The Hitting Streak Blog

Pitching lines 1957-2006

Trent McCotter — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:43:14 GMT

pitching19572006

Alou gets to 30

Trent McCotter — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:03:20 GMT

Moises Alou, NYM NL, had a homer in his first AB today, extending his hitting streak to 30 games. It is the 50th hitting streak of 30+ games in MLB history, including multi-season streaks.

This is the third year in a row with a 30-gamer, matching the longest stretch in history:

Most consec. seasons with a 30+ game hitting streak

3: 1893-1895 (1893:George Davis; 1894: Bill Dahlen; 1895: Fred Clarke)

3: 1897-1899 (1897: Willie Keeler; 1898: Elmer Smith; 1899: Ed Delahanty)

3: 1997-1999 (1997: Sandy Alomar Jr/Nomar Garciaparra; 1998: Eric Davis; 1999: Luis Gonzalez/Vladimir Guerrero)

3: 2005-2007 (2005: Jimmy Rollins; 2006: Chase Utley/Willy Taveras; 2007: Moises Alou)

Although Alou was born in Atlanta, it got me thinking about the longest streaks by players born outside the USA:

35-Luis Castillo, 2002, Dominican Republic
34-Benito Santiago, 1987, Puerto Rico
31-Rico Carty, 1970, Dominican Republic
31-Vladimir Guerrero, 1999, Dominican Republic
30-Sandy Alomar Jr., 1997, Puerto Rico
30-Albert Pujols, 2003, Dominican Republic
30-Willy Taveras, 2006, Domican Republic
29-Dick Higham, 1876-1878, England
29-Mel Almada, 1938, Mexico

Also, Chase Utley, PHI NL, had his 19-game hitting streak snapped today. If he had been able to get a hit tonight, it would've been his second career 20-game hitting streak. Here are the active leaders in 20-game hitting streaks:

6-Ichiro Suzuki

5-Nomar Garciaparra

3-Vladimir Guerrero

3-Manny Ramirez

2-Moises Alou

2-Luis Castillo

2-Julio Franco

2-Luis Gonzalez

2-Derek Jeter

2-Jason Kendall

2-Mike Piazza

2-Alex Rodriguez

STREAKS TO WATCH
--Longest active hitting streak: 30 games by Moises Alou, NYM NL.
--Longest active on-base streak: 31 games by Moises Alou, NYM NL, and Victor Martinez, CLE AL.

A CENTURY OF COBB
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago
September 27, 1907: at PHI; 1-for-4 with a double vs. HOFer Eddie Plank.

Figgins Continues

Trent McCotter — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:58:05 GMT

Sorry for not putting up any new notes in a while. Chone Figgins of the LA Angels has continued his streak of maintaining a .400 average. He's now batting .400 over his last 330 at-bats, making it the second-longest streak by an Angel since 1974.

But Figgins is still far away from the longest streaks of maintaining a .400 average, even for the last 35 years:

The longest streaks of hitting .400 since 1974:

292-for-730: Tony Gwynn, SD NL, 6/10/1993 (2nd AB ) - 5/9/1995 (4th AB )

269-for-672: Rod Carew, MIN AL, 5/4/1977 (1st AB ) - 5/22/1978 (1st AB )
" " " , 5/4/977 (2nd AB ) - 5/22/1978 (2nd AB )

258-for-645: Wade Boggs, BOS AL, 6/8/1985 (5th AB ) - 6/7/1986 (3rd AB )

" " ", 6/9/1985 (1st AB ) - 6/7/1986 (4th AB )

214-for-535: Ichiro Suzuki, SEA AL, 6/28/2004 (3rd AB ) - 5/16/2005 (1st AB )

" " ", 6/28/2004 (4th AB ) - 5/16/2005 (2nd AB )

As you can see, Gwynn's streak lasted almost 23 months! Many people talk about Wade Boggs's streak of maintaining a .400 average over an entire calendar year (spanning two seasons), but I've never seen Carew's streak mentioned before. Carew's streak lasted for over a year, making it the second-longest streak (in terms of ABs) by anyone since 1974.

Here's another interesting list; it is the longest streaks of maintaining a .500 average, since 1974:

79-for-158: Ichiro Suzuki, 7/11/2004 (1st AB ) - 8/21/2004 (5th AB )

" " ", 7/11/2004 (2nd AB ) - 8/21/2004 (6th AB )

60-for-120: Milt Thompson, PHI NL, 7/17/1987 (5th AB ) - 8/24/1987 (1st AB )

58-for-116: George Brett, KC AL, 6/2/1980 (4th AB ) - 8/1/1980 (1st AB )

" " ", 6/3/1980 (1st AB ) - 8/1/1980 (2nd AB )

Jose Cruz, HOU NL, 6/26/1984 (1st AB ) - 7/28/1984(g1) (4th AB )

" " ", 6/26/1984 (2nd AB ) - 7/28/1984(g2) (1st AB )

A few other guys had 100+ AB, including Richard Hidalgo, Ivan Rodriguez, Rod Carew, Ken Singleton, and Dave Winfield. The surprise names on the list are of course Milt Thompson and Richard Hidalgo.

