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1. Neutral Milk Dotel (Dan Lee) Posted: August 24, 2012 at 05:38 AM (#4216501)C: Hank Gowdy
2B: Tony Bernazard
3B: Cal Ripken
SS: Jimmy Cooney
LF: Harry Hooper
CF: Jimmy Walsh
RF: Tim Salmon
SP: Hal Woodeshick
SP: Kevin Correia
SP/1B: Chubby Dean
SP: Hal Griggs
SP: Kip Gross
RP: Luis Sanchez
Manager: Jewel Winklemeyer Ens
Other Fun Names: Shorty Des Jardien, Bartolome Fortunato, Bevo LeBourveau, Arquimedez Pozo, B.J. Waszgis
Gone too soon: Nick Adenhart
I had Hal Griggs cards from several different years and in my little kid mind, he was the worst pitcher. His final line was 6-26 with a 5.50 ERA in 4 years. Now he played for the Senators in the late 50s, so there's that. Looking at more modern stats, he had an ERA+ of 72 and a K/BB ration of .82!
Kip Gross had an interesting career. Pitched from 90-93 and 99-00 in the majors. In 94, he had 10 relief appearances and then nothing more until resurfacing in the minors and majors in 99. Did he go to Japan?
Whoa.
Anyone know what the worst 50 game stretches are for a team say since WW2?
From Wiki:
The 2003 Tigers went 10-40 in August/early September; not sure if that was their absolute worst stretch of the year. I can find a 10-39-1 stretch for the 1962 Mets. The 1969 Padres also went 10-40 at one point. I'm just glancing at season results in B-Ref; someone can certainly check with much more accuracy in various databases.
Stupid Astros. The Cubs had a legit shot at a #1 draft pick, and then the Astros do this.
Victor Starfin says hi.
Cardinals are headed out on a 10-day trip: 3 at Cincinnati, 3 at Pittsburgh, 4 at Washington. So by Labor Day we should know if they're going to contend.
Jonathon Lucroy had a walk off suicide squeeze earlier this year (or was it last?). I can't recall any other ones, though I know there are many. But I remember thinking it was spectacular and wondering why a bigger deal wasn't being made about it.
Didn't Ramon Hernandez do this for the A's against the Red Sox in an early 2000's playoff game?
Yes, game 1 of the 2003 ALDS.
The Hernandez bunt was with two out - he had to beat it out for a single - 2003 playoffs, game 1. It wasn't a planned play; Hernandez bunted on his own.
Carlos Guillen had a walk-off squeeze for the Mariners against the White Sox in the 2001 playoffs.
Yeah, I don't think the runner was running with the pitch.
Just making sure you were paying attention. The actual winner is exactly what you'd expect: Angels 14, Red Sox 13 (10).
Boston got to CJ Wilson early, when Dustin Pedroia doubled and Adrian Gonzalez singled him home in the first. And they got to him often. Mauro Gomez doubled with one out in the second; after the second out, Scott Podsednik singled him home. Pedro Ciriaco and Jacoby Ellsbury added singles to bring in a second run, and Pedroia capped the inning with a three-run bomb, putting the Sox ahead 6-0. At this point, the game looked like a candidate to join the least-dramatic-of-the-year sweepstakes.
That obviously didn't last. Chris Iannetta singled against Franklin Morales. Mike Trout hit into a force, Torii Hunter singled him to second, and Trout then stole third. Howie Kendrick singled one run home, and after the second out was made, Alberto Callaspo and Kendrys Morales drew back-to-back walks to load the bases and then force in a second. Erick Aybar reached on an error by Ciriaco, bringing another runner to the plate. Morales was pulled for Clayton Mortensen, but the second ex-Rockie pitcher of the inning fared no better. Vernon Wells walked in a fourth run, Iannetta singled to bring in the two tying runs, and Trout and Hunter followed with hits of their own to give the Angels an 8-6 lead.
