Note from Game 4 of the ALCS |

Another day, another crazy ALCS game. Here are some notes:

Cliff Pennington became the first position player in post-season history to pitch in a game. This excludes, of course, 3 games by Rick Ankiel and 3 by Babe Ruth, all coming before their careers primarily as position players.
RA Dickey became the first Blue Jays’ starting pitcher to fail to go at least 2 IP in a playoff game. The previous shortest outing was 2.0 IP, by Todd Stottlemyre in the insane Game 4 of the 1993 World Series.
Dickey’s Game Score of 28 was only the 6th-lowest by a Blue Jay in a playoff game. The 5 lower scores were all in the 1991-93 postseasons.
The Blue Jays are now 25-25 in 50 all-time playoff games. They are 17-10 in games in which they homered and 8-15 in games without a homer.
The Royals’ 14 runs in a franchise high for the playoffs, besting by 3 runs their total of 11 from the Game 7 drubbing of the Cardinals in the 1985 World Series. Interestingly, the Royals went more than 4 years between regular-season games of 14+ runs until finally breaking the mark twice in September of this year.
Alcides Escobar set the single-game playoff record for RBI by a Royals’ leadoff batter, with 4. The only other leadoff Royal to have even 3 in a game was George Brett, in Game 3 of the 1978 ALCS.
LaTroy Hawkins is closing in on the worst playoff ERA in history. He has a 6.75 ERA over 22 career postseason appearances. Among pitchers with at least 20 games, only Tom Gordon (7.06 in 21 games) and Rick Honeycutt (6.93 in 30 games) are worse.
I don’t have good stats on this, but the Royals had 5 hits in 5 plate appearances from the 9-hole last night. That was 3 PAs by Alex Rios and 2 by Paulo Orlando. No single batter has ever had more than 4 hits in 4 PAs from the 9-hole (done by Adam Kennedy, Game 5 2002 ALCS & Spike Owen, Game 6 1986 ALCS) but I’m not sure about 2 combined batters from the 9-hole.
Liam Hendriks’ 4.1 IP relief appearance is now the longest in Blue Jays’ post-season history, topping two different 3.2 IP appearances by Dennis Lamp in the 1985 ALCS and one by Todd Stottlemyre in the 1992 ALCS.
If you’re paying attention, until yesterday Todd Stottlemyre held (or co-held) the Blue Jays’ post-season records for both shortest starting effort and longest relief effort. AND he saw both records broken in the same game. Weird.

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Richard Chester

9 years ago

My analysis shows that there has not been a prior example of 2 (or more) batters in the number 9 hole to combine for 5 hits in a post-season game.

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Doug

Reply to Richard Chester

The proof of Richard’s research follows from:
– Yesterday’s game is the only one in the post-season with two or more players on a team getting multiple hits batting 9th
– The most team hits in the 12 games when three or more players get a hit from the 9 hole is 4 by the Mets in game 6 of the 1999 NLCS
– The most hits from the 9 hole by a player not playing a complete game is 3

Reply to Doug

Doug: Your method is simpler than mine but I did find that there are 13 games with 3 or more players getting a hit from the #9 hole.

Kahuna Tuna

. . . of which my favorite is Game 2 of the 1988 World Series, in which Orel Hershiser singled up the middle in the third inning, doubled down the right-field line in the fourth, and doubled down the left-field line in the sixth. While pitching a three-hit shutout.

Oops. Turns out I was off topic. Sorry. I try never to miss a chance to wax euphoric about the ’88 Series, and I just got caught up.

Brent

On Brett’s 3 RBI as the leadoff hitter in the 1978 ALCS (Game 3 I believe), the 3 RBI came on 3 solo home runs.