My source lied.
Washington Nationals hit 4 straight home runs in the 3rd inning against the Brewers! Oh, and the Nationals have a pitcher on the mound who just might be able to hold onto a 9-0 lead in the top of the 4th.
Since the Cubs have squeaked above the Brewers for first place in the NL Central, hopefully this will give them even more incentive to unload on the White Sox tonight.
The Washington Nationals have hit 8 home runs, according to an alert I received from MLB, they need 2 more to set a record.
I remember that record well - the Blue Jays set it on September 14, 1987. I can still tell you who hit them; Ernie Whitt hit 3, Rance Mulliniks and George Bell hit two each, and Fred McGriff, Lloyd Moseby and Rob Ducey each hit one. It was Ducey’s first in the big leagues.
Interestingly, 9 has only been done once, by the Reds in 1999. 8’s been done twenty times or so.
ETA: Unless Milwaukee scores at least 13 runs in the top of the ninth, it appears Washington won’t get a shot at the record.
As if they need incentive to beat up on the South Siders! 
Perhaps not weaknesses in the truest sense, but our middle relief was already a little suspect. Now, with Kershaw and McCarthy on the DL, the pen is sure to see an increase in workload. Right now, we are lucky if we get 5 innings out of the starter replacements and that’s on a good night. If our pen gets overworked, it could get a little ugly.
Yeah, let’s not go overboard on that “No weaknesses” stuff. I have faith, but it’s tempered by memories of past team meltdowns. Of course, this could also be the time of the season (like last year) where the team finds hidden depths in themselves and just play lights-out baseball. Our pinch-hitters seem to be inspired, and the serious veterans keep finding ways to produce as well.
My only demand at this point is that if the Dodgers make it to the Series, Vin has to come back. Just for as many games as it takes. It wouldn’t be right to win it without him.
Sure, but the NL has the top 2 or top 3, and the AL has 4 of the bottom 5 with a couple real dogs in the last 2 places. My final theory on the road attendance thing is that AL teams are dragged down somewhat by those 4 of 5 (Tampa, Oakland, White Sox, Cleveland - oh and how the hell is last year’s world series runner-up #26 in home attendance?), some teams really do have traveling fan bases (esp. the Cubs and Dodgers), Cincy and Pittsburgh at 3 and 4 are helped by being in a division with the Cubs and St. Louis, and the Yankees and Red Sox (and maybe the Cubs and Dodgers in the NL?) are actual draws on the road that will attract a few extra casual fans to their games.
(There’s also not that much difference between the top and bottom of the table in terms of road attendance - the difference between 1 and 30 is just 10,000, which is roughly the difference between 1 and 10 in home attendance.)
And as the Dodger announcers mentioned last night, the 1944 Cardinals (a National League team being impressively further in the past than 1998) were also 75-27. See for example https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/?date=1944-08-11. Comparing end of season and after 102 games (here is an article about the 11 winningest teams), and assuming that I correctly copied and pasted…
[ul]
[li]1906 Cubs = 116-36 (.763) and 70-30-2 (.700)[/li][li]2001 Mariners = 116-46 (.716) and 73-29 (.716)[/li][li]1998 Yankees = 114-48 (.704) and 75-27 (.735)[/li][li]1954 Indians = 111-43 (.721) and 70-30-2 (.700)[/li][li]1909 Pirates = 110-42 (.724) and 73-28-1 (.723)[/li][li]1927 Yankees = 110-44 (.714) and 73-28-1 (.723)[/li][li]1961 Yankees = 109-53 (.673) and 65-36-1 (.644)[/li][li]1969 Orioles = 109-53 (.673) and 71-31 (.696)[/li][li]1970 Orioles = 108-54 (.667) and 63-39 (.618)[/li][li]1975 Reds = 108-54 (.667) and 66-36 (.647)[/li][li]1986 Mets = 108-54 (.667) and 69-33 (.676) [/li]…
[li]1944 Cardinals = 105-49 (.682) and 75-27 (.735)[/li][/ul]
Can the Dodgers go 46-14 (.767) the rest of the way? Yes. Will they? I would bet against. If they go 36-24 (.600) they would finish 107-55 (.660). It looks like a good chance of finishing in the top 10 all time. Whether or not they do so, I of course prefer that they win the necessary 11, 12, or 13 games in October-November. Looking cautiously forward to a full house on Tuesday evening, October 24, at Dodger Stadium.
