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Netzer

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If only statcast had the technology to measure the launch angle and exit velocity of yankee balls that have been hit off of your chin.

Goo Punch
Goo Punch
Hank Chinaski
Hank Chinaski

Good fucking riddance. 

Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 53515

Posted
Posted (edited)
17 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Fiers 13 straight innings of no-hit ball against the Dodgers ends with a Grandal HR to right field to lead off the 5th

Johnny vander meer’s consecutive no hitters were against different teams, Boston bees and Brooklyn dodgers, so I’m wondering what the record is for consecutive no hit innings by a pitcher against a team. 

Someone probably pitched 15 no hit innings in one game at some point in time and gave up a hit in the 16th, or some such. 

Edited by Pato del Muerto
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TheFlagship

TheFlagship 466

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10 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Nats about to drop 7 games back of the Braves in the loss column.

They have 1 more game against ATL tomorrow before they go on a 7-game road trip at Cubs and Cards. 

They're not done, but they're damn close.

Not sure if you can have must wins on August 9, but it sure feels like they have to win today.

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shakahorn

shakahorn 1658

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5 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

German Marquez threw an immaculate inning yesterday.

Yeah I was watching that game and to be honest, didn't realize it until the next inning when the announcers talked about it.  It was the Rockies feed as well.  I had bet Rockies and was feeling not good because Marquez had been pounded in the first couple innings.  I think he gave up like 8 hits in the first 3 innings before the immaculate inning.  

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19456

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19 hours ago, UTexasFight said:


Anyone with a Roku TV figure out how to change the audio source on MLB.TV while watching love?
Menu shows there to be the option, but I can never get it to pull up the other sources

The TV and radio feeds for both teams are available when you first select the game you want to watch.

Alternatively, while watching the game hit the * button.  Go down to the ‘Audio track’ line and use the right / left arrow to make your selection.  Once selection is made, go down and select ‘Close’.

Choices will be based on whichever team’s broadcast you chose at the beginning.  For example if you chose the Home team’s TV broadcast then the audio track that says English radio will be the home team’s radio broadcast.  If you want the away team you will have to back out to the start, watch the away team’s TV feed then go through the above to select English radio.

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 53515

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1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

This seems to make no sense unless their plan is to go to all-bullpen games a couple of days a week.  Am I missing something?

Their starters only go 5-6. They’ve decided to win by having enough bullpen to pitch those last 3-4 innings every night without burning them out. Because it’s oakland and good  relievers are much much cheaper than good starters. 

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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

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30 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

.250 BABIP against Davis, 2nd-lowest of his career.  That sounds like the opposite of unlucky.

He has like a .286 xwOBA, so it's not surprising that his BABIP is so low.  I don't think he's that good of a reliever anymore, but he's not as bad as his current ERA indicates.

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55867

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33 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

He has like a .286 xwOBA, so it's not surprising that his BABIP is so low.  I don't think he's that good of a reliever anymore, but he's not as bad as his current ERA indicates.

baseballsavant is fucking great, isn't it?  

1.  Nobody is as bad as their current ERA indicates if their current ERA is 7.50 over the last 26 appearances. 

2.  I don't think xwOBA is park-adjusted.  Am I wrong?

3.  Wade's splits -- 16 BB in 23 road innings?  He's allowing a higher OBP on the road than at home.  That shouldn't happen.  

 

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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

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xwOBA is not park adjusted, which makes it even more useful for evaluating pitchers that play in an extreme environment like Denver.  Davis isn't what he once was as indicated by the deterioration in his K%-BB%, but if you factor in the quality of contact allowed he really hasn't been that bad this season.  A .286 wOBA against would be far above league average for relievers.  

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55867

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Stark's fuck-you column to Joe Simpson, plus a lot more... This is peak Stark:

Quote

When the home run champ strikes out against a guy who isn’t even a pitcher… when a home run in the bottom of the 10th isn’t a walkoff… when the scoreboard looks identical after both games of a doubleheader… you know it’s been another Useless Information-laden week.

But before we get to the latest wackiness, we present this incredible look at a teenage rock star in Washington who seems driven to accomplish more this year than both houses of Congress combined!

TEENAGE MASHER OF THE WEEK

Before we get down to the business of telling you just how absurdly good Juan Soto is, we need to make you feel old. So here we go….

