A point of interest for some AL contenders: The last ALCS team that ranked below 5th in on-base percentage was the 2006 Tigers. Seattle (15th), Kansas City (11th) and Baltimore (10th) are swimming against that tide. For the World Series, just one of the last 14 participants ranked below league average in OBP.

• By the way, and stating the obvious — Virtually all my data comes from the essential Baseball-Reference.com.

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Thursday, 9/18

TEX 7, @OAK 2 — I’m saving my “epic collapse” material until the A’s are actually eliminated. But when you think you’ve hit rock bottom … then cough up a 4-run furball in the top of the 1st, on four straight two-out, two-strike base hits … and wind up swept at home by the worst team in the majors … you are officially on ’round-the-clock death watch.

@PIT 3, BOS 2 — Ohhh …. so that’s why a runner on third is supposed to remain in foul ground at all times.

• Starling Marte is crushing in the second half. His 1.043 OPS leads all those with 150 PAs since the Break, as does his gain over his first-half mark of .708.
• Josh Harrison holds a slim lead in the NL batting race. He’s played 62 games at 3B (45 starts), 26 games in both RF and LF (23 and 21 starts), 17 at 2B (13 starts) and 8 at SS (4 starts). No modern batting champ is known to have played at least 15 games at four different positions, even counting DH as a position.
• With Boston, Allen Craig is 8 for 66 with 28 Ks, his 2 RBI coming on his lone homer.

@STL 3, MIL 2 (13 inn.) — Out of six sac bunts attempted, the only one that had a role in a run was the one Shelby Miller threw away, snapping his 45-start errorless streak.

• Speaking of bunts … The Cards are on the verge of their first year ever with no sac bunts by a shortstop. On a related note, Jhonny Peralta’s 21 homers are the most ever in one year by any collection of STL shortstops.

SEA 3, LAA 1 — A glance at the line score and the Angels’ post-clincher starting lineup evokes an old joke whose punchline is, “… and three play later, they scored a touchdown.”

• Wade LeBlanc’s last scoreless start was June 7, 2010. His teams have lost all nine of his starts in the last two seasons

CLE 2, @HOU 1 (13 inn.) — Every time you think they’re out …

• Absent a doghouse or “tomater can” on the field of play, here’s the best disappearing ball play we might see for a while.

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Wednesday, 9/17

@STL 2, MIL 0 — Scoreless in the top of the 7th, one out and bases empty, Mike Fiers due to bat against Adam Wainwright: What’s your play? Fiers was absolutely dealing, as he has all summer — a walk in the 3rd, and Wainwright’s single with two out in the 6th — but he’s hopeless at bat, with 4 singles in 52 ABs, 31 Ks and no walks up to that point in his career. In two prior trips, he’d whiffed on three pitches, then tapped back to Waino. Ron Roenicke stuck by his starter, and Fiers quickly fanned again.

One of my kooky theories, you may recall, is that a starter given a questionable at-bat often cracks in the next inning. Sure enough, the Cards tallied twice off Fiers in the 7th, two singles following a one-out walk, compounded by an outfield bobble. Hardly an onslaught — and my theory’s surely fueled by confirmation bias — but Fiers had fanned 7 of 19 batters through the 6th, then none of six in the 7th, when seven swings produced five balls in play, one foul and one miss.

Roenicke had most of his LHBs in the lineup, but the powerful Matt Clark was available; after a big year in the minors, he’s hit 3 HRs in 23 PAs this month — and in one prior encounter with Wainwright, he lined out to deep right. The chance wouldn’t come again, and the Crew fell 3 losses back of the Bucs in the wild card chase.