Attendance this year to date is really, really weird. In average away attendance, there is NO National League club lower than 18th place (Atlanta). By comparison, the bottom nine spots (from 22 to 30) go to teams in the American League Central and West. The only team from those divisions doing better is Minnesota, in 19th place! 20 and 21 are Am. East teams (Balt. and Tampa). So, with the exception of the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Blue Jays, no one wants to watch American League teams this year (so far).
Last year wasn’t much better. Miami was 21st, and Atlanta was 26th. Otherwise, the bottom 12 teams were made up of AL West and Central teams. AL East teams were 5th, 8th, 12th, 15th and 16th.
So the conclusion that clearly can be made: the AL West and Central are not draws. 
Now, it occurred to me that this might be because of the fact that attendance in general in those divisions suffers. That’s only partly true. In the AL West, the home attendance averages this year are 7th (Angels), 10th (Rangers), 14th (Astros), 19th (Mariners) and 29th (the poor A’s). That totals 79 placement points, which is 4th for divisions. The NL East (85 PP) and the AL Central (109 PP) are 5th and 6th. Clearly, the AL Central is filled with teams that no one wants to go see, either at home OR away. The highest AL Central home average is in Detroit, with KC right behind (16th and 17th). Chicago, Cleveland, and (to a lesser extent) Minnesota are disasters, though not quite like Tampa and Oakland. Miami, btw, weighs down the NL East figures, which are otherwise quite middle of the road (11th, 12th, 13th and 21st).
Best division for home attendance is the NL West. They are 1st, 3rd, 8th, 20th and 22nd so far this year. Interestingly, it’s the NL Central that travels best: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 17th. Why anyone is traveling to watch the Reds this year is beyond me (they are in 3rd).
Figures from last season show that the placements of road attendance tend to be a bit variable (as someone noted, the spread is narrow). Placements in home attendance are much less so: the top 7 are the same teams, just moved around a notch or two.
Might be interesting to look at capacity percentage of home attendance figures…
This is actually kind of an interesting issue, and one I’ve been mulling over. A few thoughts;
-
The American League Central is a small market division. Cleveland and KC are two of MLB’s smallest markets, Minnesota isn’t huge, the White Sox are the weak sisters in their market and Detroit’s big but not the richest market. The AL Central really does not have a big, big player; every other division does. The AL East has THREE markets bigger than Detroit.
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It is interesting to note than in the four shared markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the SF Bay area) the National League team is the big brother. This is especially pronounced in Oakland and the South Side. The A’s have bene trying to get the hell out of Oakland for how long now?
That said, I went and found a list of U.S. media markets by size and I really could not see that the NL was disproportionately represented at the top of the list. The AL has the better part of New York and has DFW, Boston, Toronto (not a US market of course but is at least as big as DFW) and Houston, and a good piece of LA. If you look at the bottom of the list the NL has small markets, too - Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are not big markets and Miami is dysfunctional.
(We could start a whole 'nother thread about baseball in Florida, which so far has really not gone well at all.)
RickJay, what do you mean by your second point? The Mets are not a bigger draw home or away then the Yanks.
Yeah, and don’t forget the Yankees remain far more hated than the Mets, either nationally or in NYC.
No surprise there. Nice to see the Red Sox are 2nd most hated, (a distant second but still). Oddly by the exact percentage that declare the Yanks their favorite team. Hmm, I wonder if there is a connection.
Are you next going to inform me that Dallas is the most hated Football team?
Aaron Judge breaks a tooth, Statcast.
I also can’t understand Cleveland’s attendance issues. They’re at least improved over last year, which was just abysmal for a team that eventually went on to the WS.
