I've been littering the game threads with some random factoids...here's my half-hearted attempt to centralize them. Feel free to post questions of the "Has that ever happened before" or "Who's done that the most times" variety.

First up, Manny homering on Freddy Dolsi's first career pitch. This is the eighth time in Retrosheet's pitch sequence era that this has happened:



Kevin Rogers was the only starter on this list...everyone else entered their debut as a reliever.

Nothing statistical with this thought, but I wonder what the odds would be of the Tigers scoring 2 runs off Papelbon with the minimal amount of contact they produced off him, without the benefit of a walk or HBP? Two 75 foot squibbers (one hit, one error), a sac bunt, an RBI groundout and a Luis Gonzalez-esque flair over Lugo's head. The odds of all of that producing two runs must be astounding.

Yeah, I immediately thought of Okajima, too.

Fwiw, John Buck also has the longest HR this season according to hittrackeronline.com. 478 feet. Wind helped, but still a bomb.

Today Cleveland won the first game of their double header 3-0, then Toronto won the second game 3-0. When's that last time that's happened (scores inversed)?

April 13, 2005...the Cubs and Padres split that doubleheader with a pair of 8-3 games. Before that you have to go back to July 20, 1998 when the Tigers and Yankees each posted 4-3 wins. All told it has happened 68 times in the Retrosheet era (back to 1956 currently) including 7 times in 1967 alone.

2nd game of yesterday's doubleheader started off with Wakefield striking out the side in order in the first, and then in the bottom of the first Jacoby Ellsbury led off with a K.

There's nothing incredibly amazing about that...but it did get me wondering what the record is for most combined consecutive Ks to start a game.

I can't think of any real good reason why it would matter. But that's beside the point.

Why does it not surprise me that Jason Johnson is on that list?

I'm assuming this is the first time both reigning Rookies of the Year homered in the same game.

I'd like to know if that's true, and also what the answer to Rom's question is...

Without exhaustively researching it I have to believe that Kerry Wood's 20K game on May 6, 1998 had the most strikeouts to start a game, with 8. Wood struck out the side in the top of the first...Shane Reynolds returned the favor in the bottom of the first...then Wood struck out the first two batters in the top of the second.

acr's conjecture is true...this was the first time the two reigning ROYs have homered in the same game. It almost happened twice before, when one ROY homered in a game against the other (Nomar/Rolen and Pujols/Crosby).

The Baseball Almanac has it with 7 in 1986 in a game between the White Sox and Rangers.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_strike2.shtml

Edit - read it wrong, the Rangers struck out 7 times in a row in their AB's in that game. That isn't a combined record, just a linear one.

Just a sidenote:

The most consecutive strikeouts to start an All Star game by a single pitcher is 4.
Pedro Martinez in 1999 took out: Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

To clarify the discussion in the Lester No-No game thread...Varitek is the only catcher to catch four no-hitters. However, he is not the first! :-) Ray Schalk caught four no-hitters, but one of those (May 4, 1914) is no longer considered a no-hitter since the game went to extra innings and the pitcher, Jim Scott, allowed a hit in the tenth. Hence Schalk is now one of 13 catchers to catch three no-hitters, 14 if you count Yogi Berra catching Don Larsen's perfecto in the World Series.

The others with three no-hitters to their name:
Silver Flint
Ed McFarland
Bill Carrigan
Ray Schalk
Val Picinich
Luke Sewell
Jim Hegan
Roy Campanella
Yogi Berra*
Del Crandall
Johnny Edwards
Jeff Torborg
Alan Ashby
Charles Johnson

Here's a list of those catchers (minus Yogi) & who was throwing to them, along with the year:


Silver Flint: L. Corcoran (1880)/L. Corcoran (1882)/L. Corcoran (1884)
Ed McFarland: R. Donahue (1898)/N. Callahan (1902)/F. Smith (1905)
Bill Carrigan: J. Wood (1910)/R. Foster (1916)/D. Leonard (1916)
Ray Schalk: J. Benz (1914)/E. Cicotte (1917)/C. Robertson (1922)
Val Picinich: J. Bush (1916)/W. Johnson (1920)/H. Ehmke (1923)
Luke Sewell: W. Ferrell (1931)/V. Kennedy (1935)/B. Dietrich (1937)
Jim Hegan: D. Black (1947)/B. Lemon (1948)/B. Feller (1951)
Roy Campanella: C. Erksine (1952)/C. Erksine (1956)/S. Maglie (1956)
Del Crandall: J. Wilson (1954)/L. Burdette (1960)/W. Spahn (1960)
Jeff Torborg: S. Koufax (1965)/B. Singer (1970)/N. Ryan (1973)
Alan Ashby: K. Forsch (1979)/N. Ryan (1981)/M. Scott (1986)
Charles Johnson: A. Leiter (1996)/K. Brown (1997)/A.J. Burnett (2001)
Jason Varitek: H. Nomo (2001)/D. Lowe (2002)/C. Buccholz (2007)/J. Lester (2008)

========================================

What I find most striking is that only Silver Flint caught the same pitcher 3 times & Campanella caught Erksine twice. All others on the list caught three different pitchers...or in the case of Tek, 4.

