A lotta stuff happened in a long day of baseball. Let’s dig in!

Red Sox 2, @Yankees 1 — An epic duel between Jon Lester and Masahiro Tanaka, with a big twist at the finish. Tanaka was one strike away from nursing a 1-1 tie through the top of the 9th. But he was also living on borrowed time; he wasn’t finishing all his pitches. The first two batters hit liners, but the one by Big Papi turned into a double play. Tanaka then hung one to Mike Napoli, but the slugger swung through it. On one-and-two, everyone looked for the knockout splitter.

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Athletics 9, @Marlins 5 — Oakland blew a big lead in the 6th, but pulled even in the 8th on Josh Reddick’s two-out triple, then scored four in the 9th on five singles off Steve Cishek. A clean closeout by Sean Doolittle — 12 strikes, one ball — ran his season line to 55 Ks and one walk in 38 IP. Oakland’s won NINE games that they trailed after seven innings …

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Thus far in 2014, the recent  trend towards lower scoring continues. That trend is now more than 15 years in the making and has resulted in another, that of a higher incidence of shutouts (at least those of the team variety). So far in 2014, more than 15% of games have resulted in a goose egg for the losers, a proportion not seen since 1981, and not seen in a full-length season since 1976.

After the jump, more on declining offense and why it’s been happening.

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@Giants 4, Padres 0 — With his second complete game in the last three seasons, Tim Lincecum became the 23rd* pitcher since 1914 with two or more no-hitters, and the first with two against one opponent. (One guy double-dipped before the searchable era.) Lincecum walked only one, despite just 12 first-pitch strikes out of 28 batters.

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Yesterday, an HHS reader asked Andy this question:

“Is it possible to determine the greatest triples hitter in history, factoring in era/park, etc.? Wild guess is Willie Wilson.”

Andy passed it on to me, and because the reader is Josh Wilker, author of Cardboard Gods, perhaps my favorite baseball book of the last decade, I thought I’d take a stab at answering the question.  With an assist from @Braves_Paul, I attempted to create Triples+, a metric comparing a player’s seasonal triples total to the league average and adjusting for park factors.

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@Cubs 7, Reds 3 — Jake Arrieta’s six perfect innings ended when he just missed gloving Billy Hamilton’s grounder. Two hits with two outs halved his 4-0 lead, but Arrieta rose to the challenge with his 9th strikeout, getting Ryan Ludwick as the tying run. Rick Renteria ran through four arms in five batters to hold Cincy at bay in the 8th, and Joey Votto’s whiff of leather widened the lead. Anthony Rizzo’s 3 hits and 17th home run led Chicago, which got just three other knocks.

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This post is for voting and discussion in the 62nd round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This round adds to the ballot those players born in 1921.  Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

The right time, the right place and the left arm combined to place Sandy Koufax among the most famous and popular baseball players ever. High Heat Stats voters were a bit skeptical, but he’s now been elected, in his 19th round on the ballot, as the 61st inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. More on Sandy and the voting, after the jump. Continue reading →

The players in this quiz are the only live ball era pitchers with an unusual game accomplishment. What is it?

Congratulations to RJ! He knew that these pitchers didn’t finish their careers until after they had stroked their first career extra-base hit, at age 40 or older. Those career first games are after the jump.

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Red Sox 7, @Athletics 6 (10 inn.) — As I said, Jon Lester is off to his best start ever. Clearly. (Now, pardon me while I bow towards Buster Olney.)

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