• This year, pitchers batting in the 7th-9th innings, tie game and bases empty, have one single and one walk in 33 PAs. The last three years have seen just one extra-base hit out of 76 such PAs, hit by … well, naturally.
• Out of 128 pitchers with 50+ innings in the second half, Fiers rates 2nd in RA/9 and K%, and 1st in WHIP, BA, OBP and SLG.
• Sure, I’m ignoring Waino’s shutout. What can I say about him that you don’t know? That he’s tied with Kershaw for the NL lead in wins since 2009, despite missing a year? That he could join Roy Halladay as the only ones to win 20 twice in the last 10 years?

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Tuesday, 9/16

@BAL 8, TOR 2 — Steve Pearce‘s early 3-run shot got the night’s Beltway Bonanza rolling, and the O’s clinched in their trademark style — pulling Ubaldo Jimenez after five wobbly frames, thus setting a record of 21 wins by starting pitchers lasting less than 6 innings. Monday’s winner, Wei-Yin Chen (16-4), leads that brigade with seven such wins — one shy of the searchable record, and two more than this year’s #2, teammate Bud Norris [now one more].

• Baltimore has gone 23-10 since Manny Machado’s last game. A 9-2 finish would make their first 100-win year since the hard-luck 1980 Birds, who missed the dance despite MLB’s 2nd-best record.
• After a midseason slump, Pearce is slashing back up to .294/.371/.541, with a 155 OPS+ in 361 PAs. Through last year, age 30, Pearce had a career 87 OPS+ in 847 PAs. How rare is his emergence after age 30? For a quick check, I took the 188 non-pitchers with similar OPS+ and playing time through age 30 — OPS+ from 78 to 96, and 700-1,000 PAs. For all their seasons from age 31 onward, only Pearce has even one year with 150 OPS+ in 300 PAs. Three others had any 300-PA year at 130 OPS+ or better: George Harper (three times), John Vander Wal and Ted Savage once each. (The SABR bios of Harper and Savage are worth a read.)
• As to Pearce’s value … His 5.5 WAR through Monday (in just 95 games) ranked 8th among AL position players, and his rate of WAR per game trailed only Troy Tulowitzki among all those with at least 4.0 WAR.

@PIT 4, BOS 0 — A timely 9-2 surge has pulled the Pirates up to a season-best 10 games over .500, and a 2-loss cushion in the wild card race.

• With strong defense and a .411 OBP (#1 for 400+ PAs), Russell Martin’s 5.1 WAR is approaching the best by a Bucco backstop. Tony Pena notched 5.9 WAR in 1984, and Jason Kendall peaked at 5.6 in 1998 (also a .411 OBP). Both played far more than Martin, whose WAR per game rates 4th this year among those with at least 4.0 WAR.
• Righty John Holdzkom, a June salvage signee, notched his 6th scoreless inning. He’s fanned 11 of 19 batters, yielding a single and a walk.

@MIN 4, DET 3 — A stunning Detroit comeback turned to sawdust in Joe Nathan’s hands. Trailing 2-0 with two out in the 9th, J.D. Martinez ripped a 3-run homer off Glen Perkins, the southpaw’s third blown save (and fourth HR) in his last five chances. Nathan started well, retiring Kennys Vargas, who’d built the Twins’ lead with a homer, single, and his first triple (all in Rick Porcello’s eight frames). But he collapsed against the lower half, serving a walk-off single to the .209-hitting Aaron Hicks.

• Nathan had closed 17 of his last 18 save tries, but with a 1.48 WHIP, he walked a fine line almost every night. His season K rate (21.1%) is lowest among the 20 guys with at least 24 saves this year.
• Just one other Tiger in the last 20 years hit a go-ahead homer when down 2 runs or more with two out in the 9th or later: Torii Hunter’s walk-off against Grant Balfour last August.
• Vargas hasn’t drawn a walk in his last 23 games, the 2nd-longest active streak of starts. Salvador Perez has the longest active streak (29) and the longest of the year (42); Perez has drawn 21 walks this year, but just 3 in his last 77 games.