OLDER THAN JUAN SOTO: Kylie Jenner, the Iowa septuplets, Trae Young, Katie Ledecky, Lonzo Ball and Juju Smith-Schuster. Along with like two-thirds of the residents of the entire planet.

ALSO OLDER THAN JUAN SOTO: The Rays, the Diamondbacks, Google, Netflix, the Onion, Rotten Tomatoes, “Will & Grace,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Dolly the cloned sheep and “Titanic.”

OK, feel ancient yet? Excellent. Just making sure. Now on with our production.

It’s now Aug. 10. And Juan Soto, at 19 years old, has more home runs (14) than Kris Bryant or Ryan Braun… has a higher slugging percentage (.551) than Aaron Judge or Manny Machado… has virtually the same on-base percentage (.423) as Joey Votto… and has Giancarlo Stanton beat in OPS (.975) by over 100 points!

Friends, we’ve never seen anything like this. Not from a teenager in the major leagues. Especially not when you look at that Kylie Jenner/Buffy the Vampire list three paragraphs back.

“Hell, no,” laughed one longtime scout this week after we started reading him our favorite Juan Soto tidbits. “Hell, you had me at Juju.”

So what makes the Nationals’ left-field phenom so special? Oh, just some cool stuff like this:

HE’S THE GREATEST TEENAGE HITTER EVER

Yeah, well, there’s that. This isn’t even hard to prove, assuming Soto just keeps doing what he’s doing.

STAT SOTO TEEN RECORD
OPS 0.975 0.921, Mel Ott, 1928
SLUG 0.551 .530, Tony Conigliaro, 1964
OBP 0.423 .397, Ott, 1928
OPS+ 157 139, Ott, 1928
wRC+ 161 140, Ott, 1928

(Sources – Fangraphs, baseball-reference.com) (**-since 1900)

We could keep going, but you get the idea. Look at that .975 OPS. Now look at the fabled teenage hitters who got significant playing time and never even had an .800 OPS: Mickey Mantle (.792), Ken Griffey Jr. (.748), Al Kaline (.652) and Ty Cobb (.749). And Juan Soto is at .975.

“You know, I would never, ever compare anybody with Griffey,” said the same scout. “But with the walk and the swagger, I have to admit I see some of it in this guy.”

HE CRUSHES LEFT-HANDERS

Juan Soto is a 19-year-old left-handed hitter who has been in the big leagues for less than three months. But here is his slash line against left-handed pitchers:

.371/.451/.694/1.144 OPS

We could focus on any of the crazy numbers in that stat line. But let’s just take that .694 slugging percentage.

How many other left-handed hitters in the big leagues are slugging .694 against left-handers? None. Of course. The next-closest hitter with that much playing time is Christian Yelich. He’s over 100 points back – at .575.

So we should really be asking: How many other active left-handed hitters have ever had a season in which they slugged .694 against left-handers? Um, guess what? That answer, incredibly, is also none of them. In fact, since World War II, here are the only left-handed hitters who have ever done this in a season with this many plate appearances:

Barry Bonds (3 times)
Ken Griffey Jr. (2 times)
Larry Walker (2001)
David Justice (2000)
Stan Musial (1948)

And lurking just off that pace is somebody named Ted Williams (.691 in 1955).

Hold on. What? That’s it? Yep. That’s it.

HE WEARS OUT THE OPPOSITE FIELD

Juan Soto has hit 14 home runs. He has pulled less than half of them (as in six of 14). Only five other left-handed hitters in the entire sport have that many home runs and that low a percentage of pulled home runs.

But wait. This gets better. Soto pulls the ball just 36.3 percent of the time. And when he hits it the other way, he’s hitting an outrageous .486, with a .914 slugging percentage. So how many other left-handed hitters can match that when they go the other way? That would be (you’ve got it) none.

In fact, to find the last left-handed hitter to do that, you have to go all the way back to 2010, to Adrián González (.516/.968). Should we remind you again we’re talking about a 19-year-old?

“I still remember the first time I saw him in the minor leagues last year,” the same scout said. “I knew he was special because he just naturally had the rhythm to hit the ball in the left-center-field gap. He didn’t have to force it. It just happened.”

And guess what? It’s still happening!

… BUT THERE’S ALSO ALL THIS!