Naturally, the scoring stopped immediately for two innings. The drought (OK, the eye of the hurricane) ended in the bottom of the fifth when Pedroia reached on a Callaspo error, advanced on a passed ball, and scored on a hit by Cody Ross. The Sox scored again in the sixth; they tied the game on a Mike Aviles homer off of Jason Isringhausen, then took the lead when Ciriaco and Ellsbury hit consecutive doubles against Jordan Walden. But LA tied it right back up when Morales, Aybar, and Trout singled against Andrew Bailey.
The bottom of the seventh and top of the eighth went like a waltz: 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Garrett Richards also retired the first two Sox in the bottom of the eighth, but Podsednick and Ciriaco then singled to chase Richards, and Scott Downs gave up additional hits to Ellsbury and Pedroia, resulting in two runs and another lead for Boston. Alfredo Aceves came on to nail down the win in the ninth - or at least, that was the idea. But Wells homered with one out, and after the second, Trout singled, took second on a throwing error, and scored on Hunter's single to tie the game. Kendrick walked, and Mark Trumbo singled as well, putting the Angels back in front.
That lead had a duration of exactly three Ernesto Frieri pitches - the third one was hit over the Monster by Cody Ross, tying the score once more and sending the game to extras. But the game stayed tied in the tenth for one pitch fewer, as Morales took Aceves deep on the inning's second offering. Aybar followed that with a single, and Wells doubled against Craig Breslow to put the Angels up by 2. Frieri remained in the game for a second inning; he allowed a single to Ciriaco, who took second on defensive indifference, third on defensive incompetence (a passed ball), and home on Pedroia's single, but Gonzalez struck out with the tying run on to end the game.
There are a lot of ways you can describe this game. The most evocative, at least for me, is simply to say that the Angel pitching staff amassed -.949 WPA in this game - and they won.
The score remained tied until the fourth, which Fukudome led off with his second double. Chisenhall then atoned for his earlier out, singling home the go-ahead run. But this lead was just as ephemeral as the last; with two out in the fifth, Masterson allowed a double to Trayvon Robinson, a game-tying single to Ichiro, and a go-ahead double to Franklin Gutierrez. Fortunately for the Indians, blown leads were apparently contagious; with one out in the sixth, Fukudome singled, Chisenhall doubled, and Matt LaPorta tied the game with a sac fly.
Cleveland recaptured the lead yet again in the seventh. Dan Cortes faced the first four hitters of the inning, walking two of them and retiring two others. Jamey Wright then replaced him, and gave up a single to Santana; Luis Valbuena scored from second to put the Indians in front, and Shin-Soo Choo was thrown out trying for third on the play, making it the uncommon play that both drives in the go-ahead run and makes the third out.
Masterson remained in the game to start the ninth, which is fairly unusual these days for a pitcher who'd already given up 3 runs and isn't named Roy Halladay. He retired Kennedy, but gave up singles to Olivo (who was pulled for a pinch runner) and Kyle Seager. Chris Perez replaced Masterson, and Robinson greeted him with a two-run lead-changing double. After an intentional walk to Ichiro, Perez retired the next two hitters, which was presumably small comfort at the time.
The size of the comfort increased rapidly in the bottom of the inning. Brandon League allowed a leadoff double to Carrera, and Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a grounder to second on which Dustin Ackley made an error that allowed the runners to reach the corners safely. Choo hit League's next pitch over the left-center field wall for a walkoff 3-run homer.
Both of today's games had blown saves in both halves of the ninth, which is always fun. This particular game had a total of five blown leads, plus two additional tiebreaking runs. And until Choo touched home, the entire duration of the game did not include a lead of more than one run, which is also always fun.