Since it was a September game, did the Jays play a team that had basically shut down for the season and were playing minor league callups?
i’d think the Patriots or Steelers were the most hated football team.
Five different pitchers gave up homers:
KEN DIXON gave up 3 home runs, all in the second inning, to Ernie Whitt, Rance Mulliniks, and Lloyd Moseby. Dixon had been in the Orioles’ rotation for a couple of years, and while he hadn’t been very good he showed some promise - he was only 26, and he had struck out 170 guys the year before when that meant something. That was the last game he would ever pitch; athough he’d pitched really well in August, his two September starts were bad. His shoulder started to hurt, and it took them a long time to figure out what was wrong (calcium deposits) and he never made it back to the big leagues despite ten years of trying.
Dixon was replaced after the Moseby homer by ERIC BELL. Bell wasted no time; he got out of the second, and then in the third coughed up bombs to George Bell and Rance Mulliniks (his second.) Eric Bell was mostly a starter in 1987 and was very bad. After 1987 he bounced around for a few years in the minors before getting a few more cups of coffee.
Bell was replaced by MIKE GRIFFIN to start the fourth. Griffin gave up one run in the fourth on a Tony Fernandez single, but in the fifth got into the spirit of things by surrendering a thunderous home run to Ernie Whitt, Whitt’s second. Griffin was a promising young pitcher who’d been out of baseball for a few years before getting picked up by the Orioles in 1987 (the Orioles were a pretty bad team.) He pitched ion only three more games after that season.
In the sixth Griffin was replaced by MIKE KINNUNEN, who got two outs before remmebering he had a chance to help make history and serving up a meatball Geroge Bell hit out. Remember Mike Kinnunen? Neither do I. Kinnunen stayed on and got absolutely shelled in the seventh, including Rob Ducey’s first major league dinger.
Kinnunen followed the Ducey homer by giving up a single to Manny Lee, so they yanked him for Tony Arnold. Arnold, smelling a chance to put his name in the record books, waited just two more batters before serving up a terrible pitch to Ernie Whitt, who hit his third homer of the game - that set the all time team record for a game. But Arnold was not done; the following inning he gave up another moon shot to Fred McGriff, making it ten. Arnold pitched just two more games in the big leagues
The Orioles called upon Jack O’Connor to finish the game and he managed to do so without giving up any homers (or any runs at all.) However, in keeping with the theme, 1987 was Jack’s last year as a big leaguer.
So yeah, not an elite set of hurlers. The thing is, it’s not that they were just rolling out the end of the bullpen - there were two weeks to go in the season, you can’t pack it in that early. Remember Eric Bell, the second victim? It is worth noting that Bell, while not much of a pitcher, was one of the best starters Baltimore had. He was the only Orioles starter besides Mike Boddicker to qualify for the ERA title, and along with Boddicker and Dave Schmidt led the team in wins with ten. With Ken Dixon’s injury ruining his career, Bell was the team’s #2 starter. Baltimore had no one good to turn to. Conversely, most of the guys who hit the homers were damned good hitters - McGriff of course almost hit 500 bombs, Bell was a terrifying power hitter, and Whitt, Moseby and Mulliniks were all long time professional hitters. Only Ducey was a scrub (Ducey might’ve been something if he had been given a decent chance, but Toronto mismanaged his career.)
As an aside, with the game 18-3 Blue Jays, would you like to know who Jimy Williams, Toronto’s manager, summoned to pitch the ninth? TOM HENKE. That’s right; with his team winning by fifteen fucking runs, and his team in a tight pennant race, and the rosters in expanded size, Williams couldn’t toss a bone to the 12th guy on the staff; he wasted a game with his ace. (He had also used his primary setup guy, Mark Eichhorn, in the 8th.) Isn’t that the stupidest goddamned thing? No wonder the Jays lost the division. God, I hated that idiot.
I did some checking and the Pats have passed the Boys for most hated. Cowboys are only 2nd.