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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. 

TheFlagship

TheFlagship 466

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12 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

And the Red Sox are laying it to Cleveland.

 

Meanwhile, the Rockies didn't need Murphy because Matt Holliday has mashed in the PCL for three weeks, and he's coming to save them starting tonight.

You know they had to bring him back against SD for the troll points 

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Beau Vine

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Stark:

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It was one of those weeks, all right. A guy hit into a triple play without even making an out himself… An outfielder went to the mound and gave up more runs in a half-hour than Max Scherzer has allowed since the all-star break… And down in the wilds of the minor leagues, a hitter somehow got three hits on one day – except it took him three days to do it. (More on this later.)

But before we move along to the wackiness of the week, one of the least likely comeback stories of all time has been unfolding right before our eyes. And we kick off this week’s edition of the Useless Information Department with a look at precisely how unlikely it is.

MIRACLE MEN OF THE WEEK

Roll back the clock with us now to June 18. And please consult your AL West standings.

Houston Astros 49-25. Run differential: Plus-158
Oakland A’s: 36-36. Run differential: Minus-6. Games behind: 12.0

So suppose we had told you then that you would look up, a mere nine weeks later, and see these two teams tied for first place? Yeah. Sure. That would have made sense.

Even crazier, suppose we had told you then that the hottest team in baseball after that date would be a team whose rotation included Edwin Jackson, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson and Mike Fiers? What would you have told us?

“I probably would have taken you around to some facility to get drug-tested,” said the always entertaining Dallas Braden, one-time A’s left-handed funkballer, present-day A’s broadcast-philosopher king for NBC Sports Bay Area. “I would have had to make sure your blood-alcohol level hadn’t spiked, because clearly, you’d have been high.”

Right. Clearly. No sane, rational, thoughtful human would ever have seen this coming. But it’s happened. So it’s time to put in perspective what Braden calls “undoubtedly one of the craziest comebacks in history.”

Here’s the first thing you need to file away: You know how many teams, in the history of baseball, have ever found themselves 12 games out (or more) on June 18 or later and roared back to finish first?

That would be exactly eight. In 142 seasons. Only three of those have come in the last four decades. And none of these teams, by the way, was chasing the defending World Series champions, which happens to be Oakland’s assignment. Now here’s the group, verified by the Elias Sports Bureau:

1914 “Miracle” Braves (15 games)
1978 “Bucky Dent” Yankees (14 games)
1951 “Bobby Thomson” Giants (13 games)
1995 “Griffey and Edgar” Mariners (13 games)
2012 “Yoenis Cespedes” A’s (13 games)
1973 “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets (12.5 games)
2006 “Johan Never Loses” Twins (12 games*)
1930 “Frankie Frisch” Cardinals (12 games)

(*-Twins’ biggest deficit was 12.5 games, but biggest after June 18 was 12)

That is quite a list, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a list that includes some of the most storied teams – and Cinderellas – in sports. So what the heck is this team doing on that list?

Well, part of it is just that, hey, they’re the A’s. Playing in the House That Al Davis Built and Sewage Overflowed. Spinning their roster through the revolving door year after year. Perennially working with a revenue stream that allows them to pay their entire team about what the starting rotation alone makes across the bay at AT&T Park.

“So it’s almost a given that in their position, these guys are playing the game with house money,” Braden told Useless Info. “There’s just a sense of: ‘We don’t have the payroll that other teams do. And we don’t have the cool stadium with a lot of cool stuff going on. And we haven’t been able to keep our players…But we’re given the opportunity to just be the A’s, so nobody cares.’”

And guess what? It can be a beautiful thing that nobody cares. It means no expectations. It means no hype. It means no more visits from Brad Pitt. It just means: Let’s play baseball. Let’s have a blast. And let’s shock the world.

“Hey, as long as the scoreboard keeps lighting up the way it does,” Braden said, “these boys don’t give a damn.”