Hidalgo's finish to his 2000 season was one of the hottest streaks of hitting in history. Just check out his Septemer and October 2000 splits:

107 AB
51 H
14 doubles
2 triples
11 homers
.477 AVG
.532 OBP
.953 SLG

Hidalgo also batted .527 during the 25-game stretch from 9/8/2000 thru 4/5/2001, which is the highest average over any 25-game stretch by anyone since 1960. George Sisler holds the MLB record for highest average over 25 games, when he batted .564 over 25 games from 5/31(g2) thru 6/26/1920.

STREAKS TO WATCH
-Longest active hitting streak: 24 games (thru Thurs's game), by Moises Alou, NYM.
-Longest active on-base streak: 35 games (thry Wed's game), by Chone Figgins, LAA.

A CENTURY OF COBB
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
Sept 20, 1907: at New York; 1-for-4 with a steal; opposing starter: Newton.

RBI Streaks

Trent McCotter — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:28:12 GMT

Garret Anderson of the Angels as had an RBI in 11 straight games, which is three short of the known AL record, and six short of the MLB record. Here is the list of guys who've had an RBI in a dozen or more consec. games:


Most Consecutive Games with an RBI
G	BATTER	TEAM	YEAR
17	Ray Grimes	CHI NL	1922
15	Mike Piazza	NY NL	2000
14	George Van Haltren	NY NL	1895
14	Tris Speaker	PHI AL	1928
13	Nap Lajoie	PHI NL	1899
13	Taft Wright	CHI AL	1941
13	Mike Sweeney	KC AL	1999
12	Tip O'Neill	STL AA	1887
12	Tuck Turner	PHI NL	1894
12	Sam Thompson	PHI NL	1895
12	Ed McKean	CLE NL	1896
12	Charlie Hickman	NY NL	1900
12	Paul Waner	PIT NL	1927
12	Mickey Cochrane	DET AL	1934
12	Ripper Collins	STL NL	1935
12	Joe Cronin	BOS AL	1939
12	Rudy York	DET AL	1940
12	Ted Williams	BOS AL	1942

A CENTURY OF COBB
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
Aug 7, 1907: in Philadelphia; 1-for-4 against starter Chief Bender.

STREAKS TO WATCH
Longest active hitting streak: 15 games by TOR's Frank Thomas
Longest active on-base streak: 22 games by NYM's Carlos Beltran

1909pitching

1909PHIAL

The amazing hitting of Carl Crawford

Trent McCotter — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:01:05 GMT

Carl Crawford, TB AL, recently had an extended streak of awesome hitting:

Aug 01: 3-for-4
Aug 03: 1-for-4
Aug 04: 3-for-4
Aug 05: 4-for-5
Aug 06: 2-for-5
Aug 07: 4-for-5
Aug 08: 2-for-4
Aug 09: 3-for-4
Aug 10: 2-for-5
Aug 11: 2-for-4

Compare Crawford to the best streaks in the past 50 seasons:

Over six games, Crawford had 18 hits; here are the:

MOST HITS OVER 6 GAMES, SINCE 1957
20 Kenny Lofton    ATL 4/13-4/19/1997
19 Ivan Rodriguez TEX 7/29-8/03/1999
19 Johnny Damon    KC 7/16-7/21/2000
19 Marcus Giles    ATL 7/24-7/29/2003
19 Johnny Damon    BOS 7/03-7/09/2004
19 Johnny Damon    BOS 7/04-7/10/2004
____________________________________________

...and Crawford had 19 hits over seven games; he falls just short of the top streaks since 1957:

MOST HITS OVER SEVEN CONSEC. GAMES, SINCE 1957
22 Kenny Lofton    ATL 4/10-4/18/1997
22 Kenny Lofton    ATL 4/12-4/19/1997
22 Johnny Damon    BOS 7/03-7/10/2004
21 Tim Salmon      CAL 5/06-5/13/1994
21 Joe Randa       KC 7/03(1)-7/09/1999
21 Johnny Damon    KC 7/15-7/21/2000
20 MANY
____________________________________________

Crawford had 22 hits over eight games, again falling just short of matching the top streaks by any player in the past 50 years:

MOST HITS OVER EIGHT CONSEC. GAMES, SINCE 1957
25 Kenny Lofton    ATL 4/10-4/19/1997
23 Ted Sizemore    LA 8/08-8/15/1970(2)
23 Garry Templeton STL 5/30-6/07/1979
23 Rod Carew       CAL 4/24-5/06/1983
23 Hal Morris      KC 4/10-4/17/1998
23 Marcus Giles    ATL 7/22-7/19/2003
23 Johnny Damon    BOS 7/02-7/10/2004
23 Johnny Damon    BOS 7/03-7/11/2004
23 Ichiro Suzuki   SEA 7/26-8/01/2004(1)
________________________________________

Although those marks for most hits over six, seven, and eight consecutive games since 1957 are pretty amazing, they are nowhere near the all-time records.

