You Can't Predict Baseball

The Mets and Marlins went into extras again.
- This time the game only lasted ten innings.
– They’re the first team to play a 20+ inning game followed by a 10+ inning game since 1989.
— They scored the go-ahead run when a relatively routine grounder clanged off Daniel Murphy’s glove. They added another on a sac fly and two more on a home run from Miguel Olivo.
—- For the second weekend in a row, the Mets were swept by the Marlins.
—– Since May 21st, every Marlins win has come against the Mets. They now have 8 wins against the Mets and 10 against everyone else.

The Yankees took three of four from the Mariners, during a series where they faced Felix Hernandez.
- They won the game Felix started. The one they lost was Kuroda vs. Bonderman.
– Chris Stewart bunted for a hit against Felix.
– He also drove in the winning run.

Matt Moore gave up eight runs in just five innings to the Orioles, a day after they were shut out.
- On May 31, Matt Moore’s ERA was 2.18.
– In two starts since, his ERA has climbed all the way up to 3.78.
— Brian Matusz came in holding lefties to a .406 OPS. Sam Fuld took him deep.
—- It was Fuld’s first homer in more than two years, and just the fifth of his career. It was his first homer off a lefty since his first big league homer back in 2009.
—– Alexi Casilla got caught stealing.

Juan Nicasio had a perfect game through five innings, and a 4-0 lead.
- But going into the bottom of the ninth, the Padres had flipped things around very quickly and led the Rockies by a 7-4 margin.
– The Rockies ended up winning.
— Cameron Maybin and Mark Kotsay homered in this one, too. First of the year for both of them.

The Nationals and their surprisingly weak offense won a game where their starter gave up four runs in just three innings.
- It was their first comeback from being down three runs all season.

Joe Blanton is 1-10.
- Jose Iglesias watch: 2-4, single and a double. .446/.494/.581.

Adam Lind is hitting .340/.419/.536.

A Houston pitcher tossed seven innings of two-hit shutout ball.
- Of course, they lost anyway.

Milwaukee won.
- Kyle Lohse allowed three hits and no runs in the first inning.
– The Phillies didn’t get another hit until the eighth.
— Scooter Gennett had a big bases-clearing triple for the Brewers.
—- Also, Martin Maldonado homered off Papelbon.

Jose Alvarez made his big league debut for the Tigers.
- He didn’t allow a hit until two outs in the fifth.
– The first hit was a game-tying homer to former Tiger Ryan Raburn.
— Tigers starters, as a whole, have a 9.8 K/9.
—- Twins’ starters are at 4.4 K/9.
—– That’s 418 strikeouts compared to only 161.
—— No Twins starter has more than 36 strikeouts. There are eight players with no starts and more than 36 strikeouts.
——- Craig Kimbrel is not one of them.

The Rangers and Blue Jays played an 18-inning game today.
- It wasn’t the longest game of the day.
– That honor belongs to the Mets and Marlins, who played a 2-1 game and took 20 innings and over six hours to do it.
— The Mets/Marlins game was an afternoon game on the east coast while the Yankees/Mariners game was an afternoon game on the west coast. The Yankees/Mariners game ended first.
—- Matt Harvey started the game for the Mets and pitched seven innings. His was not the longest outing by a Met.
—– Shaun Marcum entered in the top of the 13th and pitched eight innings. He took the loss. Marcum became the first pitcher to throw eight full innings in relief since Scott Sanderson did it for the Cubs in 1989.
—— This was actually Marcum’s second relief appearance of the year, AND the second where he got the loss against the Marlins in a long extra innings game. (The other one “only” went 15.)
——- Marcum was the only pitcher in the game to throw over 100 pitches. He’s not the first reliever to do that this season—Brett Marshall for the Yankees and Felix Doubront for the Red Sox have also done it.
——– That’s right, two Mets pitchers threw 7+ innings and gave up only one run. Neither of them got the win. In fact, one of them got the loss.
——— This was Marcum’s longest outing of the year, and the first time he allowed fewer than two runs. If this was a start, it would easily be his best of the season, and would be one of the best of his career.
———- Harvey has only one decision over his last nine starts, dating back to April 19. His ERA is 2.66 over that time. (h/t Sports Illustrated)
———– The Marlins and Mets have played ten games so far this season and the Marlins have won seven of them. They are 10-41 against everyone else.
———— The Mets went 0-19 with RISP. The Marlins went 2-4. In a 20-inning game, the Marlins only had four at bats with RISP. And they won.
————- Four pitchers in this game threw at least six innings and allowed 1 run or less. That’s just the third time that has ever happened.
————– In a similar vein, (the same) four pitchers struck out at least six. This is just the second time that has ever happened.