Now obviously, a team whose rotation stalwarts include Jackson, Cahill and Anderson can’t possibly give a damn what the world thinks. But here’s what the A’s have gotten out of them:

JACKSON – Signed in midseason. Has a 2.97 ERA in Oakland. Had a 5.57 ERA the previous two years in Miami, San Diego, Baltimore and Washington. The A’s have gone 8-3 in his starts. His teams, over the previous six seasons, had gone 41-74 in his starts.

CAHILL – Signed with a week left in spring training, for $1.5 million. Has a 3.44 ERA in Oakland, and the A’s have won 10 of his 16 starts. His four teams over the previous three years won nine games he started combined.

ANDERSON – Also signed in the last week of spring training, for $1.5 million. Has a 3.47 ERA in Oakland, with a 1.19 WHIP. Of course he does. Had a 7.29 ERA for the Dodgers, Cubs and Blue Jays over the previous two years, with a 1.85 WHIP.

THE LAST WEEK – So how good have these guys been? On Saturday, Cahill started against the Astros – and allowed one hit in seven innings… On Monday, Fiers (acquired in an August waiver deal with Detroit) started against the Rangers – and allowed one hit in seven innings…. On Tuesday, Anderson started against the Rangers – and also allowed one hit in seven innings.

So how rare is that? Glad you asked.

  • It’s just the second time in the entire DH era that any American League team has gotten at least seven innings of one-hit or no-hit baseball from its starting pitchers on back-to-back days. The other team to do it? The 1996 Rangers (Ken Hill-Roger Pavlik on May 3-4, 1996).
  • It’s only the fifth time in the last half-century that a team in either league has had two starters give up one hit or none, over seven or more innings, on back-to-back days. The others: Gio Gonzalez-Jordan Zimmermann for Washington on April 25-26, 2013, Nolan Ryan-Mike Scott for Houston on Sept. 24-25, 1986 and Jerry Reuss-Larry Dierker for Houston on June 18-19, 1972.
  • But now here’s the most astounding tidbit of all: Since the mound was set at its current distance in 1893, how many teams do you think have cranked out starts like that three times in four games? Six? Eight? Twenty? Nope. The answer, according to Elias, is none!The Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz Braves never did it. The Verlander/Scherzer/Price Tigers never did it. The Koufax/Drysdale/Osteen Dodgers never did it. Just the A’s – of Cahill, Fiers and Anderson – have ever done it. Right. Of course they have.

For a team that has lost five starting pitchers to Tommy John Surgery this year and has had to scrape through the bargain bin merely to roll out what Braden calls a “Rotation 2.0,” this just sums up the magic of the 2018 A’s.

They have rising stars in Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. They have a guy who hits a home run every single day, whether he needs to or not, in Khris Davis. They have tremendous veteran stabilizers in Jed Lowrie and Jonathan Lucroy. They have one of the game’s best bullpens.

But they also have the most unlikely collection of dominating starters ever assembled. And that, friends, is the most Oakland A’s thing ever. You know their story. You’ve heard it before. Weren’t supposed to be here. Weren’t supposed to do that. But here they are. Again.

“These guys hear the narrative, but they’re tired of that,” said Dallas Braden. “They’ve been tired of that. And now they’re at the brink of something big happening.”

WALK-OFF OF THE WEEK

Everybody ought to have a special niche in life. And as niches in baseball go, we’ll take Ryan Zimmerman’s niche over pretty much anybody’s. So why is that?

Because he’s Mr. Walk-off!

The Nationals’ trusty first baseman may have hit fewer career home runs (263) than Matt Stairs or Mark Reynolds. But if you send this man up there in the bottom of the ninth or the bottom of any extra inning, hey, drive home safely. He’s got this.