ALL-TIME:
Most hits over 6 consec. games
N.L.-24-Cal McVey, CHI, 7/18-7/29/1876
N.L.since1900-23-Jimmy Johnston, BRO, 6/25-6/30/1923(G2)
A.L.-21-Heinie Manush, WAS, 6/13-6/21/1933

Most hits over 7 consec. games
N.L.-26-Cal McVey, CHI, 7/11-7/25/1876, also 7/15-7/29/1876
N.L.since1900-24-Jimmy Johnston, BRO, 6/24-6/30/1923(G2)
A.L.-23-Heinie Manush, WAS, 6/11-6/21/1922

Most hits over 8 consec. games
N.L.-29-Cal McVey, CHI, 7/13-7/29/1876
N.L.since1900-26-Jimmy Johnston, BRO, 6/25-7/4/1923(G1)
A.L.-26-Heinie Manush, WAS, 6/13-6/23/1933

__________________________________________

Crawford also had eight straight multi-hit games. Only four players have reached double-digit streaks for multi-hit games since 1957:

Most consecutive multi-hit games, since 1957
11-Tony Perez, 1973
10-Rich Dauer, 1978
10-Chuck Knoblauch, 1996
10-Bernie Williams, 2002

But, once again, the old-timers have them beat:
ALL-TIME
Most consec. multi-hit games
13-Rogers Hornsby, 1923
12-Paul Hines, 1879

12-Willie Keeler, 1897

12-Billy Herman, 1935-1936

---Just check out Hornsby's amazing 1923 season, as seen through scans of his official daily sheets:

---Rogers Hornsbys 1923 season game by game

STREAKS TO WATCH
--Longest active hitting streak: 12 games by Florida's Hanley Ramirez. Brian McCann and Norris Hopper each have 11-gamers going, too.

--Longest active on-base streak: 44 games by Kevin Millar, BAL AL. It's the third longest by an Oriole in the past 50 years: 49 games (Ken Singleton, 1977) and 46 games (Cal Ripken, 1998).

A CENTURY OF COBB
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 year ago:
August 16, 1907; at home vs. New York: 0-for-5 with a run scored; opposing starter: Hogg.

Cobb's 1907 average thru Aug 16: .331 (137-for-414)

Cobb's career average thru 8/16/1907: .310 (286-for-922)

1910NYAL
1910PHIAL
1910STLAL
1910WASAL
1910TEAMSHEETSAL

Bobby Jenks's amazing streak

Trent McCotter — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:28:06 GMT

The other day, fellow SABR member Brian Rash informed me about White Sox Bobby Jenks's amazing pitching streak, which has gone completely under the radar:

On July 17, 2007, Jenks gave up a 2-run homer to Ryan Garko, then retired the next three batters.
Over his next 11 appearances (from July 19 thru Aug 8, last night), Jenks faced 32 batters and has retired every one of them (plus, he got a DP on an inherited runner, making it 33 OUTS in a row over those 11 games).

So, Jenks has now retired 35 straight batters (for 36 outs thanks to that double play) since any batter has reached base in any way, making it equivalent to a 12 inning perfect game!

Only a few pitchers have retired 35 or more batters in a row:

41-Jim Barr, SF NL, 1972
40-Tom Browning, CIN NL, 1988
39-Randy Johnson, ARI NL, 2004
38-Harvey Haddix, PIT NL, 1959
38-David Wells, NYY AL, 1998
35-Bobby Jenks, CHI AL, 2007
(source: Brian Rash)

Jenks has also pitched 11 straight games without allowing a baserunner. Here are the top marks for consecutive appearances without allowing a baserunner since 1957:

G	PITCHER	TEAM	DATES	IP
13	John Franco	CIN	10/3/1986-5/08/1987	13
11	Pedro Borbon	ATL	5/05/1995-6/10/1995	7.2
11	Bobby Jenks	CHA	7/19/2007-PRESENT	11
10	Paul Assenmacher	NYY	8/04/1993-8/29/1993	7.1
10	Tony Fossas	STL	4/28/1995-5/23/1995	5

But if you impose a minimum of 1 inning pitched per appearance to get rid of the pitchers who just face a hitter or two and then come out, you get:

Most consecutive games without allowing a baserunner, min 1IP per game, since 1957:

G	PITCHER	TEAM	DATES	IP
11	Bobby Jenks	CHA	7/19/2007-present	11
8	John Wetteland	NYY	9/19/1995-4/09/1996	8.1
8	Jeff Montgomery	KC	7/19/1997-8/06/1997	8
8	David Cortes	COL	8/07/2005-8/27/2005	10

So Jenks has no competition when it comes to pitching a perfect inning every time out, as he surpasses the old record by almost 40%, and he's still going!

STREAKS TO WATCH
--Chone Figgins, LAA AL, has gone 105-for-262 (.401) since May 24, which easily makes it the longest stretch of hitting .400 this season. He can attempt to match Tony Gwynn's since-1980 record of maintaining a .400 average over a 730 at-bat stretch. Ichiro's best streak was maintaining a .400 average over 535 at-bats.