— As MASN’s Mark Zuckerman tweeted this week, this isn’t only about age. The other part of the Juan Soto saga we should all remember is that he got just 35 minor-league plate appearances above Class A ball! According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the only other active position players who have hit this many homers in their careers with that little playing time above A-ball are Albert Pujols and Yoenis Céspedes.

— Oh, and Soto also has been one of the most consistent players in the big leagues since the day he arrived. He has had at least a .398 OBP in every month since May. And only one other player in the big leagues can say that – Votto…. Soto also has racked up at least a .924 OPS in every month since May. Just J.D. Martinez, Matt Carpenter and Eugenio Suárez can also say that….But who else in the big leagues has done both? Uh-huh. Nobody.

— And how about his two-strike approach at 19? Soto has a .747 OPS with two strikes – which ranks 10th in baseball. And everyone ahead of him is an All-Star.

— Finally, there’s his plate discipline. Exactly 70 games into his big-league career, he has 50 walks, 53 strikeouts. The only other teenager in history with that good a BB/K ratio and double-figure homers in any season was Ott (52 BB, 36 K) – 91 years ago.

So we get the fixation with Juan Soto’s age. But at this point, isn’t it time to stop calling him one of the greatest teenage hitters of modern times – only because the “teenage” portion of that sentence isn’t even necessary.

“I think we should just say he’s one of the most impactful rookie hitters ever to come into the game,” said another longtime NL scout. “I don’t give a crap about age anymore.”

MYSTERY PITCHER UPDATES OF THE WEEK!

We’ve now had 52 position players trudge to the pitcher’s mound so far this season – 52! And they keep making history. That’s the good news.

Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of history we’ll be interrupting any network programming to show you. And that’s the bad news. But here at Useless Info World Headquarters, it’s our job to keep track of that history, wherever that leads us. So in case you missed all this …

JOSÉ DID YOU SEE – The Mets almost made it through four months without having to succumb to the mystery-pitcher epidemic sweeping our land. Then José Reyes showed up on the mound in that epic 25-4 game in Washington on July 31 – and wound up facing 11 hitters! And throwing 48 pitches (third-most by any position player in the last 50 years)!

Reyes did get the leadoff man out. Then, alas, the next nine went: Double, homer, walk, walk, homer, single, out, triple, hit batter. Yikes! So what was his historic claim to fame? He’s the first position player to give up a cycle since Red Kress did that for the New York Giants – 72 years ago, on July 17, 1946.

HISTORIC EPILOGUE – So what does a guy do for an encore after a messy trip to the mound like that? Well, Reyes went out the next day, resumed his day job and hit two home runs. Ha. Of course he did.

He’ll be delighted to learn that before he came along, no living human had ever seen any player give up multiple homers as a pitcher one game, then hit at least two the next game. According to our friends at Elias, the last man to do that was Cap Anson – a mere 134 years ago, on Aug. 5 and 6, 1884, for those ahead-of-their-time Chicago White Stockings.

A BALK IN THE PARK – So perhaps you thought Reyes’ efficient little outing was the ugliest position-player performance of the year. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Are you kidding? It wasn’t even the ugliest of the week. Nope, that honor goes to Tampa Bay’s always-entertaining Carlos Gómez.

He took the ball in Baltimore on July 27. And here’s how his outing went:

Ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, strike, balk, run-scoring balk, fly-out, strike, ball, foul, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball.

That happened. Really.

That comes to 21 pitches, 4 strikes, 4 walks, 2 balks. And how many relievers in history – position players or otherwise – have ever crammed that many walks and balks into an outing of one inning or less? That, naturally, would be none!

EXTRA, EXTRA, EXTRA, EXTRA-SPECIAL – But wait. We have one more contender for the most unsightly pitching line by a position player since we last visited this topic. Can’t overlook Brewers slowball king Hernán Pérez, who tossed his hat in the ugly-outing derby Aug. 2 – in his third pitching appearance of the year.

So what made Pérez’s evening on the mound so historically memorable? After a couple of outs (including a strikeout of Austin Barnes) and a couple of hits, the next four hitters went:

Double, double, Yasiel Puig homer, double.

That’s four extra-base hits in a row! And even for a position player throwing 69 miles per hour, that’s tough to do. In fact, it’s so hard to do, Elias tells us that no position player in the expansion era (all 58 seasons of it) had ever served up four extra-base knocks in a row.