The Rangers and Blue Jays set franchise records for longest games played. While the Marlins tied theirs, it was only the fourth longest game in Mets history.
- Combined, for all four teams, 23 relievers had scoreless outings.
– In Texas/Toronto, Casey Janssen blew a save for the first time since last August; he had been 12-for-12.
— Joe Nathan, the Rangers’ closer, never pitched.
—- In these two games, pitchers threw 1,089 pitches. The Athletics have thrown 1,086 pitches in June, and they haven’t had a day off yet.
—– Via @tmiller2462, in the expansion era, 92 of 108,864 games had gone 18 innings. That’s a rate 0.0769%, which comes out to about two per year. Today’s games were the second and third of 2013; the Angels and Athletics, you may remember, played a 19-inning game on April 30th.
—— Today was the first day in baseball history where there were two games that went at least eighteen innings, with one game going longer. The last time there was a day with two games of exactly eighteen innings was actually surprisingly recent: August 15, 2006.

With all the long games today, it was the Angels and Red Sox that spent the most time on the field. They played a doubleheader where the first game took four hours, and the second took 3:25.
- Josh Hamilton is hitting .216/.279/.383.
– There are 65 qualified hitters who have a higher batting average than Hamilton’s current on-base percentage.
— Hamilton stole a base in the first game.
—- Brad Hawpe played in the majors for the first time since 2011.
—– Clay Buchholz is 9-0 with a 1.71 ERA.

John Danks won a game.
- It’s his first win since May 19, 2012, over a year ago.
– He won against the absurdly hot A’s, too.

Via @YankeesWFAN, Andy Pettitte won his first game on June 7th, 1995. His son Josh was seven months old. Andy won his 250th game 18 years and 1 day later, which happened to be the same day that the Yankees drafted Josh.

In the first inning of Braves/Dodgers, Justin Upton bunted with two on and nobody out. In the bottom half of the inning, Yasiel Puig attempted to bunt for a hit.
- Kris Medlen homered. It’s his first homer and just his third extra-base hit. His career OPS+ entering the game was -7.

Domonic Brown hit his 12th homer since the last time Justin Upton hit one (May 17th).

A Twins starter struck out seven.
- That ties the season high for a Minnesota starter.
– They beat the Nationals – who are now 29-31.

Luke Scott tripled.
- Jeremy Hellickson, who entered with a 5.59 ERA, threw six scoreless innings against Baltimore.
– Baltimore is third in the AL in runs scored.

Aroldis Chapman didn’t strike anyone out.

(We would like to thank CBS Eye on Baseball for some of the info for the Rangers/Jays and Marlins/Mets games!)

Yasiel Puig has four home runs in five MLB games, including a two-homer game and a grand slam.
- He’s tied for the MLB record for most RBI in the first five games of a career, with 10.
– He shares that record with Danny Espinosa (and Jack Merson).
— Puig has also doubled Matt Kemp’s home run total.

Everyone in the Tigers lineup had a hit except Fielder and Cabrera.

The Padres were down 9-3 after three innings, and the game is currently tied in the seventh.

Toronto’s bullpen has 17.2 straight scoreless innings and actually leads the league in ERA.
- Tonight, they beat Texas.

The Mariners scored four runs in an inning after having two outs and no one on.
- This included big RBI hits from Brendan Ryan and Jason Bay.

Adam Wainwright walked someone.
- This was Wainwright’s seventh walk of the year.
– And one was intentional!
— This dropped his K/BB from 14 all the way down to 13 (!!!).

Francisco Liriano has a 1.75 ERA and 47 strikeouts in just 36 innings for the Pirates.
- Carlos Marmol had a 1-2-3 inning today.

In a Bonderman/Kuroda matchup, the final score was 4-1 Mariners.
- Bonderman got the win.
– In his last win, Omar Vizquel, Manny Ramirez, and Andruw Jones were in the lineup for the opposing team.

Shelby Miller homered.
- Ian Kennedy gave up ten runs, all earned, in just four innings, with three home runs.
– He is just the second pitcher to allow ten earned runs in a game this season, and the thirteen hits allowed is a new season high.
— An inning after giving up eight runs, he stayed in and hit for himself.
—- And was then removed for a reliever to begin the next half-inning.
—– In a game that was 12-5 in the ninth, the Cardinals walked in two runs in a row.

Max Scherzer is 8-0 with a 0.888 WHIP.
- Jose Valverde pitched a 1-2-3 inning.

Jose Iglesias was 1-1 with three walks.
- He had two walks on the season before this.
– He has a .486 OBP.
— Jonny Gomes had four hits.
—- Gomes entered the day hitting .173 with 18 hits on the season.