The game was scoreless until Ben Zobrist led off the bottom of the second by taking Parker deep. Moore and Parker then both worked routine third innings. The game heated up substantially in the fourth, however; Yoenis Cespedes tripled with one out, and after Chris Carter walked and Jonny Gomes struck out, Josh Donaldson singled to tie the game. Derek Norris was then hit by a pitch to load the bases, and Brandon Moss singled, bringing in the second run of the inning and putting the A’s in the lead. Tampa quickly tied the score, however, when Zobrist tripled and scored on a Jeff Keppinger sac fly.
Moore preserved the tie in the top of the fifth, which allowed his team to recapture the lead in the bottom of the inning when Jose Molina and BJ Upton both doubled. The Rays also loaded the bases in the sixth, but Parker stranded all three runners by fanning Molina, which meant that Donaldson and Norris’s consecutive doubles in the seventh tied the game. Norris moved to third with nobody out on a wild pitch, but Moore retired Moss, and Jake McGee came on to strike out Adam Rosales and Coco Crisp to leave the go-ahead run ninety feet away.
After apparently deposed closer (and All-Star) Ryan Cook pitched a spotless seventh, Joel Peralta took the mound in the top of the eighth. He retired the first two A’s he faced, but then allowed a single to Carter. Gomes followed that with a two-run homer, returning the advantage to Oakland. Zobrist drew a walk in the bottom of the eighth, but Cook and Sean Doolittle combined to strike out the inning’s other three batters, which meant that the Rays didn’t really threaten the lead until the ninth. Ryan Roberts led off with a walk against Grant Balfour, and Luke Scott doubled him home, putting the tying run in scoring position with nobody out. But the next three Rays all grounded out without advancing the runner.
Good game overall. Reasonably well-pitched by some interesting youngsters, had a few lead changes, and had multiple triples, including one by a guy who also homered in the game. (Not that Zobrist had the most notable game with a triple and a homer yesterday, of course.)
YOU SHUT UP, YOU.
Much better.
You missed the part in there where Donaldson made the stupidest baserunning play of the year....just, wow....bases loaded with 2-out, he's halfway between home and 3B....and the pitcher still has the ball in his hand...facing home plate.....W.T.F.?!
It had the best inning of the day, as you note. But the system doesn't love the game before the ninth - it's not impossible to build a 7-2 lead in an interesting way, but it is unusual. A's-Rays was tight enough throughout that it gets the nod by about half a point (which is actually a pretty healthy margin - it's 4.27 to 3.72).
Colorado answered very, very promptly. Eric Young Jr. led off with a single against Wandy Rodriguez, and scored on Dexter Fowler’s triple. Carlos Gonzalez then singled Fowler home, and Troy Tulowitzki brought him around with a two-run homer that put the Rockies in front. They would put two more runners on base by the end of the inning, which also means that they batted around in the first.
The ‘Stros did not bat around in the second, but they did tie the game. Clint Barmes led off the inning with a home run. Carlos Corporan tripled, and came in to score on a single by his batterymate, Rodriguez. After Jordan Schafer struck out, Shuck hit into a 1-6-3, thus completing a slightly modified team-wide cycle for the inning: homer, triple, single, and double play.
After the Rockies went 1-2-3 in the second, Houston took the lead once more in the third. Matt Downs led off with a single. One out later, Bogusevic singled as well, and the runners took second and third on an error by Fowler in center. That allowed Paredes’s groundout to score Downs from third. Colorado’s first two batters reached in the bottom of the inning, but they ended up stranded on the corners. In the fourth, however, Young reached on an error by Downs and stole second, then trotted around to score in front of Gonzalez’s go-ahead two-run homer. Downs made up for his error in the fifth by leading off with a double and advancing a base on each of two flyouts, the second of which re-tied the game, this time at 6.
The bottom of the fifth was the kind of inning that will eventually give MGL a coronary. With one out, Eliezer Alfonzo walked, and Mark Ellis singled him to second. That brought Cook to the plate, in a situation that you’d expect to bring a pinch hitter off of the bench. Instead, the Rockies left Cook in to hit for himself, and he bunted into a force at third. After the team failed to score, Cook… was removed from the game, after hitting for himself in a tie game with runners on base. New pitcher Jason Hammel did retire the Astros fairly easily in both the sixth and seventh, with those two innings sandwiched around one in which the Rockies had runners reach on a double and an intentional walk before Ty Wigginton ended it on a double play.