Zimmerman’s game-ending homer against the Phillies on Wednesday was his 11th career walk-off homer. And shockingly, we have some thoughts about why that’s so incredible:

THE WALKOFF PANTHEON – Check out the only players in history with more walk-off bombs than Ryan Zimmerman:

Jim Thome 13
Babe Ruth 12
Jimmie Foxx 12
Mickey Mantle 12
Stan Musial 12
Albert Pujols 12
Frank Robinson 12

The average home run total of those seven men? How about 584 homers. And Ryan Zimmerman doesn’t even half that many. It’s the greatest walk-off-per-trot ratio ever!

NATIONAL TREASURE – Of course, every one of those Zimmerman walk-offs has come for the Nationals, the only team he’s ever played for. And as our friends at Stats LLC report, that puts him in a group with three of the most iconic players who ever lived. How about the only four men in history with 11 walk-off homers (or more) for one team:

Mantle 12 (Yankees)
Musial 11 (Cardinals)
The Babe 11 (Yankees)
Zimmerman 11 (Nationals)

Wow. How cool is that club?

SPEAKING OF ICONS – Finally, here’s one more way to drive home the big point here, that 11 walk-off homers is not just another number.

Regular-season walk-offs by Ryan Zimmerman: 11
Regular-season walk-offs by Willie Mays, Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig combined: 10

We recognize that walk-off home runs are part fluky and part funky, and that they’re a product, in part, of being in the right place at the right time. But look at the names we dropped in this item. Then think of that name, Ryan Zimmerman. He’ll be a walking trivia answer for the rest of his life.

MYSTERY PITCHERS OF THE WEEK

We’re now up to 60 – count ‘em, 60 – trips to the mound by position players this season. As recently as the late, great 1980s, there were 58 in the entire decade. Is it us, or are these little outings getting wilder every week? For instance…

(DON’T) DO AS THE ROMANS DO – When Phillies manager Gabe Kapler decided last Thursday – in the midst of a 24-4 loss to the Mets – that his actual pitchers had done all they needed to do, he waved for rookie outfielder Roman Quinn. And Quinn unfurled a box-score classic for the position-player annals:

1 2/3 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 0 K, 1 HR (to the first hitter he faced) 1 HBP, 2 consecutive bases-loaded walks, 42 pitches, 20 strikes.

  • His first claim to fame: He was the first mystery pitcher to give up seven earned runs in 35 years – since Manny Castillo coughed up seven for the Mariners on June 26, 1983. And Quinn was the first true position player ever to allow that many earned runs in an outing of five outs or fewer – or, at least, the first since earned runs became an official stat in 1913, anyway.
  • His other claim to fame: He faced 14 hitters – the most by any true position player since José Oquendo’s legendary four-inning, 21-hitter relief appearance for the Cardinals on May 14, 1989. And ohbytheway, those 14 Mets hitters who faced Quinn that night? They had a 1.643 OPS against him!

LONG LIVE THE KINGERY – But for the Phillies’ mystery-pitching crew, the fun was just beginning that night. Out went Quinn, with two outs in the eighth, and in came shortstop Scott Kingery, to give up two more runs. So that made nine earned runs allowed by two position players in the same game. And if you’re thinking you don’t see that much, good thinking!

  • In the 105 years in which earned runs have been an official stat, no tag team of position players has ever traipsed into any game in relief and given up nine earned runs. But we’re breaking new, mystery-pitching ground pretty much daily nowadays.
  • And the only instance we could find of a true position player giving up nine earned runs all by himself came almost 90 years ago, in an end-of-season stunt in a meaningless game. Shortstop Mark Koenig started a game for the 1930 Tigers on the next-to-last day of the season – and actually gave up 10 earned runs to the White Sox. You’ll be happy to know he pitched three more times the following year in relief – and whittled that career ERA all the way down to a spiffy 8.44.

THE ROMINE EMPIRE – Then there was Mariners utility whiz Andrew Romine, a man so versatile, he has now played every position but catcher this season. So what was his big feat of last week? He pitched against the Dodgers last Friday. And that went so well (a hitless inning) that Scott Servais sent him back out there to face the Dodgers again Sunday.

