Relief pitching as a specialization has become increasingly refined in the past 50 years. Today we have closers, setup men, long relievers, middle relievers, loogies and possibly other sub-specialties.

However, in the live ball era since 1920, these are the only relief pitchers to accomplish two related feats.

What are those two related feats that no other relievers have accomplished since 1920?

Congratulations to John Autin and Brandon who jointly identified the feats that only these eight pitchers have accomplished since 1920. These are the only pitchers with seasons of 30 or more relief appearances and no starts that include one of more seasons averaging less than one inning per appearance and also one or more seasons averaging two or more innings per appearance.

This post was suggested by reader Paul E who remarked on the defensive accomplishments of Brett Lawrie of the Blue Jays. Toronto acquired Lawrie from the Brewers after the 2010 season, and brought him up to the big team in mid-summer last year. Other than a week missed to injury at the end of last season, he’s been the Jays’ regular third baseman since.

As of this writing, Lawrie has a career of slightly less than half of a 162 game season. Yet, he is in a tie for 13th place since 1901 among all non-pitchers in WAR fielding runs accumulated in the first two seasons of a career.

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Recently, John Autin coined the term “disaster start” to denote starts where a pitcher allows more runs than innings pitched. So far this year, there have been 119 such starts, or about 3 a day. In 2011, there were 54 games where both starters were a disaster.

After the break, I’ll take a closer look at disaster starts and the pitchers most prone to them.

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Jered Weaver’s no-hitter last week was actually part of an occurrence even rarer (at least, recently) than the no-hitter itself. What was this occurrence? The answer is a shutout streak – a team recording consecutive complete games with no runs allowed.

After the jump, I’ll take a closer look at this vanishing phenomenon.

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I have a player in mind. Your job is to guess who he is. To help you guess, you can ask me questions. But, only objective questions and only questions that can be answered Yes/No.

You have to get the answer within 20 questions to win. All questions, whether good or bad, count towards the 20 total. So, be careful to word your questions correctly.

Congratulations to bstar, who solved the quiz on the 10th question. The hints were a 10-year player who played entirely since 1961 and who ranked first (best) in one career statistical category and last (worst) in another, both among players who played only in 1961 or later. The answer is Greg Minton, who played from 1975 to 1990, and ranks first in HR/9 ratio and last in SO/BB ratio (both for min. 1000 IP) among pitchers who have played only since 1961.

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Dexter Fowler has played three qualifying seasons and each time has accomplished what has become a fairly unusual feat, that of stealing 10 or more bases and having 10 or more triples. What makes this feat even more noteworthy is that over the past two seasons, Fowler had more triples than stolen bases. It is far more common for players with some speed to have more stolen bases than triples.

In the past 4 seasons, having more triples than stolen bases while achieving double figures in both has happened four times. But that is more often than had occurred in the 30 previous seasons (1978-2007). Looking just at triples in isolation, since 2000 there have been 6 seasons with triples in more than 3% of ABs (min. 502 PAs). That is the same number as occurred in the 50 previous seasons (1950-1999). 

Are these signs of a return to the running game in baseball? After the jump, I’ll take a look at that question.

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Through 20 games, Jose Bautista is not reminding anyone of the player who terrorized AL pitchers the past two seasons. I was wondering whether any other players coming off a season like Bautista’s had had such a slow start the following year. And, if they did, was that slow start a harbinger of a really down year?

Let’s find out.

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I wouldn’t want to predict that this will be Jamie Moyer‘s final season. But, if it is, it will be interesting if, as the oldest player in baseball, he gets a chance to appear in a game with the youngest player. Incidentally, Moyer has previously done exactly that, most recently on July 15, 2010 for the Phillies against Starlin Castro and the Cubs.

Presently, the youngest player to appear in an NL game this year is Jose Altuve of the Astros, just 6 weeks younger than Castro. The Astros and Rockies started the season against each other, and both Moyer and Altuve appeared in that series but, alas, not in the same game. But, the season is young – that opportunity may yet arise. The only younger AL player to play so far this year is Drew Hutchison of the Blue Jays – but Toronto and Colorado are not scheduled to meet this year.

After the jump, I’ll look at a few games from the past where the torch was passed.

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With its win yesterday, Texas became just the 41st team since 1918 to start a season with 13 or more wins in its first 16 games. What might this hot start presage for the rest of the Rangers’ season?

I’ll take a look at that question after the jump.

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