in the Hall of Fame already!

Doug
Doug
12 years ago

“With men on the corners and 1 out in the 3rd, Ryan Ludwick’s fly to right advanced the trail runner to 2nd, but the lead man stayed put.”

I didn’t see this play either John, but fun to speculate how it might have played out. My guess is the runner at 1st just advanced when he saw the throw home clear the cutoff man, with the throw possibly induced by an (intentionally) abortive break for home by the runner at 3rd.

It’s probably a play we should see more often with some alert baserunning.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

So far this year Jeter has been averaging 4.28 AB and 1.37 H per game.
To reach Collins he needs 71 more hits. Assuming he plays in all the Yankees remaining 46 games he would accumulate 197 AB. He would then need to bat .360 for the rest of the season to catch Collins.

Hartvig
Hartvig
12 years ago

In the unlikely event that Jeter does just that, he’ll hit .331 for the season and set a personal best for hits in a season (227). At the same age (38) Eddie Collins managed to hit .346, although that was done in an entirely different offensive context plus he only played in 118 games that year. My guess would be that he’ll probably take a little more time off than he has so far & maybe even cool off a little from his current pace. Even if he does take say 5 games off and only hits .250 for the… Read more »

Hartvig
Hartvig
12 years ago
Reply to  Hartvig

If Jeter does reach 200 hits at age 38, he would be only the 4th player that age to have done so. Rose has the most with 208 and Honus Wagner currently holds down the 4th spot with 181 hits.

If Jeter can maintain his current batting average and only takes a couple of days off he’ll easily pass Rose as the hits leader at age 38.

Doug
Editor
12 years ago
Reply to  Hartvig

While Jeter would be the fourth 38 year-old with 200 hits, he would be the 6th aged 38 or older to do so – these guys. Rk Player H Year Age Tm G PA AB R 2B 3B HR RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS Pos 1 Paul Molitor 225 1996 39 MIN 161 729 660 99 41 8 9 113 56 .341 .390 .468 .858 *D3 2 Pete Rose 208 1979 38 PHI 163 732 628 90 40 5 4 59 95 .331 .418 .430 .848 *3/54 3 Sam Rice 207 1930 40 WSH 147 669 593 121 35… Read more »

Doug
Doug
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Discouraging news, indeed.

Wonder if the 50 games include the post-season, or is it a suspension for 50 regular season games. With Melky gone, Giants playoff chances take a big hit but, if they do make it, Cabrera could be back sometime in the LCS if post-season games count toward the suspension.

Hartvig
Hartvig
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Lends some credence to just how big an impact PED’s can have on a players performance: 2010 OPS+ 83, 2012 OPS+ 158.

If I were a player I would be all over the union to stop trying to protect these guys.

Ed
Ed
12 years ago
Reply to  Hartvig

At least Cabrera had the honesty to admit to what he did and to apologize. While I disagree with his choice in using testosterone, he gains my respect for how he handled getting caught. Something that several other players can learn from.

Voomo Zanzibar
12 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Cabrera will be eligible to play in the postseason once his suspension is over. He would have to miss his team’s first four games, however. ___________________ What a dramatic story! Game 5 of the LDS, Melky returns… and he is… Melky Cabrera, average baseball player. Oh. This sucks. ___________________ Gregor Blanco is the default replacement. He’s had a very hot and cold (mostly cold) season. If they want to go with someone else they’re looking at Roger Keith Kieschnick, 3rd round pick, in 50 games at AAA: .319 .390 .623 http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=kiesch001rog _________ Ryan Lollis, who never played above A ball… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

Yes, good to have Pence.
Though Schierholtz was above average and thus far Pence has been hacking at anything that moves. I swear he looks like a character from Naked Lunch in the batters box. Twitchy and hallucinating strikes.

Aubrey Huff hurt himself jumping over the dugout railing after Cain’s perfect game.

Two days after getting off the DL, he hurt his leg again pinch hitting. However, he ran his ass off to first anyway, beating out a double play ball, driving in a run, giving the Giants the lead.
This game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN201207300.shtml

Matt Cain pinch ran for him.

bstar
bstar
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

JA at 26, the Giants probably knew about Melky’s impending suspension when they acquired Pence. Apparently this happened right after the All-Star break; the time between was for the appeal process to run its course.

bstar
bstar
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

I was completely wrong about the Giants knowing about Cabrera’s positive test before they acquired Pence. Sabean said today they didn’t find out about Melky until Wed. morning and that the Giants had been coveting Pence for awhile.

Evan
Evan
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

As I mentioned on the Fangraphs article, I’m interested – you might say hopeful – to see if Andrew McCutchen’s average will drop enough that Cabrera would win the batting title (with potential ABs added in, Melky currently at 501 PAs) and embarrass MLB into confronting the issue of statistics of drug cheats.