--The longest active hitting streak is 14 games, by Melky Cabrera, NYY AL.
--The longest active on-base streak is 37 games, by Kevin Millar, BAL AL.

A CENTURY OF COBB
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
August 9, 1907: Cobb did not play

One of these is not like the other

Trent McCotter — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:47:34 GMT

The record for consecutive hits is 12 in a row, by Pink Higgins (1938) and Walt Dropo (1952).

Here's a note that I came across that I thought was pretty interesting:

In the last 50 years, what's the closest that someone has come to breaking that record?

I went through the play-by-play files back to 1957, trying to find which players had a hit in 12-out-of-13 at-bats--those guys who would've gotten to 13 hits in a row if not for one unlucky out right smack in the middle of their string of hits.

I only found three players since 1957who came so close to setting a new world's record for consecutive hits, and one of the names on the list represents perhaps the most unlikely batting feat in the last 50 years.

The first name on the list is Rod Carew, MIN AL, who went 12-for-13 from June 1 (2nd at-bat) thru June 5 (3rd at-bat), 1975. He had nine singles and three homers; the only time he made an out was on a flyball to the center fielder on June 4 in his second at-bat. And who was the pitcher with the prescription on how to get Carew out? None other than the Yanks' Doc Medich.

The next name on the list is John Olerud, NY NL. Like Carew, Olerud is a guy you might expect to find on this kind of list. Olerud did Carew one better and went 13-for-14 from Sept 15 (second game, 1st at-bat) thru Sept 20 (2nd at-bat), 1998. He contributed nine singles, a double, and three homers over that stretch. The lucky pitcher who kept Olerud from setting a new record with 14 straight base hits? It was Stros' Mike Hampton, who got Olerud to ground out in his 4th at-bat on 9/16. Olerud did get a consolation prize, though, as he ran off nine straight hits after that ground-out, falling just one hit short of tying the NL record.

And for the surprise name on the list, the guy who came just one hit away from setting a new major league record for consecutive base hits, the guy who makes Ty Cobb look like Tony Womack? How about Livan Hernandez? That's right, the same Livan Hernandez who currently pitches for the Arizona Diamondbacks and who's got over 2300 innings pitched in his major league career. Hernandez's streak began on July 26, 2001, when he was still pitching for the Giants. He went 3-for-3 that day, 2-for-3 in his next start on July 31, then 3-for-3 on Aug 5, and then 4-for-4 on Aug 11. And which pitcher kept Hernandez from making a mockery of the record book by keeping a pitcher from setting a hitting record? How about rookie Dave Williams of the Bucs--whose strikeout of Hernandez must be the most famous of his whopping 245 career strikeouts.

A CENTURY OF COBB
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
August 3, 1907: at Washington; 1-for-5 with two runs scored; opposing starter: Gehring

....and a new feature:

STREAKS TO WATCH
--Brian Roberts, BAL AL, has an extra-base in 7 straight games now. Getting to 10 games in a row would be a pretty rare feat, but it would be an awesome feat for a second baseman. The only second basemen since 1957 with longer XBH streaks than Robert's 7-gamer? How about Pete Rose (9 games in 1966) and Bill Mueller (8 games in 2003).

--Jimmy Rollins currently has the longest hitting streak in the majors with 13 games in a row. Think he can match his 38-gamer from 2005/2006?

Not everything will be about streaks--or even about hitting

Trent McCotter — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:23:20 GMT

So what do Houston Astros pitcher Jason Jennings and 19th century 'switch-pitcher' Tony Mullane have in common? Both allowed 11 earned runs in the first inning of a game. Jennings did so on Sunday night against the Padres; Mullane allowed 16 earned runs in the first inning against Boston on June 18, 1894.

So what's the big deal? As far as my research can show, no other pitcher between Mullane and Jennings allowed as many as 11 earned runs to start a game. That's over 113 years in between occurrences. Here's how Mullane's dreadful inning went:

SINGLE, SINGLE, WALK, DOUBLE, SINGLE, SINGLE, HOMER, FLY OUT, HOMER, HIT BY PITCH, SINGLE, HOMER, WALK, STRIKEOUT, WALK, WALK, WALK, SINGLE, SINGLE, WALK, WALK, FLY OUT

I put the outs in bold, since they can be difficult to pick out amongst the hitting mayhem.

That's 11 hits, 7 walks, and 1 hit batter; 22 BOS players came to bat and 19 of them reached base safely. Amazingly, out of the 16 RBI by Boston hitters, only Duffy had more than three in the inning, thanks to a 3-run homer and a bases-loaded walk. And yes, those 16 runs allowed are the most ever allowed by any pitcher in any inning in any major league game.

As it turns out, Luke Hudson (KC AL) allowed 11 runs in the first inning of a game last season, but he got lucky and only 10 of those runs were earned. When he gave up 11 runs in the first inning, he was the first pitcher to do so since Kid Nichols on 9/21/1897. Hudson's line was:

1/3 IP, 11R, 10ER, 8H, 3BB

Here's another 19th century pitcher who gave one of our modern hurlers a run for his money: Tom Parrott, CIN NL, had this line on Aug 21, 1894:

1/3 IP, 11R, 10ER, 9H, 1BB

And, with all the talk about Jennings giving up 11 runs in the first inning, we almost missed Jeremy Bonderman allowing 11 runs himself on the same day.