The next real threat came from the Rockies in the eighth. David Carpenter started the inning by hitting Young with a pitch. Fowler bunted Young to second, and Gonzalez was intentionally walked. Mark Melancon came on and struck out Tulowitzki, then walked Giambi to load the bases before Kevin Kouzmanoff lined out to retire the side. Colorado tried again in the ninth when Mark Ellis doubled with one out and Todd Helton was intentionally passed behind him, but Young and Fowler grounded out to leave them on.
They finally broke through in the tenth against Aneury Rodriguez. With one out, Rodriguez walked Tulowitzki, and Jonathan Herrera singled him to third. A wild pitch advanced Herrera to second, prompting the Astros to intentionally walk Kouzmanoff. Then, with Alfonzo at the plate, Rodriguez unleashed his second wild pitch of the inning, this one scoring Tulo from third to end the game.
Man, that game had an enormous number of one-out intentional walks – one each in the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth. It also had a bunch of lead changes – 2-0, 4-2, 5-4, 6-5, 6-6, and finally 7-6. If you pad it with four scoreless innings at the beginning, it’s an absolute barn burner. As is, it’s merely an excellent game.
Using the BB REF PI Streak Analyzer for each season, I find some 8-42 stretches since WWII, but no other 7-43.
I've made it so far back to 1943 and found a 7-42-1 stretch (surrounded by Ws).
Top 200 Performances
Top 200 Performances
Top 200 Performances
Top 200 Performances
Top 200 Performances
The Royals hit Aaron Cook around pretty well before he recorded an out – Jarrod Dyson and Alcides Escobar both singled, Alex Gordon doubled the pair of them home, and Billy Butler knocked Gordon in with a single. Cook worked out of the inning on a pair of grounders, the second of which went for a double play. Jeremy Guthrie and Cook both worked perfect innings, and Guthrie notched the first out in the second before Mauro Gomez took him deep. Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ryan Lavarnway then singled, and ex-Royal Mike Aviles put his current team ahead of his old one with a 3-run homer.
Guthrie continued to struggle in the third. Dustin Pedroia led off with a ground-rule double, Jacoby Ellsbury walked, and Cody Ross singled to load the bases. Gomez then reached on an infield hit that was fielded by Guthrie, who proceeded to throw the ball away. Two runs scored, Ross moved to third, and Gomez was thrown out trying for second in the chaos. Saltalamacchia followed with a sac fly, and Lavarnway walked, prompting Guthrie’s removal from the game in favor of Everett Teaford. Teaford stranded Guthrie’s runner, but in the fourth, failed to do the same with his own. Pedro Ciriaco walked to start the inning, and two outs later, Ellsbury, Ross, and Gomez hit consecutive singles, bringing two runs in and stretching Boston’s advantage to 9-3.
Both teams put two runners on in the fifth and one in the sixth, but when the margin in a game is six runs, it’s hard to get too excited about having runners on the corners with two outs. The Royals gave their fans (not that there were likely many road fans attending at Fenway) a bit more to work with in the seventh, however. Andrew Miller replaced Cook and sandwiched two outs around a single. After that, though, he walked back-to-back hitters to load the bases. Gordon then delivered a two-run single, chasing Miller from the game in favor of Mark Melancon. Butler greeted the new pitcher with a ground-rule double to bring in another run, Salvador Perez singled in another to bring Craig Breslow to the hill, and Mike Moustakas capped the rally with a two-run triple, tying the game. The Royals would leave runners on the corners, and still came out of the inning perfectly satisfied.