In his encore, Romine served up a three-run homer to Justin Turner and plunked Manny Machado. But let’s overlook that part. The big news was, he actually pitched against the same team twice in the same series. And he isn’t even a pitcher! Here are the only three other true position players to do that in the expansion era:

  • Danny Worth (Tigers) knuckleballed his way through two sparkling outings against Texas on May 22-24, 2014.
  • Vic Davalillo (Cardinals) got to face the Mets twice on June 30 and July 3, 1969.
  • And Granny Hamner (A’s) actually pitched in both games of a doubleheader against Detroit back on Aug. 1, 1962.

Little did they know how far ahead of their time they actually were.

A DIXON MELODY – Oh, and one more: The Reds have used four different position players on the mound this season. Amazingly, they’ve combined to run up a better strikeout rate (four in 3 1/3 innings, or 10.80 per nine innings) than their actual pitchers! And as pitching debuts go, it was tough to beat Brandon Dixon’s shutout inning against the Indians last week.
Not only did he knock off a 1-2-3 inning on 10 pitches (all curveballs), he even struck out José Ramirez – swinging – on three pitches!

 

If you recall our note two weeks ago – after Matt Davidson whiffed Giancarlo Stanton – you’ll know that no position player in the expansion era has ever struck out a home-run champ, either in the season he led the league or the following year, when he was the reigning champ. So if that isn’t enough reason to root for Ramirez to lead the league, we don’t know what is.

USELESS INFO OF THE WEEK

CARD SHARKS – Thanks to loyal reader/tweeter Ben Cramer (@beneboi24) for posing this fun question: The Cardinals are 17-4 in August – and all four losses have been by one run. So how long has it been since any team went through a month without losing a game by more than one run?

The answer, according to Elias: To find the last team to lose four games or more in a calendar month, none of them by more than a run, you have to go back 86 years – to Chief Hogsett’s 1932 Tigers (who went 10-5 in April, with five one-run losses).

LEADING MAN – Behold the greatness of Ronald Acuña Jr.

  • Manny Machado led off 120 games for the Orioles over four seasons. He hit four leadoff home runs. Ronald Acuña Jr. has hit five in the last two weeks.
  • Kirby Puckett led off 417 games for the Twins over four seasons. He hit four leadoff homers. Ronald Acuña Jr. just did that in four games in a row.
  • And Rickey Henderson hit more home runs leading off the first inning (88) than anyone who ever lived. He never hit five in any calendar month. And Ronald Acuña Jr. has hit five in the last two weeks.

Just take a moment to appreciate what you’re watching. It might come along once in a generation. Ronald Acuña Jr. is that special. And oh yeah. He’s 20!

D.C. NINE-NINE – Thanks to our friend, Doug (Kernels) Kern for noticing this one. This was bound to happen, given the state of modern baseball thinking. But Tuesday in Washington, both No. 9 hitters homered in the same game – and neither of them was a pitcher.

Wilmer Difo went deep for the Nationals. Roman Quinn hit the first of his career for the Phillies. So guess how many games in history have been played by National League rules, saw both teams’ starting No. 9 hitters homer and yet neither was a pitcher?

You’ve got it. That would be zero – until this one.

GOPHER IT – You might have stopped paying attention to the Orioles the day they traded Manny Machado, but this just in: Dylan Bundy has given up 33 home runs this year. Which puts him on pace to allow 42!

We bring this to your attention because only eight pitchers in history have ever served up 42 gopherballs in one season – just five of them in the last 50 years. And of those five, just four of them had racked up more than 33 on this date. For entertainment purposes, here they are:

Bert Blyleven 1986 – 37 (gave up 50)
Jose Lima 2000 – 38 (gave up 48)
Bronson Arroyo 2011 – 34 (gave up 46)
Jamie Moyer 2004 – 34 (gave up 44)

No active pitcher has ever given up 42 (or more). No Orioles pitcher has ever given up 42. No AL East pitcher has ever given up 42. So who says there’s no September drama coming in Baltimore?