RJ
RJ
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Oh for f***s sake.

Mark in Sydney
Mark in Sydney
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

One of the weird things about this, for me anyway, is my own experience of going to a doc a few years back (this in Ottawa) and him telling me that my testosterone was down and I needed supplements. Me then a 40-something male in otherwise good health, decided to give it a try and then stopped as quickly owing to side effects (irritation and anger flashes, mainly). The point being that there is/was a legal industry, marketed by the Pharmas, for pushing this stuff. If it is legal in the general public, why is it illegal for a sportsman?… Read more »

Evan
Evan
12 years ago
Reply to  Mark in Sydney

Many PEDs were created to treat medical conditions. A prime example would be EPO, a favorite among cyclists and other endurance athletes because of its ability to increase the amount of oxygen carried in one’s blood. It was created to treat anemia and is used frequently for dialysis patients where anemia is common. There a numerous other examples like this. These drugs may be safe to use by people with certain conditions or at certain levels or situations arise where the risk of not using the drug outweighs the risks associated with using it. When you permit athletes to use… Read more »

JDV
JDV
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Melky finishes his season with 501 PA…one shy of qualifying, but could still win batting title by rule. MLB says, ‘go Andrew…please’.

Mike L
Mike L
12 years ago

I wish this hadn’t happened with Melky. His improvement seemed really odd to Yankees fans, but it would have been nice to have seen it purely from maturation. This era is going to be really hard to judge when history has a chance to pass a verdict. Maybe he saw he was a discard, and he felt like he had to do something. He cheated. What else can you say?

MikeD
MikeD
12 years ago
Reply to  Mike L

I agree. I always thought Melky could be a bit more than the 4th OFer he was with the Yankees, but I never expected him to do what he’s done the past two seasons. His KC season in 2011 represented what I thought was his absolute peak if everything kind of went right. This year was a great surprise. He just cost himself a lot of money. Some team will sign him, but he’ll have to prove he’s capable of doing what Ryan Braun is doing, which is continuing to perform. I don’t see him getting more than a one-year… Read more »

Ed
Ed
12 years ago
Reply to  MikeD

Everyone’s going to assume that Cabrera’s improvement is due to PEDs. And maybe it is. But we really don’t have any definitive evidence of how testosterone effects baseball performance. Meanwhile, the beginning of Cabrera’s career isn’t that noticeably different from someone named Roberto Clemente….

MikeD
MikeD
12 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Oh, I agree. I’m usually in the group downplaying PEDs. Not ignoring them, but I feel the impact is nowhere near what many assume.

In the case of Melky, he clearly made a decision to get himself in great shape, and also made a slight change in his hitting approach. Unfortunately he also added a steroid into his training program, and that’s going to taint everything he has done, costing him millions. That’s why I said he may have to take a one-year deal and show teams that last two seasons are not just the product of a bottle.

RJ
RJ
12 years ago
Reply to  MikeD

“Unfortunately he also added a steroid into his training program, and that’s going to taint everything he has done.”

Exactly my feelings. We’ll never know how much of his improvement was due to plain old hard work, and how much was steroids. Its an extremely frustrating and unnecessary situation.

Paul E
Paul E
12 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Ed:
And Clemente is the ONLY guy Cabrera’s career path is similar to….Por ejemplo:
Age 21-25 OPS+ Age 26-27 OPS+
Clemente 99 133
Cabrera 86 136
Manning 84 90
Flood 96 107
Willie Davis 99 100
Damon 96 101
Cardenal 95 97

All these guys were OF’ers with 2463 – 2807 PA’s between 21-25 and at least 1,000 PA’s for 25-26 seasons. I believe, besides providing acne-scarring, testosterone does enhance performance. For crissakes, why else would an athlete take it?

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
12 years ago
Reply to  Paul E

Clemente probably shouldn’t have been playing in MLB his age 20-21 years with the Pirates,
but was required to, since he was a Rule 5 player:

Transactions – November 22, 1954: Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1954 rule 5 draft.

It does seem odd that it took him five full years to progress from a mediocre to outstanding hitter.

Voomo Zanzibar
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

There’s been too much distinction lately.
Distinction is getting watered down.

Here, so as not to jinx distinction, I will posit that we have two viable Triple Crown (old school) candidates.

McCutchen is 1st in BA, by a lot.
6 behind in HR
12 behind in RBI

Miguel Cabrera is 15 points behind Trout
4 behind in HR
and 2 ahead of Hamilton in RBI

brp
brp
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Regarding the K-rate correlation, I screamed this at the TV and radio about five times yesterday & today already with all these “brilliant” sportscasters wondering why no-hitter ratios have increased.