CHW 7, @KCR 5 — Ned Yost’s legion of critics got one of their wishes, as the KC skipper summoned both of his set-up stars before their appointed round. It may prove to be the last time. Conor Gillaspie’s 3-run triple off Wade Davis in the 7th trumped a 5-4 Royals lead, and snapped with one stroke the scoreless streaks of both Davis and Kelvin Herrera. The latter got the Royals through a minor spot in the 6th, but when he let Sox reach the corner sacks the next inning, with one down and Jose Abreu stepping in, Yost turned to his whiff machine — Davis’s first entry before the 8th inning this year. But Abreu fouled away a trio while a walk, and Gillaspie likewise fought off strike three before finding an outfield seam.

• The loss cost KC a chance to tie Oakland for the top wild card, and shaved their lead over Seattle to one game — and still the suspended game looms.
• The zero streaks of Davis and Herrera both began on June 27, and had passed 31 innings. Since 2009, only Craig Kimbrel had a longer string of scoreless relief stanzas.
• Yost set a Royals record by using nine pitchers in a 9-inning game. Seven of them worked less than one inning, a count exceeded but once in MLB history (you’ll never guess who managed that one!), and equaled just twice. Six got exactly two outs, which is a first — no other team game of any length had more than four such stints.
• Another Yost milestone: His six mid-inning pitching maneuvers helped make it the longest regulation tilt in KC history, 4:16. (By the way, this 2-0 game from 1986 supposedly took 4:18, with only one pitching change. An A.P. story doesn’t mention the time. Anyone?)

MIL 3, @STL 2 (12 inn.) — A two-out steal by Carlos Gomez set up Hector Gomez’s first RBI, breaking a deadlock in the 12th, and the Brewers kept pace with Pittsburgh. Hector’s clutch hit in Jonathan Lucroy’s spot vindicated Ron Roenicke’s decision to pinch-run for his best hitter in the 9th, when the Crew pulled even against Trevor Rosenthal.

SEA 13, @LAA 2 — After being completely shut down by Cory Rasmus, the Mariners jumped all over his relief, batting around in both the 5th and 6th frames to blast away an early 2-0 deficit. Seattle starter Roenis Elias left with an achy elbow after starting the home 4th, but five relievers got the last 18 outs from just 19 batters and 61 pitches; there was a single and a walk, and Josh Hamilton came up short on a steal attempt.

• Filling in for Garrett Richards, erstwhile reliever Cory Rasmus has made four straight starts of no more than 4 innings or 2 runs allowed. Such a 4-start streak has happened just three other times since 1914, all with young Dodgers rookies late in the year: Don Sutton, 1966; Stan Williams, 1958; and Johnny Podres, 1953. Each was probably nursing an injury, with at least one span of 10 days off during the streak. Williams pulled off the unique feat of lasting one inning or less in all four starts. (Explain this: Sutton didn’t get a single vote for Rookie of the Year, despite landing among the NL leaders with 209 strikeouts, 2.99 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 4.02 K/W. But someone voted for Larry Jaster.)
• Do first names run in 100-year cycles? Before Carson Smith came up this month, the last MLB player with that first name was Carson Bigbee, who debuted in 1916. There were 142 years in between Caleb Johnson and our current Caleb trio.

SFG 2, @ARI 1 — Jake Peavy can’t lose! His 4-start win streak tied his career best

@CHC 7, CIN 0 — Brandon Phillips stopped Jake Arrieta’s no-hit bid with one out in the 8th, but Jake brought it in from there. He fanned three of the last five Reds for a career-high 13 Ks and his first complete game, facing one man over the minimum. Billy Hamilton walked in the 4th, but was caught stealing on the next pitch.