The Yankees had eight hits in a row.

The Royals hit a home run.

Michael Young hit leadoff for the first time since 2004.
- He picked up three hits.
– Two of them were infield singles.
— Delmon Young walked.
—- The Phillies are over .500.

The White Sox scored four runs.
- They still lost.
– Adam Rosales hit the go-ahead homer in the 10th.

San Francisco Giants’ pitching did not strike out a batter today.

The Mariners and White Sox played a 16-inning baseball game today.
- For the first 13 innings, the game was tied at 0-0.
– The White Sox then scored five runs in the top of the 14th, tying their season high for runs in an inning.
—In the bottom of the inning, Kyle Seager hit a two-strike, two-out, game-tying grand slam.
—- He is, via @espnstatsinfo, the first player in Major League history to hit a game-tying grand slam in extra innings.
—- Adam Dunn went 0-4 with four walks. Three of the four walks were intentional. Dunn was the only player to play the entire game and go hitless for either team.
—– Addison Reed entered the game in the 14th inning, gave up five runs, continued to pitch for three innings, and got the win.
—— There is only one other time since 1995 when a relief pitcher has come into a game, pitched three or more innings, given up five or more runs, and gotten the win.
——– It happened this year—the pitcher was Paul Clemens, of the Astros.

Speaking of the Astros, they hit six home runs tonight.
– All six of the home runs had been hit by the end of the fourth inning.
— Via @jaysonst and @retrosheet, in the fourth inning the Astros hit three home runs and struck out three times. No team has had an inning like that since 1951—if not earlier.

Julio Teheran took a no-hitter into the eighth.
– It was broken up by Brandon Inge.
— Gerald Laird hit a home run, and also went from first to third on a wild pitch.

The Royals won a home game.
– It’s their first win at home since May 6th, or in their last 12 home games.
— Billy Butler hit an infield single

Marlon Byrd had two home runs today by the third inning.
– Via @junkstats, The Nationals’ run differential (-34) is worse than the Cubs’, Royals’, and Angels’ combined (-28).

RA Dickey hit an RBI double that scored 41 year-old catcher Henry Blanco from first.

The Red Sox scored 17 runs off the Rangers tonight.
- The Red Sox hit for the cycle in the bottom of the 2nd. As part of that, Jose Iglesias doubled, Jackie Bradley Jr. hit his first big league homer, and David Ortiz tripled.
– Until last year, Ortiz had actually hit at least one triple every season since 1999, when he only had 25 PAs.
— The Red Sox scored in each of the first seven innings.
—- David Murphy threw the only scoreless inning for the Rangers.
—– He struck out Mike Carp and retired Ortiz as well.
—— Carp was 3-for-3 with a home run in the game at the time.
——- Also, Carp got ejected in this game for arguing balls and strikes – when it was already 17-5.
——– It wasn’t exactly all doom and gloom for the Rangers. Lance Berkman had a bunt infield hit.

We didn’t get this in last night, but the Astros swept a four-game series against the Angels.
- The series was at Anaheim, too.
– Joe Blanton threw eight innings with eleven strikeouts (!!) and no walks and still got the loss.

Russell Martin and Lyle Overbay played right field tonight. Sadly, not in the same game.

Kansas City has lost 11 straight at home.
- That’s a new franchise record for a season.
– The old franchise record was set… last year.
— Last time they won a home game was exactly a month ago (May 5th).
—- A Twins starter struck out five. That’s actually tied for the third highest single game total for a Twins starter this season. Their season high is seven.

The Indians struck out 11 times and none of them were Drew Stubbs.
- Nick Hagadone entered the game to face Robinson Cano with the bases loaded one out and a one run lead, and induced an inning-ending DP.
– Hagadone had a 7.20 ERA entering the game.
— Speaking of weird ejections from above, Mike Aviles got thrown out of this game. After it was over.

Jordan Zimmermann allowed two unearned runs over 8 innings, but was in position to lose entering the ninth.
- It took six pitches for Washington to tie the game off Bobby Parnell. They would win on a walkoff sac fly.
– Omar Quintanilla tripled.

John Mayberry Jr. entered the game as a pinch hitter in the 7th and struck out.
- After the Marlins took the lead in the 10th, Mayberry hit a game-tying homer.
– The next inning, he hit a walkoff grand slam.
— h/t @dakern74, the Phillies have not had a walkoff grand slam since 1993.
—- Kyle Kendrick pinch hit in the 11th.

