Better late than never – here’s the new thread for August.
Last night Reds pitcher Ben Lively had a start that he would like to forget. His line:
4.0 IP, 13 ER, 2 BB, 2K, 4 HR
He allowed 5 runs in the first, 2 in the second, 3 in the third, and 3 more in the 4th. He was pulled after the 4th inning. He became the first Reds pitcher to allow 13 runs in a game since Charles “King” Lear allowed 13 runs in eight innings on July 24, 1915, at Philadelphia.
The Cubs are now just 4 games behind the Reds in the NL Central; the Brewers are in second, 1 game back. Cubs are 3 games back in the WC chase.
Domingo German out for the rest of the season for alcohol rehabilitation?
Seems quite a long period of time as it’s just early August.
Last night the Blue Jays scored two consecutive runs on guys getting hit with a pitch with the bases loaded. I don’t remember seeing that before.
I was kind of disappointed the third guy didn’t get hit by a pitch, but given the pitcher was Shintaro Fujinami, who throws 99-100, the batter was probably not disappointed.
Every Dodger position player who took the field reached safely at least once last night in a 10 - 1 blowout. (It helped that they were playing a Single A team at the time.) They were playing Oakland.
White Sox closer Liam Hendriks, who had resumed pitching for the team at the end of May, after undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, underwent Tommy John surgery yesterday. He’d only played in five games this season: soon after his return, he’d gone onto the IL with inflammation of his pitching elbow.
Given the long recovery time for TJ, it seems likely that he’ll miss most, if not all, of 2024.
Check the date on that article: Vin died one year ago yesterday.
I’ve seen the news item pop up on several people’s Facebook feeds today, all of them seeming to have not remembered that Scully was already dead (or were completely out of the loop when it happened). My guess is that some people are posting about it on the anniversary of his death, and others are sharing those posts, not realizing that it’s old news.
That popped up on my MSN feed this morning as well. I wonder where the alpha mistake took place?
“This just in: Vin Scully is still dead.”
With the Cubs on a hot streak, and becoming buyers instead of sellers in the days before the trade deadline, the NL Central is now a three-team race. After tonight’s games, only 2.5 games separate the top three teams: Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Chicago.
The hottest team in baseball right now is the Royals, who have won six in a row. They just swept the Twins and Mets, only the fifth time in club history that they have completed a perfect homestand of at least six games.
KC is now just 40 games under .500.
They might make .500 yet right?
Blue Jays prospect Davis Schneider hit a homer in his first MLB at bat tonight. Out of curiousity I looked up some facts about first MLB at bat dingers:
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Schneider is the 134th major leaguer (including the NL, American Association, or AL, but not yet including Negro League play, which is harder data to find) to do this. He was the first this year. SIX players did it last year, a record.
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19 pitchers have done it.
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He is the fourth Blue Jays to do this, the others being Al Woods, Junior Felix, and JP Arencibia.
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The aforementioned Woods did it in the very first game in Blue Jays franchise history.
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Of the 134 men to do this, 25, including Schneider so far and Joe Dunand, who did it last year, only ever hit that one.
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The most career home runs ever hit by anyone who did it was 360, by Gary Gaetti.
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No one has ever done this playing for the Brewers; they are the only existing franchise of which that can be said.
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The first two men to do it, Mike Griffin and George Tebeau, both did it on the same day: April 16, 1887.
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Only two Hall of Famers have ever done this - Earl Averill, a great hitter, and Hoyt Wilhelm, definitely not a great hitter.
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Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin are the only players to do this in the same game for one team. Ernie Koy and Heinie Muller, in 1936, did it in the same game for opposing teams.
Including Cub pitcher Jim Bullinger, who was a converted shortstop.
How many have done it on the first pitch?
According to Baseball Almanac, it appears to be 31. 16 in the American League, and 15 in the National League. The most recent was Akil Baddoo, of the Tigers, who accomplished the feat in 4/4/2021.
That’s some interesting facts/stats you shared. Thanks for doing that.
The tidbit about Al Woods is rather amazing.