• Arrieta’s 97 Game Score is 3rd-best this year. Only he and Kerry Wood have notched a 97 for the Cubs since 1927, and the four who did it from 1914-27 needed from 12 to 21 innings. Wood scored a 105 in his 20-strikeout game in 1998, and a 97 in 2001.
• Fans of pointless braggadocio relished the Phillips bat-flip and his walking start towards first base, while friends of cosmic justice wished that Matt Szczur could have stretched another half-foot for the diving catch on the track. I guess Brandon thought he got all of it, which would have snapped his 37-game homer drought; and of course, closing the gap to 7-1 would have been cause to strut.

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Monday, 9/15: Two 1-0 walk-offs, far from the madding playoff chase…

@CHC 1, CIN 0 — Anthony Rizzo rejoiced at ending his three-week layoff, leading off the 9th with his 31st home run. He owns the Cubs’ last three game-winning blasts, back to July 2012.

• Chicago’s last walk-off bomb when tied 0-0 was in 1995, by … HoJo?
• Barring a sudden change, Javier Baez will set a whiff-rate record for those with 150+ PAs. He’s at 72 for 174, 41.3%. The next-highest rate was 39.4%; teammate Mike Olt’s 38.4% is 4th-highest on that list.

@TBR 1, NYY 0 — In 21 games this year, both starters had scoreless outings of 6 to 7 innings. The next-most in a season was 13 in 2010; seven was the most in any year of the 20th century.

• Two 1-0 losses in September for the Yankees, first time since 1958. They went from 1991 through 2009 without a 1-0 loss in September or October, including the postseason.

@BAL 5, TOR 2 — The Orioles clinched a tie for the AL East title.

@KCR 4, CHW 3 — Two Royals scored with two out in the 9th, completing a late comeback against the best that Chicago’s heinous bullpen offers. Two pinch-runners played key roles: After Mike Moustakas doubled, Jarrod Dyson stole third and turned the corner on a wild pitch to tie it. Then Nori Aoki doubled, and speedster Terrance Gore blazed home to jubilation on a chopper up the middle that didn’t even reach the infield dirt. John Danks held KC to a pair of singles through six frames, but they rapped out 7 hits against the arson corps, plus two walks and three wild pitches.

DET 8, @MIN 6 — After Max Scherzer and friends blew a 6-0 lead, Torii Hunter and Miguel Cabrera homered back-to-back in the 9th, and Joakim Soria brought it home.

• Miggy’s off year now includes 70 extra-base hits, 3rd in MLB. I took the quotes away from “off year” — it is an off year, next to his pantheon numbers from 2010-13. He’s still one of the game’s 10 best hitters right now.

@HOU 3, CLE 1 — Getting swept in Detroit closed the door on Cleveland, and Collin McHugh turned the deadbolt. Houston has started 8-4 under interim skipper Tom Lawless, winning series against all three AL West contenders.

• McHugh has a 145 ERA+ in 149 innings, and Dallas Keuchel’s at a 131 ERA+ in 192 innings. Only three prior Astros teams had two pitchers with at least a 130 ERA+ and 150 IP, most recently the 2005 World Series club.

@SDP 1, PHI 0 — With this two-hitter, Andrew Cashner is the first Padre to complete 9 innings in no more than 28 batters since he did it himself in a one-hitter, a year less one day ago. With his one-hitter back in April, he joins Adam Wainwright and Madison Bumgarner with two 9-IP efforts of two hits or less this year. His 2.20 ERA and 153 ERA+ in 17 starts rank 5th and 7th among all those with at least 12 starts this season, and 2nd & 7th in Padres history for a dozen starts or more.

• After busting Cashner’s no-hitter with a bunt hit in the 5th, Domonic Brown entered the race for worst baserunning play this year: He ran from first with one out on an easy pop-up — can’t tell if he was stealing, but even so, you’ve got to pick the ball up — and then missed second base on the return trip, negating a flubbed throw to first that would have made him safe.
• Aside to Andrew: Nothing undermines the unwritten rules more than a mindless, self-serving interpretation. Grant Brisbee has the apt counterpoint: “You lose your right to complain about anything when you use a defensive shift. … Brown didn’t do anything wrong because he decided to play baseball in a one-run game.“

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Last Weekend’s Series

Sunday, 9/14: OAK 4, @SEA 0 — Jon Lester gutted out six high-pitch scoreless frames, and Brandon Moss hit his first homer since before Lester was landed, sparking Oakland’s first back-to-back wins since August 22-23. The series win in Seattle gave the A’s a 2.5-game cushion in the playoff chase, with 13 to play.