Here are the days since 1957 when two different pitchers allowed 11 runs or more:

4/29/1999: Roy Halladay (TOR, 11 runs) and Mel Rojas (DET, 11 runs)
8/24/2002: Jose Lima (DET, 11 runs) and Jose Cabrera (MIL, 11 runs)
7/29/2007: Jason Jennings (HOU, 11 runs) and Jeremy Bonderman (DET, 11 runs)

Notice a trend there? A Detroit Tigers pitcher was involved each time.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 30, 1907: at New York; 4-for-5 with a double; opposing starter: Hogg

By the way, with Ichiro Suzuki garnering the 1500th hit of his Major League career last night in his 1060th career game, it was stated that he was the third fastest (in terms of games played) to reach that mark, with Ty Cobb being the fourth fastest at 1070 games. But Cobb actually required 1072 games; the news sources citing the 1070 total are using outdated totals for Cobb's early career. While Cobb needed 12 more games than Ichiro to get to 1500 career hits, Cobb did it in 434 fewer at-bats.

Figgins and hitting .400

Trent McCotter — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:05:49 GMT

Dating back to his fourth at-bat on May 23, 2007, Chone Figgins (LAA AL) is hitting exactly .400 (that's 88-for-220). That seems like a pretty long stretch of hitting .400 (over 2 months); I went back to 1974, to find the longest such streak by any Angel, and it turns out that Figgins's streak of hitting .400 really is pretty long. It's the 2nd-longest for the franchise in the last 35 years:

LONGEST STRETCH OF HITTING .400 BY AN ANAHEIM/CALIFORNIA/LOS ANGELES ANGEL, since 1974

148-for-370: Rod Carew, 8/13/1982 (3rd AB ) thru 6/7/1983 (2nd AB )
88-for-220: Chone Figgins, 5/23/2007 (4th AB ) thru 7/28/2007 (last AB )
80-for-200: Darin Erstad, 6/3/2000 (3rd AB ) thru 7/25/2000 (4th AB )

But if Chone wants to match the longest stretch of hitting .400, he'll have to keep up that .400 mark from now through May 30, 2013 (almost six more YEARS). Ty Cobb maintained a .400 average for 2200 days, from 7/27/1909 thru 8/4/1915.

And here are those longest stretches of maintaining a .400 season, in MLB history:

1212-for-3030: Rogers Hornsby, 1920-1926
1202-for-3005: Ty Cobb, 1909-1915
794-for-1985: Jesse Burkett, 1894-1898
778-for-1945: Ed Delahanty, 1894-1897

While Figgins is the hottest hitter in the majors now and has maintained a .400 mark for over 200 at-bats, just imagine a batter who could maintains his .400 average for over THREE THOUSAND at-bats!

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 29, 1907: Cobb did not play
Lou Gehrig Daily Sheets

More Aaron Rowand

Trent McCotter — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:39:00 GMT

I already did one post about Aaron Rowand's, PHI NL, great month of July. But he had two more doubles and a homer on Tuesday night, plus another double on Wednesday night.

That gives him four games this month with at least three extra-base hits--he's the only player in the last 51 years to do that, as no one else could top three such games in a month.

Rowand also had 14 doubles over a 14-game stretch, which has been matched only once in the last 51 years:
14 doubles over 14 games
Edgar Martinez, SEA AL, 5/11-5/28/1996
Aaron Rowand, PHI NL, 7/06-7/24/2007

And with that double in Wednesday's game, he's got 15 doubles over his last 15 games, which has been matched only once since 1957, by Edgar Martinez, SEA AL, who had 16 doubles over 15 games from 5/11-5/29/1996. In fact, only Rowand, Martinez, and Tony Oliva (1969), Mike Sweeney (2001), and Kevin Millar (2002) have even gotten to 14 doubles over any 15-game stretch, since 1957.

And this is all while Rowand's teammate Chase Utley is on pace for almost 70 doubles this season. The Phils' team record is 59 doubles, by HOFer Chuck Klein in 1930. Klein had 37 doubles at the end of July (Utley has 41 doubles already, with a week left in July), and Klein had 52 doubles at the end of August, so Utley and Rowand can chase those marks on their way to Klein's record.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 25, 1907: doubleheader at Boston; combined 3-for-9 with three steals and 2 outfield assists; opposing starters: Pruiett and Winter.

Shelley Duncan's place in history

Trent McCotter — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:18:00 GMT

Shelley Duncan, NYY AL, has started his career with a bang. Thru his first three career games with an at-bat, he had 3 homers and 7 RBI.

Only one other player in the last 50 years has had three homers in his first three career games with an AB: Billy Conigliaro in April 1969:

Apr 15, 1969: defensive sub, one AB, no homers
Apr 16, 1969: 2-for-4, 2 homers
Apr 17, 1969: 3-for-5, 1 homer

Billy is the brother of the more famous Tony Conigliaro.