UREÑA-BALL – Has it been a weird week in the life of Marlins pitcher Jose Ureña or what?

  • His start Aug. 15: One pitch, one ejection (for drilling the aforementioned Ronald Acuña Jr.)
  • His next start Aug. 19: First career complete game.

Well, you don’t see two starts like that back-to-back real often! In the pitch-count era, which goes back three decades, he’s the first pitcher in recorded history to follow a one-pitch start with a complete game.

But in other news, he’s also the first pitcher in almost 30 years to follow a no-out start with a complete-game victory. Last man to do that, according to Elias: Houston’s Jim Clancy – who had a bizarre week of his own back in 1989.

Aug. 3 – 0 outs, 7 runs.
Aug. 8 – 9 innings, 3 runs.

Just another reminder that you can pull off goofy achievements like this even without getting ejected.

STRANGEST BUT TRUEST FEATS OF THE WEEK

SUSPENDED ANIMATION DEPT. – There’s nothing we love more, here on the Strange But True beat, than a good old suspended game, when time travel becomes a thing and the impossible becomes possible. So thanks to the Norfolk Tides for passing along this classic:

Ever heard of a guy who got hits on three different days – on the same day?

Well, meet Orioles prospect Mike Yastrzemski. On Aug. 1, he got himself mixed up in the strangest doubleheader of his life.

He got four hits in Game 1 in Charlotte. Then, when the suspended second game resumed – three weeks later in Norfolk – he got a hit at 11:45 p.m. Monday night. And he got a second hit an hour and a half later, at 1:15 Tuesday morning.

So do the math. That’s three hits. In one “day.” Which actually came on three different “days.” In two different cities. And how exactly is that possible?

Baseball!

SUSPENDED ANIMATION DEPT. 2.0 – But hang on. We’re not done with this suspended-game minor-league insanity quite yet – because our friends at the Pawtucket Red Sox passed along some madness of their own.

On July 5, they were playing a game in Rochester that got suspended by rain in the first inning. Red Sox outfield prospect Josh Ockimey missed all those rain drops – because he was busy getting three hits for the Portland Sea Dogs that day in Hartford.

But a funny thing happened when that Pawtucket-Rochester game finally resumed this week: Josh Ockimey had been promoted to triple-A by then. Whereupon he went out and got three more hits for Pawtucket.

So again, let’s do the math. That’s six hits. In one “day.” For two different teams (Portland and Pawtucket). In two different cities, neither of which was Portland or Pawtucket. This wouldn’t seem to be humanly possible – except …

Baseball!

WHO KIDNAPPED THE CUBS – The Cubs had a stretch a few weeks ago in which they scored 46 runs in four games. Then somehow, they spent last week doing stuff no team has ever done – by which we mean breaking dramatic new ground in not scoring runs.

Five straight games in which they scored exactly one run – every one of them on a solo homer? Can’t possibly happen. Had never happened – to any team ever. And then it did – to the team that led the National League in runs scored before launching into that funk.

How Strange But True did it get? The Cubs went an entire week between hits with runners in scoring position – from an Anthony Rizzo RBI single Aug. 15 to an RBI single Wednesday by a guy who wasn’t even on the team when all this started, (Daniel Murphy).

In between Cubs hits with runners in scoring position … they played 55 innings… 226 Cubs hitters came to the plate… they left 52 runners on base… and they went 0-for-30 with men in scoring position.

How the heck did that happen? Oh, that’s right.

Baseball!

SAVE THAT BASEBALL/NEVER MIND – Has any player ever gotten his first career hit twice? Well, Braves pitcher Bryse Wilson is an excellent candidate.