• Lester crossed 200 Ks for the third time. He’s delivered a 2.30 ERA and nine straight quality starts since joining the A’s, 25 out of 30 in all — the AL’s 2nd-best total and percentage.
• Moss had hit .163 in his last 148 PAs, with 7 RBI.
• Seattle had been this year’s Cardinals, leading all teams in BA and OPS gains with RISP over bases empty. But they went 0-13 today, 2-21 in the series.

Saturday, 9/13: OAK 3, @SEA 2 (10 inn.) — The reeling A’s stared down a mid-game deficit to King Felix and the risk of falling to the bottom of the playoff pool. The winning run came on a 4-pitch pass to punchless Jed Lowrie, the fourth walk in the frame by Fernando Rodney, and the first go-ahead walk given by a Mariner in extra time since 1995.

• Rodney has walked at least 3.5 per 9 IP in 11 of his 12 seasons, with a 4.8 composite for those years — making the 2012 exception (1.8 W/9) all the more mysterious. Since 1995, out of 90 pitchers who averaged 4.0 W/9 with at least 500 total innings, only Rodney had any 50-IP year under 2.1 W/9 — that’s one out of 643 seasons.
• Austin Jackson seemed a sure bet to better Seattle’s feeble production from leadoff and center field. But he’s actually made those holes even deeper. Comparing “others” and Jackson, as starters in the leadoff spot:
  — BA, from .256 down to .244
  — OPS, from .653 down to .564
  — Runs per 162 G, from 78 down to 61
  — RBI per 162 G, from 50 down to 45
  And for all that, the M’s have gone 24-16, thanks to a 2.76 ERA.

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Sunday, 9/14: LAD 4, @SFG 2 — Even before Saturday’s rout, a roadblock had loomed against SF’s hope of sweeping into first place: Sunday was Kershaw’s turn. Even more daunting than his 1.62 ERA this year, or his 1.41 against the Giants, was Clayton’s 7-2, 0.90 mark in 10 games in their park, never yielding more than two runs. They did nick him twice today with two-out hits — Kershaw carried a .135 two-out BA into the game — but their defense donated a pair, Matt Kemp bombed a long 2-run shot, and Kenley Jansen slammed the door on his 42nd save, LA’s most since Eric Gagne.

• Kershaw’s seven straight games with 8+ innings is just the second such streak since 1997; Cliff Lee went 10 straight in 2010. The last Dodger to go “8-by-seven” was (as you guessed) Orel Hershiser, 1988.

Saturday, 9/13: LAD 17, @SFG 0 — The worst whitewashing of the San Francisco Giants. The old mark was 16-0 in Oakland on June 26, 2005, a combined one-hitter started by Rich Harden. Their biggest home blanking had been 15-0 to the Cubs on August 22, 1970, with Hal Lanier breaking up Ken Holtzman’s no-hitter with two out in the 8th. (Holtzman had tossed a no-no the previous August, and would bag another the following June.) LA’s biggest shutout of their upstate rivals had been a pair of 11-zips in 1997, home and away; but the Giants beat them down the stretch for the division crown.

• What do you suppose Bruce Bochy said to his son, Brett, handing him the ball for his big-league debut, with the sacks full of Dodgers and the Giants already down, 13-0? He might have alluded to an unappetizing sandwich, still just half eaten…. Facing just seven batters, young Bochy mixed a potpourri of bags-full walk, a whiff, a plunking, a home run, groundouts to short and second, and a pop fly to first.