And Duncan's the first guy to have 7 RBI in his first three games since the eminent George Bjorkman, HOU NL, had 7 RBI in 1983:

Jul 10, 1983: 1RBI
Jul 12, 1983: 1RBI
Jul 13, 1983: 5RBI

Shelley went 1-for-5 with no homers or RBI on Monday, but he did start his career with three straight games with an RBI. The top RBI streaks to start a career since 1957 are:

G	PLAYER	DATES	RBI
5	Bobby Knoop	4/13-4/21/1964	5
5	Mike Lansing	4/07-4/11/1993	8
4	Ron Cash	9/04-9/10/1973	4
4	Jesse Barfield	9/03-9/06/1981	6

Those are all great, but they're nowhere close to the all-time record for consec. games with an RBI to start a career:
11-John Anderson, Brooklyn, Sep 8 - Sep 22, 1894.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 24, 1907: at Boston; 1-for-4 with an outfield assist; opposing starter: Tannehill

All Howard, all the time

Trent McCotter — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:07:00 GMT

Ryan Howard, PHI NL, had another great game today (Sunday 7/22), which gives him the following active streaks going into Monday:

29 consecutive games reaching base safely
5 consecutive games reaching base 3 or more times
2 consecutive games reaching base 4 or more times
9 consecutive plate appearances reaching base safely (not counting a sac. fly he had on Sunday)

Let's see how those compare to the Phillies' franchise records for those feats.

Howard: 29 consecutive games reaching base safely. Club record: 56 games in a row, by Ed Delahanty in 1896 and Mike Schmidt 1981-1982. I guess Howard still has a ways to go there just to match the franchise record, let alone approach the MLB record of 84 games in a row reaching base (Ted Williams, 1949).

Howard: 5 consecutive games reaching base 3+ times. Club record: 10 games in a row, by Billy Hamilton in 1894. Not only is Hamilton's streak the Phils' record, but it's also tied for the MLB record (Ty Cobb, 1925, also had 10 straight). The longest streak by a Phillie in the last 50 years is 8 games, by their current second baseman Chase Utley, stretched over the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006.

Howard: 2 consecutive games reaching base 4+ times. Club record: 4 games in a row, by Billy Hamilton (in 1893 and twice in 1894) and Joe Sullivan in 1894. The MLB record is 5 games, accomplished most recently by Joe Mauer, MIN AL, in 2006. The last Phillie to get to 3 games in a row was (of course) Chase Utley, in Sept 2006.

Howard: 9 consecutive times reaching base safely. Club record: 14 straight times on base safely, by Billy Hamilton in 1893. The MLB record for these fascinating streaks is 17, by Frank Ward in 1893. Ted Williams holds the modern record of 16 straight times on base safely in 1957.

So even with a week of awesome games now, Howard still isn't really that close to the Phillies' franchise records, let alone the all-time MLB records. That's what 132 years of Major League Baseball allows us to do--everything that happens on the field today can be compared to what happened on the field in those previous 131 years.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 22, 1907: at home vs. PHI; 1-for-4 with an outfield assist against Hall of Famer Eddie Plank.

Bonds's resurgence

Trent McCotter — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:27:34 GMT

Barry Bonds, SF NL, ended his 0-for-21 slump with a vengeance yesterday, putting together the following plate appearances:

Homer, single, walk, homer

Many players have broken out of an 0-for-20 or worse slump with three straight hits, but it's not as common for those three hits to include a pair of long-balls.

The last guy to do that before Bonds was:

Preston Wilson, FLA NL: from 6/2-6/11/2002, Wilson went 0-for-26. On June 12, 2002, he started by going homer, homer, single to end his long hitless streak.

Since he went 3-for-3 with a walk yesterday, Bonds can attempt to match Edgar Renteria's, ATL NL, streak from last season:

Aug 11-Aug 17 (thru second PA) : Renteria went 0-for-24; he immediately followed that up with single, single, single, double, walk, single to end that long 0-fer.

....so Renteria busted out of his 0-for-24 slump with five straight hits, plus a walk to make it six straight times on base.

By the way, this makes the 293rd game in Bonds's career in which he's reached base safely 4 or more times. He's got a huge lead on any other active player in that category:

Games reaching base safely 4+ times, active players
293-Barry Bonds
181-Frank Thomas
160-Gary Sheffield
152-Craig Biggio
138-Chipper Jones
136-Ken Griffey
134-Jim Thome
131-Manny Ramirez
131-Alex Rodriguez

...and guess how many such games Babe Ruth had in his career? That's right, exactly 293.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's batting line from 100 years ago:
July 20, 1907: at home vs. PHI; 1-for-4 with a double against Hall-of-Famer Rube Waddell

Aaron Rowand, Professional Hitter

Trent McCotter — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:29:00 GMT

Despite starting only 10 games so far this month, Aaron Rowand (PHI NL) has already had one of the most interesting months in hitting history.