Matt Moore, 8-0 with a 2.18 ERA, allowed six runs in just two innings.
- Excluding his 1-inning rain-shortened appearance last Friday, it was the shortest start of his young career.
– Miguel Cabrera had two hits and the Tigers scored ten runs, but Cabrera had no RBIs.
Mark Melancon, who had allowed three runs this year with a WHIP under 0.9 and a K/BB over 10, walked a guy, hit a guy, and gave up a walkoff double.
- BJ Upton homered.

Danny Valencia has more homers than Matt Kemp.

Kyle Kendrick tripled, the first of his career.
- He also tossed his second complete game of the year. Coming into the season, he had two CGs in his career.
– Ben Revere drove in a run.

Atlanta didn’t get a hit with RISP, but still scored seven runs.
- AJ Burnett picked up his first hit of the season.

Rickie Weeks multihit game. It’s just his fifth of the year.
- Eric Sogard was intentionally walked. Granted he was batting 8th in front of pitcher Tommy Milone…
– Who picked up two hits, including a two-RBI single immediately following that IBB.
— Milone doubled his career hit total tonight.

The Yankees scored seven runs.
- Entering the day, the team had the exact same OBP/SLG, .306/.397, as the Astros. Houston’s team batting average was slightly higher and they had more walks.
– Lyle Overbay played right field. Last time he played the outfield, it was 2001 and he was in AA.
— Backup catcher Austin Romine (.314 OPS) picked up two hits and stole a base.
—- Cleveland picked up a run on a sac fly to the second baseman.

Raul Ibanez homered off a lefty.
- Danks is actually the third lefty Ibanez has taken deep this season (Sabathia, Rich Hill). Before this, he hadn’t hit a regular season homer off a lefty since July 2011.

Jeremy Bonderman started a Major League baseball game today.
– It’s the first game he’s started since 2010.

Domonic Brown was a double away from the cycle today.
– He walked, which is remarkable because it was his first unintentional walk since April 30th.
— In the month between those two walks, Brown hit 13 home runs.

Ike Davis hit a home run.
– The Mets still lost. To the Marlins.
— After a four game sweep of the Yankees, the Mets themselves got swept by the Marlins, who now have won just two series all season—both against the Mets.
—- Via @djshort, the Marlins scored 19 runs over the past two days against the Mets, or 24% of their total from all of May.
—– Greg Dobbs hit a home run, which was the Marlins’ first home run at home since May 16th.
—– Oh, did we mention, Matt Harvey started the game for the Mets? He allowed 10 hits and four runs over four innings. (The bullpen got tagged for another seven runs).
——- Meanwhile, Kevin Slowey of the Marlins pitched only 4.1 innings, allowing six runs on six hits (three home runs), but the Marlins still won.
——— Currently, of the three teams with wining streaks of three games or more, two are the Marlins and Astros.

Jose Iglesias hit a home run off of Hiroki Kuroda.
– Speaking of unlikely home runs, Edinson Volquez hit one at Petco.

Starling Marte walked tonight.
– He walked twice—after having not walked once since May 12th. (h/t @keithlaw).
— He also got hit by a pitch twice. In an 11-inning game that he started, he was on base four times and went 0-1.
—- Shin-Soo Choo got hit twice more. That brings him up to 17, which is more than the team totals of half the clubs in the league.

The Marlins scored eight runs today.
- They’ve won two series all year, both against the Mets.
– At one point in this game, they hit a single that scored a runner from first.
— That runner was a catcher, to boot.

BJ Upton had a walk-off hit!
- BJ Upton having a hit at this point is darn near YCPB.

The Tigers had back-to-back-to-back home runs.
- This was the first time it happened for Detroit since 2001.
– Those three batters in 2001 were Robert Fick, Juan Encarnacion, and Shane Halter.
— The Tigers lost that game, too. (In 2001; they won today.)
—- It wasn’t close.

Matt Cain gave up seven runs in six innings against the Cardinals.
- He gave up all those runs in the third.
– All his other innings were perfect.
— That wasn’t Cain’s worst start, or even the worst inning, against the Cardinals this year.
—- Cain has made four starts at Busch Stadium, where he’s 0-3 with an ERA of 8.87.

Last night, due to a rain delay, there was major league baseball being played after 4 AM on the east coast.
- The official game time of this game was 2:21, but the rain delay was five and a half hours.
– Also, the Royals won.
— And beat the Cardinals to do so.

The Mets, fresh off sweeping the Yankees in a four-game series, promptly lost to the Marlins.
- Ike Davis had his first XBH since May 9.
– The Yankees had their first walk since Monday.

Dom Brown now leads the NL in home runs.
- He didn’t walk all month.
– Cole Hamels is 1-9.
— He lost to Milwaukee tonight. The Brewers were 5-22 in May coming into this game.