Agreed. I know Nolan Rya moved around a lot, but you'd think someone would have caught 2 of his.

Edit: or did someone catch 2 of his, but not get a third? That would make more sense

Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters were caught by 7 different catchers, two of which are on the list of catchers who've caught 3 no-no's.

Jeff Torborg*
Alan Ashby*
Art Kusnyer
Tom Egan
Ellie Rodriguez
John Russell
Mike Stanley

*caught 3 no-hitters

Regarding Rick Sutcliffe's reported assertion (from the Dumb Question thread) that leadoff batters who draw walks score more often than leadoff batters who reach on singles...

Sadly, this isn't even remotely true. I examined every instance from 1956-2007 of a batter leading off an inning with either a walk or a single, and plotted the percentage of those runners that subsequently scored. Here's the graph:



The blue line is walks, the red line is singles. Not only have both methods produced virtually identical run scoring rates in any given season, the run scoring rate from 1956 through 2007 has varied within a narrow range from 32% (1968) to 40% (1996), which is entirely consistent with the relative overall run scoring rates during the sample period.

Sorry, Rick...you were a good pitcher but this tidbit was just drivel...

Very impressive work. I didn't expect the 50% to be accurate, but Sutcliffe had me convinced that there would be at least a significant difference based on the fact that the walk showed a lack of control where a single could be a bloop off of a good pitch.

Thanks.

Kudos Thanman2 - that's great work & thanks for providing your services.

Sure, or a single could be a line shot off the wall at Fenway that would be extra bases anywhere else (one example), or a hard-hit ball back up the middle, or a solid liner in front of an outfielder. Sometimes the hitter gets lucky that he didn't make an out. Sometimes the pitcher gets lucky that all he gave up was a single. If those instances more or less even out over time, then it would follow that a runner on first base to start an inning is, more or less, a runner on first base.

It's impressive to see such a definitive answer. That's some quality database magic right there. But it's not nearly as shocking to see these results as it would have been to see results confirming Sutcliffe's point.

That said...I wonder how much it varies from pitcher to pitcher (or type of pitcher to type of pitcher)? Does a leadoff single vs. walk mean something different for a power pitcher than for a sinkerballer? Not that I'm expecting that graph. It's just an idle "I wonder."

Sounds like you're seeing if there's an effect like "For a pitcher who normally has great control, a leadoff walk may indicate he's struggling and that runner may score more often than a guy who eked out a single."

Intuitively I think this effect would wash out over time, even for specific pitchers...a runner on first is a runner on first, and will score some percentage of the time regardless of how he got there (single, walk, HBP, ROCI, ROE).

Yeah, where the hell is roci on your graph? Slacker.

That type of thing, yes. And intuitively, I would agree with your intuition. But if there is anything of a variation, I wonder where it would happen.

Actually, it might be interesting to look at batters who reached first on a strikeout and passed ball/wild pitch. Perhaps they score at a slightly lower rate, since the K indicates that the pitcher is performing well.

It's also possible that the opposite is true. Remember when Derek Lowe seemed to fall apart whenever there was an error, a fluke hit or anything else that rattled him?

Holy slugging % - what's the record for the most consecutive hits being HRs in MLB & what's the team record for the Sox?

Early returns are Mark McGwire with 11 in 2001 having the MLB record...I'll know more tonight when I have access to my DB.

How many times have the Phillies been shutout in the bandbox known as Citizens Bank Park since it opened in 2004? (before tonight)

Twice in 2004
Thrice in 2005 (including once by Wakefield/Embree)
Once in 2006
Twice in 2007
Thrice already in 2008

Thanks, that's more than I expected.

Well Thames did it again last night, he's up to 8. This is fun to watch.
Still wondering what the Sox team record is.

Thanks for getting the info. Thanman2!

OK. In the RetroSheet era (1956+), McGwire does hold the ML record with 11 straight home run hits. Thames has just tied Albert Belle for most in the AL with 8. The Sox record is held by Jose Canseco with 6 in 1996. Interestingly, I saw the 4th and 5th of those in person at the Mausoleum on 5/20/96...he was absolutely locked in during that stretch. The six homers were all no-doubter, crack-of-the-bat jobs.