This looks scary and I so hope this wasn’t intentional.
If you care to watch it, it’s in the first few seconds of this YT video. Can’t tell if it’s accidental or intentional.
I happened to see the highlights of a Mariners game a few days ago. The M’s leadoff hitter had a home run; on the first pitch, I think. They went on to win a shutout. They scored the winning run on the first pitch. (Although, come to think of it, they may have been the home team; so not the very first pitch of the game.)
How often does that happen; is it one of those once-in-blue-moon kind of baseball things, or is it a couple times a season?
It almost looks like the guy jumped, or at least was trying to stand atop the rail.
That might be it. Perhaps he was overexuberant in celebrating the hit by McCutchen.
All reports still list him in critical condition, although I don’t believe there’s been anything released this morning.
It delights me that Andrew McCutchen is still playing. And he’s off to a good start.
Meanwhile, in unsurprising news, Mike Trout is injured again. He’s five or six years younger than McCutchen and may not outlast him at this rate.
I’m not a stats expert, but my impression is that this happens a couple of times per season. (at least hitting a home run on first pitch. That being sufficient to be the “winning run” is going to be much rarer, as shutouts are rare.)
And, you are correct. In the game you refer to the Mariners were home and it was the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning.
It doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to research, compared to some of the unusual sports stats I sometimes hear; first-pitch-home-run AND shutout.
There is a way to search for that on Baseball Reference but I’m not paying the subscription fee anymore and anyway I would doubtless have struggled to figure out how to do it.
I would agree though that it must be rare. Leadoff home runs aren’t that rare - last year Kyle Schwarber did it 15 times. Only one was on a 0-0 count and it wasn’t a shutout.
The really interesting thing to find out would be how often a team hits a home run on the first pitch of the game (or bottom of the 1st inning) and proceeds to win the game 1-0.
I think the question from Robot_Arm would include any shutout. Like the Mariners game this week.
I went to a game years ago at the Kingdome. It was late in the season, and Nolan Ryan was on the verge of retiring. I think the schedulers had arranged for the Rangers to finish the season at home so they could have a big sendoff for him. It didn’t turn out that way. He hurt his arm in the Seattle game, in the first inning, in fact. He didn’t play again. Texas fans didn’t get the big sendoff they were hoping for, and even people who arrived late to the Kingdome missed seeing him pitch. There’s probably a tough trivia question of where Ryan got his last out, it wasn’t in Texas or Seattle.
I guess that must have stuck with me as a game where the biggest moment happened almost before the game began. How uncommon is it when a game is, in a sense, decided on the first pitch? They still pay the rest of the game, of course, but it winds up not mattering in the least.
I’m excited! I’m in the Bananaball Lottery for today!