In his big-league debut Monday in Pittsburgh, he lashed a line drive to right. (Exit velocity, according to our friends at Statcast: an impressive 97.5 MPH.)…He hustled down the line. (Statcast sprint speed, according to MLB.com’s Anthony Simon: an above-average 27.6 feet per second.)… And then…

A lot of good that did him – because Pirates rightfielder Gregory Polanco charged it and still threw him out at first. That wasn’t too hospitable, now was it?

So what’s the story when a guy’s first career hit is actually an out? Ah, yes:

Baseball!

TRIPLE TROUBLE – Finally, we’re excited to announce we have a candidate for the Strangest But Truest play of the year, thanks to the wacky triple play turned by the Rangers last week (Aug. 16).

Take a look. You’re guaranteed to enjoy it.

A couple of things make this epic.

First off, nobody had any idea what was happening, including the team turning this trifecta, the Rangers – because after they’d already recorded three outs, second baseman Rougned Odor was doing his darndest to record a fourth out. Odor told the Athletic’s Levi Weaver afterward that he knew all along. But his double-play partner, Elvis Andrus, didn’t seem to back him up on that.

“We’re like ‘Where are you going, where are you going?’” Andrus told the Athletic. “As he was going after the guy, (we were) like ‘That’s three already!”

Yep. Sure was. But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was that the Rangers did something that’s almost impossible here. They turned a triple play without retiring the guy who hit the ball (David Fletcher). And no team had done that in (ready?) 106 years – since the Dodgers did it, by pulling the old 6-2-5-2-4 trick, against the Reds on June 3, 1912.
So now think about how hard it is – just mathematically – to get three outs on one play without the batter being one of them. After all, none of the outs came at the plate. And you’ve only got three other bases to choose from. So obviously, there’s only one real explanation:

Baseball!

 

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55867

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Scraps said:

Sources: ultimately, reds owner bob castellini did not want to trade matt harvey. which may well mean reds try to sign him as a free agent

What a rube.  Matt Harvey is going to sign with whomever offers him the most money, just like basically everyone else.

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55867

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1 hour ago, Colonel Sanders said:

Thank god we get to see the Yankees play a team 52.5 games out of first tonight. Would have been a good week to see some different teams.  Seattle Arizona or Colorado St. Louis would have been compelling. 

I noticed that yesterday MLB channel was showing "regional coverage" -- NYY vs Baltimore or Boston vs Tampa.  

 

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Smax

Smax 3800

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Colonel Sanders said:

Thank god we get to see the Yankees play a team 52.5 games out of first tonight. Would have been a good week to see some different teams.  Seattle Arizona or Colorado St. Louis would have been compelling. 

 

 

You will be forced fed yankee baseball and you will enjoy it .....

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55867

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1 hour ago, youdunnf'dup said:

This is a rhetorical question, but why the fuck is Yankees v white Sox on espn and not Astros v A’s

Probably because there are more Yankee fans across the country outside of NY than there are Astros and A's fans combined.  

(And why would the Astros and their fans want to start a weekday game at 6pm?)

That said, fuck the Yankees.  I enjoyed watching Rodon shut them down.

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Goo Punch

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Posted

So ESPN Sunday nights are held hostage by ratings. is there anything at all that ESPN could do to say, "We appreciate and value our fans, and we're going to be committed from now on to giving you the best, most important matchups on Sunday nights"? And if the numbers hit is too large to do that, is there anything creative they could to to facilitate it? Could they maybe get a couple of lucrative ad deals with a elect few sponsors by promising them to air the living fuck out of their product/service during their most watched shows? Make a few new "official sponsors" of certain programs? Anything?

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Helobious

Helobious 9820

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Posted (edited)

 

2 hours ago, youdunnf'dup said:

This is a rhetorical question, but why the fuck is Yankees v white Sox on espn and not Astros v A’s

All your TVs are belong to us. 

That said, I would rather have watched a special olympics bowling competition than that game they showed tonight. A team fucking 150 games out of 1st place, and they win anyway. 

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