Just check out these batting lines:

July 6: 3-for-4, 3 doubles
July 14: 4-for-4, 3 doubles, home run
July 17: 5-for-6, 3 doubles, home run

That gives him three separate 3-double games this month. Rowand joins Mike Lowell (2006) as the only guys since 1957 to have three 3-double games in an entire season, but note that all of Rowand’s games have been in a 12-day stretch! Lowell's games were:

Apr 11, May 5, Jul 11, 2006

This gives Rowand four career 3-double games; the only active players with that many are:

6-Mike Lowell
5-Miguel Tejada
4-Ray Durham
4-Marcus Giles
4-Eric Hinske

Also, with three doubles and a homer on both July 14 and July 17, Rowand has two games with 4 extra-base hits (XBH) this season. Only a handful of other players have ever matched this (including Adrian Beltre, who added his name to this list just 13 days ago) :

MULTIPLE 4-XBH GAMES IN A SEASON:
2-Henry Larkin, PHI AA, June 16, July 29, 1885
2-George Burns, CLE AL, June 19(1), July 23, 1924
2-Jimmie Foxx, PHI AL, Apr 24, July 2(2), 1933
2-Joe Medwick, STL NL, May 12, Aug 4, 1937
2-Billy Williams, CHI NL, Apr 9, Sep 5, 1969
2-Paul O’Neill, CIN NL, May 11, Sep 13, 1991
2-Rafael Palmeiro, TEX AL, July 15, Sep 6, 1993
2-Albert Belle, BAL AL, Aug 29, Sep 23(2), 1999
2-Shannon Stewart, TOR AL, Jun 9, Jul 18, 2000
2-Jim Edmonds, STL NL, Apr 4, Jun 28, 2003
2-Alfonso Soriano, WAS NL, Apr 21, Jul 22, 2006
2-Adrian Beltre, SEA AL, May 28, Jul 6, 2007
2-Aaron Rowand, PHI NL, Jul 14, Jul 17, 2007

As you can see, Rowand is the only player in MLB history have two separate games with 4XBH in a single month.

Rowand’s also got 11 doubles already this month. I can’t say for certain, but I believe the Phillies record is 18 doubles in a month–by Hall of Famer Chuck Klein in July 1930.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 19, 1907: at home vs. PHI; 0-for-3 with a sac. bunt; oppposing starter: Dygert

And you thought Juan Pierre was tough to strike-out.....

Trent McCotter — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:10:41 GMT

After a weekend hiatus, the hitting streak blog returns with some info about strike outs, or rather the lack thereof. Here are the longest streaks this year by a player without a strikeout, only counting games where he actually had a plate appearance (apologies to Jon Rauch) :

GAMES	PLAYER	TEAM	START	END	PA
27	Orlando Palmeiro	HOU	4/23/2007	6/9/2007	40
26	David Eckstein	STL	4/6/2007	5/8/2007	106
21	Luis Gonzalez	LAD	4/29/2007	5/23/2007	81
19	Skip Schumaker	STL	4/22/2007	6/29/2007	31
19	Chris Gomez	BAL	4/25/2007	6/27/2007	58

As the record books will show, the all-time record is 115 games in a row (over 517 plate appearances) by Joe Sewell, CLE AL, 5/17-9/19/1929. But did you know that Sewell also had streaks of:

87 games: 5/02/1925-8/01/1925 (392 plate appearances) with 0 strikeouts
86 games: 5/27/1930(G1)-4/26/1931 (315 PA) with 0 strikeouts
83 games: 9/12/1931(G2)-7/27/1932 (389 PA) with 0 strikeouts
55 games: 7/19/1931(G1)-9/11/1931 (271 PA) with 0 strikeouts

From July 19, 1931, through July 27, 1932--over a year--Sewell played in 139 games, had 666 plate appearances including 67 walks, and had just one measly strike-out. It was on Sept 12, 1931 (G1), at the hands of Vic Frazier, who racked up a whopping 170 strikeouts for his entire career.

And the longest streaks by any active player are both by Juan Pierre:

GAMES	PLAYER	TEAM	START	END	PA
31	Juan Pierre	FLA	8/16/2004	9/19/2004	141
30	Juan Pierre	COL	6/17/2001	7/22/2001	138

And the longest by anyone in the last 50 years is:

GAMES	PLAYER	TEAM	START	END	PA
98	Nellie Fox	CHW	5/17/1958	8/22/1958	451

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's Batting Line from 100 years ago:
July 17, 1907: at home vs. WAS; 0-for-4 vs. Graham

Away Sweet Home

Trent McCotter — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:01:00 GMT

Ichiro Suzuki recently had a hit in 28 straight games away from Safeco Park, which was the longest such streak in Mariners' history:

LONGEST ROAD HITTING STREAKS, MARINERS HISTORY
28-Ichiro Suzuki 5/7-7/5/2007
26-Alex Rodriguez 5/15-7/6/1996
25-Edgar Martinez 7/9-9/9/1992
25-Ichiro Suzuki 4/6-5/26/2001