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Sunday, 9/14: BOS 8, @KCR 4 — Two out in the 6th, Royals ahead 4-3, but Sox on all the cushions. Daniel Nava has a huge platoon split — career .290 BA and .809 OPS against righties, but .210/.588 vs. southpaws. Aaron Crow has a typical righty’s split. But Ned Yost’s bullpen lacks a quality LHP. And he wasn’t about to tear up his schedule and just bring in one of his better righties. So Yost sat tight — and one pitch and 386 feet later (as the Crow flies), there goes the ballgame.

@TEX 10, ATL 3 — Epitaphs for the 2014 Bravos are rolling in after a sweep by the worst club in MLB, and most of those will mention batters’ strikeouts. But how much value is there in the kind of outs made? In getting a man home from 3rd with less than two out, Atlanta’s at the NL average of 50%. Yes, they’re last in “productive outs” — but the spread between first and last is just 37 “successes”; the spread is 19 from Atlanta to league average. Even if they made up that gap and every one led to an extra run, it wouldn’t come close to bridging their -46 run gap against the league norm, nor move their negative run differential into playoff-caliber. Exempting the Coors-warped club, three of the NL’s next four teams in productive outs are the Reds, D-backs and Cards, all below average in scoring. Besides, Atlanta’s offensive underachievement was actually concentrated in bases-empty situations: Compared to league norms, their OBP and OPS were -.005 and -.025 with bases empty, and -.002 and -.016 with RISP.

Four Atlanta hitters have whiffed at least 130 times: Justin Upton and Freddie Freeman had good years, both in the NL’s top 10 in OPS+. B.J. Upton and Chris Johnson would still be bad hitters if they cut their Ks to levels nobody would talk about. Evan Gattis fanned in 24% of his trips, but he still produced a 129 OPS+; meanwhile, their best contact-hitting regular, Andrelton Simmons, had an awful year at bat. Those who harp on Atlanta’s whiffs are out of touch with how the game is played today: The AL and NL RBI leaders — Mike Trout and Giancarlo Stanton, both strong MVP candidates — have 168 and 170 Ks, and the top five in RBI average 139 Ks. Strikeouts alone say very little about what a hitter does to help his team. Atlanta needs better hitters; whether they whiff 50 times or 150 hardly matters.

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Saturday, Sept. 13

Saturday, 9/13: @LAA 5, HOU 2 — The Angels have won 10 in a row despite averaging just 5.0 innings from their starters. Jered Weaver’s 7-IP stint was their longest in 12 games; none has gone 8 in their last 37 games, since a Garrett Richards shutout.

Saturday, 9/13: @DET 5, CLE 4 — Victor Martinez has been stuck on 39 strikeouts through his last 14 games, a season pace of 43 whiffs to go with his 31 HRs (and counting). In the past 20 years, only Barry Bonds (1994 and ’04) hit 30+ HRs with fewer than 45 Ks. This year, the other 12 guys with at least 27 HRs all have at least 74 Ks, with an average of 125.

• Has anyone heard Michael Brantley‘s name in the MVP conversation? I wouldn’t pick him first, but he’s tied with Robinson Cano for 3rd place in WAR/pos, and one of the main reasons Cleveland hasn’t folded the tent yet.

@CHW 5, MIN 1 (day) — Jose Quintana has slashed his home-run rate by more than 60% compared to his first two seasons, ranking 3rd-best in MLB this year.

• Phil Hughes fanned 11 and walked one, maintaining the exact K/W ratio he began with (now 165 to 15) — which would exactly tie Bret Saberhagen’s qualified record. His latest string walk-free string ended at five starts; he went six straight earlier, the longest since 2005. He also has 19 straight with no more than one walk, one shy of the best since 2005.

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Sunday, 9/14: @BAL 3, NYY 2 — Not quite a clincher, but it had all the feel of one.

