Lowe: Foes walk all over Miguel Cabrera’s Triple Crown bid

Elias! Retrosheet! Pipequaline!

Cabrera this week became the first player since the Giants’ Bonds in 2004 to receive an intentional walk with first base occupied in three straight games. That information comes from Steve Hirdt, executive vice president of the Elias Sports Bureau, the official statistician for Major League Baseball.

“Winning the Triple Crown—seemingly a prototypical individual accomplishment—in fact has a subtle team component to it, as Cabrera has found out lately,” Hirdt wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Free Press. “It’s not just getting guys on base ahead of you and producing in those situations. (Cabrera is 7-for-20 with runners in scoring position since the All-Star break.) But some sort of protection behind you helps a lot, and with (Brennan) Boesch slumping, Tigers’ No. 5 hitters are 6-for-54 since the break.

...Since 1958, Bonds is by far the leader in receiving intentional walks with first base occupied, according to research by Dave Smith of Retrosheet.org. Bonds drew 68 intentional walks with first base occupied, Smith reports. Next on the list since 1958 is the Phillies’ Ryan Howard, who has 12.

Smith reports that from 1958 through Thursday, there had been 1,896 intentional walks in the majors with first base occupied. Cabrera through Thursday had drawn five of those intentional walks tying him for 39th on the list since 1958, Smith reports.