It's also one of the longer streaks of the past 50 years. Derek Jeter of the Yankees had, by far, the longest streak of the past 50 years without any fanfare at all:

G	PLAYER	TEAM	START	END
44	Derek Jeter	NYY	8/20/2006	5/28/2007
34	Justin Morneau	MIN	6/22/2006	9/15/2006
33	Johnny Temple	CLE	8/21/1960	6/9/1961
32	Lou Brock	STL	7/8/1969	9/21/1969
30	Rafael Palmeiro	TEX	6/1/1993	8/1/1993
29	Gary Sheffield	ATL	9/14/2002	5/30/2003
28	Bill Virdon	PIT	5/27/1961	8/6/1961
28	Terry Pendleton	STL	4/7/1987	6/6/1987
28	Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	5/7/2007	7/5/2007

That means that Jeter had a hit in 44 straight road games! And oh by the way, during those same dates, Jeter played 40 games at Yankee Stadium--and had a hit in 36 of them. That's 80 games with a hit out of 84 games total (not counting two 0-for-0 games that he had).

Jeter's 44-game road hitting streak also surpassed the longest that I could find from before 1957, although I'm sure this list is incomplete since it was researched by hand:

39 games: Ty Cobb, DET AL, 5/31-8/7/1917

35 games: Bill Dahlen, CHI NL, 6/20/1894-4/20/1895

35 games: Willie Keeler, BAL NL, 9/26/1896-7/13/1897

If you were interested, DiMaggio's longest in 1941 was 30 games, from 5/8 to 7/16.

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's batting line from 100 years ago
July 12, 1907: at home vs. New York; a doubleheader, going 1-for-3 in each game, with a walk in the second game. Faced HOFer Chesbro in game one, faced Hogg in game two. Total damage for the day: 2-for-6 with a walk.

Active streaks

Trent McCotter — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:53:49 GMT

The longest active hitting streak thru this year's All-star Break is 14 games, by OAK Athletic Shannon Stewart. Since they moved to Oakland, the A's have had only four 20+ game hitting streaks:

G	FIRST	LAST	YEAR
24	Carney	Lansford	1984
25	Jason	Giambi	1997
24	Miguel	Tejada	2002
22	Eric	Byrnes	2003

....but they had over twenty hitting streaks of 20+ games during their time in Philadelphia. The longest being:

29 games: Bill Lamar, 5/30(G2)-6/29/1925. 60-for-126 (.476 AVG), 10 doubles, 2 triples, 0 homers (.587 SLG).

And just for fun, the longest hitting streak ever by a player whose last name starts with 'S' was 41 games by George Sisler in 1922 (so Stewart has quite a ways to go to beat that). Sisler had seven separate 20+ game hitting streaks in his career, which puts him near the top of this list:

Most 20+ game hitting streaks in a career
8-Willie Keeler (longest was 45 games)
8-Ty Cobb (longest was 40 games)
8-Pete Rose (longest was 44 games)
7-George Sisler (longest was 41 games)
6-Pete Browning (longest was 26 games)
6-Hack Wilson (longest was 27 games)
6-Ichiro Suzuki (longest was 25 games)

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's batting line from 100 years ago:
Cobb did not play on July 11, 1907.

End game

Trent McCotter — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:22:00 GMT

You can pick just about any day of the season and find hitting streaks that began or ended on that date. I've catalogued over 600 separate hitting streaks of 20+ games. Three streaks ended on a July 10, but, interestingly, none have ever begun on July 10:

Ty Cobb, 23 games, began 6/16/1912 and ended 7/10/1912
Roberto Clemente, 20 games, began 6/23/1965 and ended on 7/10/1965
Edgardo Alfonzo, 20 games, began 6/10/1997 and ended on 7/10/1997

The earliest in a season that a 20+ game hitting streak was started was April 7, done twice:
Steve Garvey, 21 games, began 4/7/1978 and ended 5/2/1978
Danny Bautista, 21 games, began 4/7/2004 and ended 4/30/2004

And the latest in a season that a 20+ game hitting streak was started was October 5:
Sam Rice, 30 games, began 10/5/1929 and ended 5/17/1930.

...but Rice's streak was only for the last 2 games of 1929, and then the first 28 games of 1930. The latest that a streak began in which the batter had at least 20 games before the season ended was Sept 10, done four times:

Pete Browning, 24 games, began 9/10/1887 and ended 10/9/1887
Barry Larkin, 23 games, began 9/10/1988 and ended 4/5/1989 (21 games to end 1988 and 2 games to begin 1989)
Bobby Bonilla, 22 games, began 9/10/1995 and ended 4/3/1996 (20 games to end 1995, 2 games to begin 1996)
Nomar Garciaparra, 21 games, began 9/10/2000 and ended 7/29/2001 (20 games to end 2000 and 1 game to begin 2001).

A Century of Cobb
Ty Cobb's batting line from 100 years ago:
July 10, 1907: at home vs. NY; 3-for-5 with a triple; opposing starter: Newton. This was the 19th game of a 22-game hitting streak for Cobb, which lasted from 6/22-7/13/1907.