Heck, Cubs closer Brandon Morrow has faced 122 hitters this year and still hasn’t allowed four extra-base hits all season. But maybe Pérez is getting arm-weary. He has now pitched three times this year, faced 17 hitters and thrown 74 pitches!

DOWN GOES THE CHAMP – What do you say we end this mystery-pitcher update on a more upbeat note? How about that Matt Davidson of the White Sox. We’re not sure anymore which was his highlight of the year: Hitting three home runs in a game Opening Day or coming in to pitch Monday and striking out Giancarlo Stanton.

But if we had to vote, let’s go with that whiff of Giancarlo. And here’s why: Lots of men have hit three home runs in a game. But how many other position players have ever struck out the reigning home run champion?

You know the answer. It’s zero. According to Elias, Davidson is the first position player in the expansion era to whiff a reigning home run king. And the only other position player in the same span who even struck out a guy who won a home run title at any point was Matt Franco of the 1999 Mets, who punched out Andruw Jones – six years before he led the league.

So in a season where those 52 position players have almost a 10.00 ERA, let’s hear it for Matt Davidson – the position player who gave us the whiff heard round the world. Well, around the Useless Information world anyway.

USELESS INFO OF THE WEEK

CALL THE COPS – Two days in a row this week, White Sox center fielder Adam Engel was clearly in no mood to watch the Yankees show off their nightly home run trots. So on Monday, he reached over the fence and robbed Greg Bird of a home run. Engel obviously enjoyed that so much that on Tuesday, he stole a Kyle Higashioka home run.

And how often do you see any outfielder pull two Yankees home runs back from Home Run Land in back-to-back games? Well, the Sports Info Solutions home-run-robbery database goes back 16 seasons. And guess how many other outfielders have done that against the Yankees? Yessir. That would be none.

GOT CHANGE FOR 100? – We need to invent some sort of new stat to sum up the career of Edwin Jackson. How about, say, the Teams Per Win Ratio? Or is it the Wins Per Team Ratio? We’ll call the Sloan Sports Analytics hotline at M.I.T. on that and get back to you next week.

Either way, Jackson, now with the A’s, just won his 100th game. And it’s been quite a journey. He pitched for 13 teams and won a game for 11 teams in order to join that 100-Win Club. And just in case you were wondering, no one else who ever threw a baseball in the majors has traveled that path to his 100th win.

— Most teams pitched for by any previous pitcher in his first 100 wins? That would be nine, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Miguel Batista and Brett Tomko used to share that “record.”

— Most teams won for by any previous pitcher in his first 100 wins? That would also be nine, by Tomko.

So here’s to Edwin Jackson, your all-time leader in Wins Per Team Ratio. Or Teams Per Win Ratio. Hey, we’re making these stats up as we go along. Bear with us, OK?

BOX SCORE LINE OF THE WEEK – We’ve always loved watching the great Félix Hernández. But not this week! His line Tuesday against Texas was so unkempt, it’s hard to even type it:

6 IP, 8 H, 11 R, 7 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 HR, 1 HBP

HIS CLAIM TO FAME: Did you know King Felix was just the third pitcher ever to give up 11 runs after once winning a Cy Young? Sad but true. The others: Barry Zito on April 9, 2005, and Rick Porcello last Aug. 25.

STREAKER OF THE WEEK – Speaking of Cy Youngs, for Max Scherzer’s latest trick, he has now ripped off a six-game hitting streak. So he’s hitting .300 for the season. And here’s what you need to know about Mad Max’s sweet-swinging offensive exploits:

— If you ignore AL pitchers who only got a handful of at-bats, just one pitcher has ever hit .300 and won a Cy Young in the same season: Bob Gibson in 1970. (Yep, I’m aware Scherzer isn’t a lock to win this Cy Young. Yep, I’m aware of the existence of Jacob de Grom. Just enjoy these notes on their own merit, OK? Thanks.)

— Last pitcher to win a Cy Young and have a hitting streak of six games or more in the same season? That would be Ferguson Jenkins – in 1971 (when he had an eight-game hitting streak).

— This is actually the second six-game hitting streak of Scherzer’s career. He’s the only active pitcher who can say that. And the seven previous Cy Young winners with multiple hitting streaks of six games or longer all did it a loooooong time ago: Jenkins, Gibson, Jim Perry, Don Drysdale, Early Wynn, Don Newcomb and Warren Spahn – none of them more recently than 47 years ago!