Uh, because there’s fewer balls in play. It’s not that complicated…

bstar
bstar
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

I just can’t see McCutchen actually improving much on his performance thus far, and I think being 6 HR behind and having three people ahead of you is too tall of an order for Andrew. As for RBI, he’s not even in the top-10 in the National League. Hard to imagine that many more Pirates baserunners getting on for him to improve on his RBI rate enough to overtake 11 guys.

I don’t really see McCutchen as a true triple-crown threat yet.

Doug
Editor
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Now starting the 8th, and still perfect.

Voomo Zanzibar
12 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Doug, you used the P word.
Oy…

Struck out the side in the 8th.
MLB.com is live-streaming it…

Dave V.
Dave V.
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Thanks JA for mentioning this…when I saw your comment about the perfect game going on, I checked the MLB Network to see if it was on and it was, so I got to watch from there. Thanks for the heads-up and what a dominating performance!

MikeD
MikeD
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

“Distinctive?” Ha! Love it.

Evan
Evan
12 years ago

Felix Hernandez with .666 WPA according to Fangraphs.

Dave V.
Dave V.
12 years ago

2 of Felix’s last 3 games have now been CGSO victories in 1-0 games (and his 3rd such game of the season). That’s pretty impressive.

Dave V.
Dave V.
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Thanks JA and it’s been a pretty crazy summer for me, so that’s impacted being able to post much, though I’ve still checked in and read a lot of the threads when I can. I’m looking forward to the remaining Rushmore polls as well 🙂 That really is something that no other AL pitchers have even two 1-0 shutouts in a single season over the past 20 years. I guess it helps the other guys that they didn’t have offenses as bad as the Mariners. But nonetheless, to bear down and get a 1-0 shutout when you have no margin… Read more »

Dave V.
Dave V.
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Ah gotcha; it was early in the morning and I mis-read!

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

John: here’s what I did. I went to PI and searched as follows:

Pitching Game Finder
Find all matching games
Years: 1993-2012
Player’s team: AL
Opponent: Both leagues
Pitcher’s role: SHO
Sort by date of game
Get Report
The results spreadsheets contain 675 games spanning three pages. On each page sort by Rslt and visually scan for pitchers with 1-0 games. Aside from Hernandez there were no other pitchers with more than one 1-0 game in a season.

MikeD
MikeD
12 years ago

Fantastic game by the King. Making his Cy Young push.

I know this discussion keeps popping up now with the recent rise in no-hitters and perfect games. Could be randomness, but I still don’t think so. If I have my numbers correct, 2010 was the first season that featured two perfect games. That record lasted all of two years as 2012 has featured three perfect games.

More than one-quarter, (26%) of all perfect games have been pitched over a little more than the past three years.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
12 years ago
Reply to  MikeD

Clearly, this is beyond randomness – remember, there has been one more perfect game than the records show, since a bad call on the last play does not disturb the fact of perfection. Past HHS discussions have more or less reached a consensus that the correlation with increasing K’s that JA points to is probably the main reason. I agree with Voomo, though, that when the perfect game loses its . . . distinctiveness, then something important has disappeared from the game. A pitcher like Felix would be a good candidate for a truly distinctive accomplishment – once about the… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
12 years ago
Reply to  MikeD

Hot damn E.P.M.! My light sarcastic aside correlates with your noam chomskyish gravitas.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
12 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

It’s all good, deepstructurewise.

birtelcom
Editor
12 years ago
Reply to  MikeD

Not purely random. Over the 41 seasons from 1923 through 1963 there were no regular season perfect games. Over that time, there were on average about 3.75 strikeouts per nine innings in the majors. This season the K/9 rate in the majors has been just about double that, over 7.4 strikeouts per game, by far the highest rate ever. More Ks, fewer balls in play, higher chance of no-hitter/perfecto. But it also takes some lightning striking, too.

Mark in Sydney
Mark in Sydney
12 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Is there still room in the majors for a team to play small-ball?

K&J
K&J
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

It’s a weak division, I hate to say. Both teams have glaring flaws. That extreme a lack of HRs hurts. Dodgers would obviously be further down that road if they could just keep Kemp healthy.

Jim Bouldin
12 years ago
Reply to  Mark in Sydney

Never been a better time for it IMO. Put together a team that can hit for average, draw walks, steal bases, distract the pitcher on the basepaths and I will put my money on that team to be at or near the top every year. When pitchers are dialing up the heat, developing better late movement or changes of speeds etc, the dumbest thing you can do is continue to swing for the fences. The problem is that many of today’s players grew up watching the mash-em, steroids ball of ten years ago and they have no idea how to… Read more »

Tmckelv
Tmckelv
12 years ago
Reply to  Mark in Sydney

Even the Yanks tried some small ball in the bottom of the 8th last night. Jeter bunted into the air with no out an runners on 1st and 2nd. The pitcher let it drop and then threw to first to get Jeter and the runner n first got caught in a rundown. Meanwhile Ichiro stayed put at second base. Disaster.

