Four more games today, including two winner-take-all contests.
The early game is in the books, with the Giants completing their comeback from 0-2, the first team to do so with three straight away wins in a 5-game series.
Washington survived with a walk-off win (the third in less than 24 hours) on a Jayson Werth homer, to pull even with the defending champion Cardinals and force a deciding game tomorrow.
Tell us what’s caught your attention today!
Nobody got swept, so we’re still in business with another quad-play day.
Let us know what grabs you about today’s games.
Former major league pitcher Jim Kaat is providing the TV color commentary for MLB Network coverage of the Tigers-Athletics series. In an HHS reader discussion of that series (and others), a side discussion arose on Jim Kaat’s HOF credentials, during which I offered up the unusual factoid that Kaat’s “historical span” (for want of a better term) covers some 69 seasons of major-league baseball, from 1939 to 2007. This notion is based on the fact that Kaat pitched to both Ted Williams and Julio Franco.
HHS reader RJ thought this might make an interesting blog topic, so let’s find out.
Following are the only players since at least 1918 with an unusual, three-part accomplishment. What have these players done that distinguishes them from all of their brethren?
| Player |
|---|
| Paul Goldschmidt |
| Buster Posey |
| Carlos Ruiz |
| Brian McCann |
| Chipper Jones |
| Walt Weiss |
| Wally Joyner |
| Gil McDougald |
| Lloyd Waner |
Hint: a player active in 2012 is on track to join this list
Looks like HHS readers could solve only 2/3 of the puzzle. The three-part accomplishment for which the group above has exclusive domain reads like this:
Congratulations to Yoenis Céspedes, who on October 10th joined this group with hits in his first four post-season games.
The 2011 card image on the left identifies Omar Vizquel as a third baseman. Vizquel, though, wrapped up his 24-year career this week as the all-time leader in games played at shortstop, a mark that Derek Jeter may surpass in 2014 or later. Over his career, Vizquel has competed against rival shortstops ranging from Alan Trammell to Elvis Andrus. Among all those opponents, I was curious which one, paired with Vizquel, represented the most combined game experience ever at the position.
After the jump, I’ll look at the question of which historical games featured starters having the most combined games experience at each position.
This season has witnessed offensive contributions from the catcher position at levels seldom seen before.
After the jump, I’ll look a bit closer at the different dimensions of this phenomenon.
In a recent post looking at pitchers recording higher ratios of unearned to total runs, some commenters wondered about the effect that official scorer bias may have on such results. More specifically, would official scorers be more inclined to score errors on debatable plays when the home team is fielding (thereby protecting the home team’s pitchers’ ERAs), and score hits on similar plays when the home team is batting (thereby enhancing the home team’s batters’ batting stats)?
After the jump, I’ll take a look at this question, and see what the numbers tell us.
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The Yankees are known for their unmatched post-season success, including the most World Series titles and appearances. In fact, the Yankees have lost more World Series than any other franchise has won.
This game is Jeopardy but, in this incarnation, could also be called box score sleuthing. There are many pieces to the game, each of which can be solved independently. So I expect this will work best as a group exercise with different individuals working on different pieces.
Following are a list of dates. These dates are the answers to Jeopardy questions. Your job is to determine the questions. Each question is in the form of “When was the last time a Yankee/the Yankees had a World Series game with …. ?”.
Note that the question format includes “a Yankee” rather than a specific name. Thus, none of the answers (er, questions) reference a specific player – so, nothing like “When was the last time in the World Series that Babe Ruth struck out with the bases loaded?”, or that sort of thing.
Thanks to everyone for playing. You found lots of interesting factoids that I never noticed. A box score is truly a treasure trove if you look closely. The questions and answers are posted after the jump. The ones you found are in black, and the remaining ones in blue.
Fielding in baseball (if not fielders, necessarily) is getting better all the time. Improvements in equipment, field conditions and, especially, defensive positioning, mean today’s players have a leg up on their predecessors. Indeed, today’s computer analysis of batter and pitcher tendencies is of a sophistication unimagined even as recently as a decade ago. And, to top it off, recent years have seen progressively fewer balls in play due to ever increasing numbers of strikeouts. The end result – fewer errors and fewer unearned runs.
Nevertheless, unearned runs haven’t disappeared entirely and some pitchers seem to allow more of them than others. As an example, these are the starting pitchers of 2012 (min. 150 IP) with the three highest ratios of unearned runs allowed to total runs allowed.
| Rk | Player | R | ER | IP | Year | Age | Tm | G | GS | CG | SHO | W | L | BB | SO | HR | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C.J. Wilson | 93 | 78 | 188.0 | 2012 | 31 | LAA | 31 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 9 | .571 | 80 | 159 | 3.73 | 101 | 17 |
| 2 | CC Sabathia | 85 | 71 | 176.0 | 2012 | 31 | NYY | 25 | 25 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 6 | .684 | 40 | 169 | 3.63 | 115 | 21 |
| 3 | Aaron Harang | 82 | 69 | 164.0 | 2012 | 34 | LAD | 28 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 | .500 | 77 | 123 | 3.79 | 101 | 14 |
Surprised? I mean those are all pretty decent pitchers. Why would it be those guys? After the jump, I’ll explain why perhaps this shouldn’t be so surprising.
Sorry, couldn’t think of any clever title for this one.
Here is a short list of players to compile a most unusual season. In fact, no other players since 1901 have done so.
What are the season accomplishments that only these players have compiled?
Hint: there is a rookie playing this season who is currently on track to join this group.
Congratulations to Nick Pain! He identified that these are the only players since 1901 to have a qualifying season with an extra-base hit total more than 50% larger than their RBI total (i.e. XBH > 1.5 * RBI). Zack Cozart, the Reds rookie shortstop, is on pace to join this group. He is also on pace for the lowest RBI total for any qualifying season with 15+ HR.