— And one more thing, from loyal reader Ryan (The Ace of) Spaeder… 


TOUGH TIMES FOR ROYALTY – Thanks to our friend, Kurtis Seaboldt, of SportsRadio 810 in Kansas City, for passing along this bizarre nugget.

— The Royals’ record over the last five seasons: 380-382.

— Stuff the Royals did over those last five seasons: Go to the World Series twice – and win it once.

Seaboldt reports that just two other teams in history have managed to pile up a losing record over a five-season span that included two World Series: Stuffy McInnis’ 1913-17 Philadelphia Athletics and Mark Lemke’s 1988-92 Atlanta Braves. And why is that?

It’s hard to do!

CALL IN THE HEAVYWEIGHTS – Had the Yankees and Rangers just stayed on normal rotation, we would have seen something Sunday we’ve never seen before:

Nearly 600 pounds worth of starting pitchers occupying the same mound!

As loyal reader Chris Isidore reports, CC Sabathia and Bartolo Colon were lined up to face each other Sunday in Yankee Stadium – in a historic match-up featuring baseball-reference.com’s heaviest pitcher of all time (that would be CC, at 300 pounds) versus the third-heaviest (Bartolo, at 285).

The second-heaviest, incidentally, is Jon Rauch (290). But he never started a game against either Sabathia or Colon. So this would have been the World Series of poundage.

Sadly, we regret to report that the Rangers thwarted this epic duel by pushing Colon’s start back a day, until Monday. We can console ourselves with the knowledge that you can’t trust anybody’s “official” weight in baseball history, anyway. But what a classic this could have been – 585 pounds and 489 wins.

STRANGEST BUT TRUEST FEATS OF THE WEEK

STRIKE THREE, YOU’RE (NOT) OUT – Baseball is a funny game, isn’t it? If you’re ahead with two outs in the ninth inning and you strike out the guy at the plate, you’d probably think it was time to shake hands, high-five and head for the clubhouse to celebrate, right?

Um, not so fast. Not this year.

On Sunday, the Brewers became the third team this season to discover there is life after striking out with two outs in the ninth – tying the game after what should have been the final out because of a strikeout/wild pitch or strikeout/passed ball.

The Giants pulled off that same trick July 21. And so did the Cardinals on June 18. Crazily, all three teams then lost anyway in extra innings. But that isn’t the important part.

The important part is that it had happened three times in the previous 18 seasons put together. Then, of course, it happened three months in a row.

Baseball!

EXTRA CREDIT – Have we mentioned baseball is a funny game? If you’re the home team, you’re playing in extra innings and one of your hitters launches a two-run homer, they call that a walk off, right?

Wrong. Not this week. A salute to our friend, Doug (Kernels) Kern, for catching this one. On Tuesday night in Chicago and Toronto, Jose Abreu and Kevin Pillar both hit two-run bombs in the bottom of an extra inning – and neither was a walk off.

Abreu’s homer tied the White Sox’s game with the Yankees. Pillar’s home run for the Blue Jays just turned a five-run deficit into a two-run deficit. And both their teams lost. But here’s the Strangest But Truest part:

How many other days in baseball history have featured two different teams hitting multi-run homers in the bottom of any extra inning and neither of them was a game-ender? Yessir. That would be nada.

Baseball!

BATTING OUT OF ODOR – One more reason baseball is a funny game, as demonstrated by Rougned Odor’s five-walk game for the Rangers on Aug. 2:

Odor in April: 0 HR, 4 BB

Odor in just that one game: 1 HR, 5 BB

Baseball!

POWER RANGER – Name Game alert! In the history of this sport, one Suárez had never hit a home run off another Suárez – until the Phillies called up pitcher Ranger Suárez to make his big-league debut July 26.

He promptly allowed his first career homer – to Eugenio Suárez.

Baseball!

DH-JÀ VU DEPT – Finally, another Strange But True classic from Doug (Kernels) Kern….

— Braves’ line score in Game 1 of their doubleheader Tuesday in D.C.: 3-7-0 (6 LOB)
— Braves’ line score in Game 2 of their doubleheader Tuesday in D.C.: 3-7-0 (6 LOB)

Naturally, they lost Game 1 but won Game 2. That, however, wasn’t the Strangest But Truest part, either.

How many other teams have had exactly the same line score in both games of a doubleheader over the last 15 seasons? Correct. Not a one. Until this week.

Baseball!

 

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