But actually should have been worse, as the pitcher should have thrown to 3rd which would have resulted in a 1-5-4 double play with Jeter on first.

MikeD
MikeD
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Did I actually have any reasoning? : -) I thought I made an observation and ran for cover!

I do think your point regarding strikeouts, echoed by birtelcom, is the main contributing factor and, yes, throw in a pinch of randomness, and we have what we have. I find many of the comments and observations interesting, inclduing a potential loss of specialness around perfect games if this trend continues.

kingcrab
kingcrab
12 years ago

the rays are a no-hitting machine

Doug
Doug
12 years ago

Another note from Tuesday’s Toronto-Chicago game – Omar Vizquel was used for the first time this season as a pinch-runner, joining Carlton Fisk and Julio Franco as the only players to do so after their 45th birthday. Colby Rasmus joins Ron Karkovice and Carlos Delgado on the unenviable list of players who have been substituted for such a pinch-runner.

Daniel Longmire
Daniel Longmire
12 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Damn it, Doug! As the resident old-man stathead on here, you’re taking the bread out of my mouth. :] I don’t know how you located that tasty morsel, but if you’re Ron Karkovice, how slow do you have to be to get pinch-run for by a quadragenarian fellow catcher?

Doug
Doug
12 years ago

Another Vizquel morsel for you, Daniel. Vizquel trails only Luis Aparicio in WAR by players with Vizquel’s OPS+ (82) or lower. If that OPS+ number should drop a notch by the end of the year, then Vizquel will hold that field alone.

Also, with all the Blue Jay injuries, Vizquel is playing enough that I expect he will reach 12,000 career PAs before the end of the year (he needs 32 more PA). If he does, Vizquel’s career WAR (currently 40.5) will displace Dave Winfield (59.4) for the lowest mark among players with that many PAs.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
12 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Vizquel has played 22 seasons with OPS+ less than 100. That is a record for position players. Counting pitchers only Greg Maddux, with 23, has more.

Daniel Longmire
Daniel Longmire
12 years ago

Doug and Richard, this is why I come to this site so often; dedicated and informed baseball lovers like you! (and John, and Andy…)

Brooklyn Mick
Brooklyn Mick
12 years ago

Daniel, somehow I don’t think being a quadragenarian makes you the old man of the bunch.

Daniel Longmire
Daniel Longmire
12 years ago
Reply to  Brooklyn Mick

Mick, I’m not a quadragenarian; I was referring to Carlton Fisk at the time. What I meant was that I enjoy finding out as much as possible about those extra-long careers (like Vizquel’s) that are so different from the arc of a typical player. This site is enabling my addiction. :]

Brooklyn Mick
Brooklyn Mick
12 years ago

My apologies Daniel. Now that I’ve re-read your post I see what you meant — Fisk pinch-running for Karkovice. I guess I’m the one showing my age, which is higher than a quadragenarian.

Dave V.
Dave V.
12 years ago

Regarding the increasing K rate, it hasn’t necessarily been in effect in the “recent” perfect games, (the 7 of them since 2009 and I am counting Galarraga in that mix: **2009–2012 perfect games** Galarraga: 3 K’s Buehrle: 6 K’s Braden: 6 K’s Humber: 9 K’s Halladay: 11 K’s Felix: 12 K’s Cain: 14 K’s —– 8.71 K’s per game **pre-2009 perfect games** Ward: 2 K’s (in 1880) Joss: 3 K’s Richmond: 5 K’s (in 1880) D.Martinez: 5 K’s Robertson: 6 K’s Browning: 7 K’s Larsen: 7 K’s K.Rogers: 8 K’s C.Young: 8 K’s Bunning: 10 K’s Witt: 10 K’s Cone:… Read more »

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave V.

Interesting analysis, Dave. I think the argument would be that most PGs are hi-K affairs, and that as the number of hi-K games increases, the odds of a PG rises. Obviously, there are some excecptional low-K PGs in all eras, but few enough to be random noise. (Actually, with 24 total examples, I suppose random noise may be the main theme.) It is true, though, that in the relatively low K era 1920-1960, the PG was virtually extinct. Better defense, as you suggest in #84, could be a factor, but has there been a spike in defense in recent years?… Read more »

Dave V.
Dave V.
12 years ago

If Tampa Bay didn’t exist, there’d be a lot less perfect game talk. PG’d in 2009, 2010 and now 2012. That’s ridiculous.

Actually, 11 of the 24 PG’s (again counting Galarraga) have been since 1990’s expansion…

And then there’s improved fielding, bigger gloves, better understanding of defense and defensive shifts.

Just a few random thoughts.