The Sox spent the next couple of innings almost threatening, but not quite. Aviles singled in the seventh, but was caught stealing. Scott Podsednik singled and Ellsbury doubled in the eighth, but Podsednik had been doubled off on Pedroia’s lineout before Ellsbury came to the plate. The next real rallies didn’t come until the tenth. Boston’s Vicente Padilla put two Royals on with a hit batter and (after a runner-advancing groundout) an intentional walk, but stranded both of them. Kelvin Herrera allowed a hit to Ciriaco, wild pitched him to second, and watched him take third on Podsednik’s sac bunt. After intentionally walking Pedroia, Herrera was replaced by Francisley Bueno, who induced Ellsbury to hit a grounder to Hosmer. Hosmer threw home to retire Ciriaco for the second out, and Che-Hsuan Lin struck out to strand the two remaining runners.
Both teams went down pretty easily in the eleventh, and Junichi Tazawa also recorded two quick outs in the twelfth. Jeff Francoeur then worked him for a walk, however. Presumably disoriented by this turn of events, Tazawa allowed a double to Hosmer and an RBI single to Tony Abreu. Clayton Mortensen came in and prevented further damage, but what had already been done was enough, as Greg Holland set the Sox down in order on 11 pitches to secure the victory.
I don’t really have anything else to say about Boston here; the Sox have been covered in exhaustive detail over the last few days. But hey, nice performance by the KC bullpen, allowing no runs in the last 8 innings of the game, and good work as well from 2-3-4 in their order, going 7/16 with two walks, two doubles, 5 runs, and 6 RBI.
After Edwin Jackson worked a scoreless first, Charlie Morton gave up back-to-back one-out doubles to Allen Craig and Albert Pujols to put his team in an early hole. Matt Holliday fouled out, but Lance Berkman singled Pujols in to double the size of the deficit. And after another scoreless inning for the Bucs, a Rafael Furcal single, a Jackson sac bunt, and a Skip Schumaker single tacked a third run onto the lead.
Pittsburgh rallied in the third. Michael McKenry opened the inning by reaching on a David Freese error. Morton sacrificed him to second, and after another out, Alex Presley singled him in. Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker then drew walks to load the bases, and Garret Jones singled to center to bring in two runs and tie the game. Morton worked around an error and a single in the third to keep the score even, and Ronny Cedeno and McKenry hit consecutive doubles in the fourth to give the Pirates the lead. They missed a chance to extend it when McKenry was caught off of third on a grounder back to the mound; Jackson bluffed throws to third and home, then simply ran over and tagged McKenry himself.
The Pirates kept their advantage until the fifth. Craig led off with a single and stole second, and Pujols walked behind him. Holliday flied out, advancing Craig to third, and Berkman walked to load the bases. Freese was up next, and deposited Morton’s 1-1 pitch just out of Tabata’s reach in right for a two-run single that drove the Pittsburgh starter from the game. Chris Leroux replaced Morton and ended the inning without further scoring. Jackson worked around a single and steal in the sixth, and Leroux did the same with a single and wild pitch in the bottom of the inning. Mark Rzepczynski (spelled it without looking this time!) worked a spotless seventh, and apart from a K/WP that put Berkman on first, so did Leroux.
Pittsburgh managed a relatively substantial threat in the eighth. Garret Jones led off with a single, and was pulled for pinch runner Xavier Paul. Paul stole second, and took third on Matt Diaz’s groundout. But Jason Motte whiffed Ronny Cedeno and coaxed Ryan Doumit into an inning-ending flyout, and the Cards iced the game in the bottom of the inning when Jon Jay doubled, Pujols was intentionally passed with two out and Jay on third, and Holliday made them pay for the walk with a 3-run homer. Fernando Salas set the Pirates down in order in the ninth to end it.
A pair of early lead changes, and one reasonable attempt at a third in the late innings. That’s not necessarily a great game, but it is a good one. And an intentional walk backfired, which is always a good thing in my book.
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