• Kelly Johnson began the year a Yankee, but had no go-ahead RBI after the 6th in his 77 games there. His last one came against the Yanks in May of 2013.
• Derek Jeter took a loud 0-4, his OBP and SLG both falling to .298. Only one qualified Yankee in the DH era had both numbers under .300: Rafael Santana, 1988 (also the last qualified Yank to OPS+ 70 or less).

Friday, Sept. 12: @BAL 2, NYY 1 (day, 11 inn.) — New Yankee Chris Young had a third straight heroic game, following up Thursday’s game-winning blast with an 11th-frame goose-egg-buster. But new Bird Jimmy Paredes got the last chirp.

• Young has homered and doubled in three straight games — the first streak of its kind since April of last year. The last Yankee to do that was not Don Mattingly, but Reggie Jackson, in 1980.

In the nightcap, Alejandro De Aza became the 9th player ever with two triples in a game at Camden Yards, and the 3rd Oriole. The first guy who did that may surprise you.

• If there’s any time that momentum can carry over from one game to the next, you’d surely expect to see it in doubleheaders like this one, where the O’s won the opener with a two-out walk-off-while-trailing. So I looked at all 40 known twin-bills where game 1 was won in that exact fashion. The “lightning-strike” winner went 22-18 in game 2. (Six of those game 2’s were also won by walk-off, including one where lightning struck twice.)
• Last time the Yanks were held to one run in a doubleheader was August 1991 … twice in a four-day span.

@MIL 3, CIN 2 — Jonathan Lucroy’s 51st double set up the winning run, delivered by Lyle Overbay, who holds the franchise season record of 53 doubles. The only other Brewer to hit 50 two-baggers, Aramis Ramirez, also batted in that inning.

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Thursday, Sept. 11

Since he joined the rotation on August 9, Mike Fiers is 6-1 with a 1.74 RA/9 … and the rest of the Brewers are 6-18, 5.42 RA/9.

Buster Posey suddenly has an outside shot at his second batting title. He’s added 30 points to his average in just 19 games, going 37 for 80.

• It’s a funny game. Jake Peavy went 18 starts without a win (including 12 straight team losses) — now he’s won 5 out of 6.

The Angels’ 8th straight win put them at 91-55, nine victories short of the 2002 franchise record. With just three more wins, Mike Scioscia will own the club’s six best seasons. He already has more wins at their helm (1,324) than their next three best skippers combined (1,241).

• How many managers lasted 15 years in their first job? By my unofficial count, Scioscia is the 6th in modern times: Walter Alston went 23 years with the Dodgers, and handed off to Tommy Lasorda for the next 20+ … Fred Clarke lasted 16 years with Pittsburgh (you could make it 19 by counting his time with the Louisville Colonels, who sort of folded into the Bucs), and Tom Kelly 16 with the Twins (15 full) … Then come Earl Weaver, and Scioscia. Hughie Jennings went 14 years with Detroit … Ron Gardenhire is in year 13 with Minny … Jimmy Dykes went 12+ with the ChiSox, and Bruce Bochy 12 with the Padres. Did I miss any? (Wilbert Robinson would make the list for his 18 years with the “Robins” but for a half-year as player-manager of the original Orioles 12 years earlier, after John McGraw jumped.)

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Random Notes

Detroit call-up Stephen Moya led the AA Eastern League with 35 HRs, 12 more than #2 and as many as his next three teammates combined. He also has one of the most hack-tastic K/W ratios you’ll ever see — almost six to one for his career, and a flat seven to one this year (161 Ks, 23 walks). Moya still managed a .276 average.

Victor Martinez isn’t the only power hitter rowing against the strikeout tsunami. David Ortiz sharply cut his whiffs in 2011, and has maintained it: For 2011-14 compared to 2004-10, he’s chopped almost one-quarter off his K rate, from 18.6% to 14.4%. His results have improved from .286 BA and 144 OPS+ to .298 BA and 156 OPS+.