Indians with 9 walk off wins this season. I'm not sure how that's possible.

Youseff wrote:Indians with 9 walk off wins this season. I'm not sure how that's possible.

Getting to play vs. the Mariners helps some.

McLane to Crane................the Astros were sold for $680M

Kind of out of left field rules question. Say a team had a player manager ala Pete Rose with the Reds. If Pete was called out on strikes and argued the call and was tossed, would he only be ejected as a player and still allowed to manage the game, or would he be tossed completely?

As long as he specified to the ump that he was only arguing as a player he could still manage.

Just kidding. He's gone, period.

In expected news, Harmon Killebrew has passed away.

Polar Bear Phan wrote:In expected news, Harmon Killebrew has passed away.

That's a shame. One of my earliest memories of baseball on TV is watching Killebrew stretching to make a play at first in the 1968 all star game and injuring his hamstring.

I was trying to find an image of this to no avail, but one of the top search results for this play states that he "overstretched and made an error". Not so- he retired Curt Flood in what looked like a great play, although it was clear at the the time that he had stretched farther than his body would allow.

I remember seeing a photo several years ago of an older Killebrew posing with a couple of young women in bikinis. Google has let me down in my efforts to re-locate same.

Former Royals great (and current TV color analyst) Paul Splittorff has throat cancer and is supposedly close to death

KC.com
KCConfidential.com

messing with b-r's Play Index because it's the best thing on the internet probably. started with trying to find the highest single-game WPAs of all time because of their blog entry on McCann's game-tying and walk-off homers in the same game. that led to trying to find the highest single-play WPA of all time, which led to some confusion over why, say, Darryl Strawberry's 2-run walkoff homer down 1 with 2 outs was worth more than Bo Diaz's walkoff grand slam down 3 with 2 outs. that led to looking for this:



the Diaz call is the first one in the clip.

As far as I can find, it's only one of four walkoff grand slams down 3 with 2 outs in baseball history. The others were Brian Giles (off Billy Wagner!) in '01, and a couple pinch grand slams: Roger Freed off Joe Sambito in 1979 (in the 11th inning) and Carl Taylor off Ron Herbel in 1970.


Also went looking for the best pitching performances by WPA. In 1955, Vern Law pitched 18 innings of 2-run ball in a single game. But his team only scored two for him. The next inning, Bob Friend relieved him, gave up a run, and got the win when his team put up 2 in the bottom of the 19th. Unbelievable. Worst no-decision ever.

As far as 9-inning games go, there are two notable ones. The highest total came from Bob Keegan, who in 1956 came into a game in relief after starter Connie Johnson lasted only 1/3 of an inning, blew a 1-0 lead by giving up a single run and left runners on first and second. I can only assume he got hurt, unless manager Marty Marion had the quickest hook of all time, I guess. Anyway, Keegan pitched 8 2/3 innings and didn't give up a run. His WPA was especially high because his team only mustered one more run for the rest of the game, and he had to pitch out of a jam in the first. He beat Mel Parnell of the Red Sox, who himself pitched a 2-run complete game...which is interesting, because Parnell is the guy who had the highest WPA of any starter in a 9-inning game six years previous. His Red Sox mustered just a single run against Art Houtteman on a Bobby Doerr solo shot in the 3rd inning and Parnell pitched a 5-hit shutout.

Barry Jive wrote:As far as I can find, it's only one of four walkoff grand slams down 3 with 2 outs in baseball history. The others were Brian Giles (off Billy Wagner!) in '01, and a couple pinch grand slams: Roger Freed off Joe Sambito in 1979 (in the 11th inning) and Carl Taylor off Ron Herbel in 1970.

Milton Bradley did it in game 5 of a best-of-5 championship series, but that was AA.

I could swear Chris Sabo did it when he was on the Orioles and did it with a full count.

Michael Young may be the Rangers’ designated hitter, but he won’t be the designated sitter when the Rangers’ begin interleague play this weekend in Philadelphia.
Manager Ron Washington said he plans to start Young in all three games this weekend when the Rangers play under NL rules, which means no designated hitter.
“I’m not taking Michael out of the lineup right now,” Washington said.
Young entered Tuesday’s game with Chicago hitting .344 overall, which ranked third in the AL. He was hitting .394 on the road, which led the majors.

I know the M. Young trade was never realistic but a lot of posters here were pretty down on him. He's torn it up despite a lot of DL time for their other big bats.

There were also a lot of people who were convinced this offense would be just fine, so there's that.

I got yelled at when I said Ben Francisco would be a giant turd

JFLNYC wrote:There were also a lot of people who were convinced this offense would be just fine, so there's that.

I'm sure they were referring to guys like Dane Sardinha and Wilson Valdez and the first 1.5 months of the season, too.

Michael Young also has a .393 BABIP, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he doesn't keep it up.

I find stuff like this interesting. Bill James brings some context to the Mauch 1964 thing:

From September 1, 1964 to the end of the season Bob Gibson pitched 73.2 innings, winning 7 games to pull the Cardinals from fourth place to the pennant. Jim Bunning in the same space pitched 68.2 innings, which is still a lot of innings. Keane and GIbson are heroes because the strategy worked; Mauch and Bunning are not because it failed, and this is as it should be--but it's the same strategy on both sides.

In the 1961 pennant race Sandy Koufax pitched relief on September 10, started on September 12, started on September 15, pitched relief on the 17th, started on the 20th (and pitched a 13-inning complete game), started on the 24th, and started on the 27th. His teammate Don Drysdale started on the 26th, started again on the 29th. In 1962 Drysdale started on the 23rd, started again on the 25th. In the 1960 pennant race Warren Spahn started on September 5th, pitched relief on the 6th, started again on the 8th.

It was the standard practice of that era to push your #1 starter hard in a pennant race. In 1956--a pennant race won by the Dodgers by a single game--Don Newcombe started on the 12th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, 26th and 30th--six starts in 19 days. Warren Spahn pitched 61 innings in September of that season.

In the 1950 Pennant race Robin Roberts--same team, Philadelphia--started on September 4th, 7th, 12th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, 27th, 28th and October 1st--8 starts in 28 days. He pitched a complete game on September 12th, started again on the 15th. In 1952 Roberts pitched 71 innings in September, including a 17-inning complete game.

The 1964 pennant race ended on October 4. Gibson pitched 73.2 innings in five weeks--equivalent to over 380 innings over a 26-week schedule. To criticize Mauch without an understanding of that era is in my view misleading.

philliesphhan wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:There were also a lot of people who were convinced this offense would be just fine, so there's that.

I'm sure they were referring to guys like Dane Sardinha and Wilson Valdez and the first 1.5 months of the season, too.

Michael Young also has a .393 BABIP, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he doesn't keep it up.

That and I think there was major concern after we found out about the severity of the Utley injury.

stevelxa476 wrote:I could swear Chris Sabo did it when he was on the Orioles and did it with a full count.

It's possible; I was just looking for guys who had high WPAs for the game and couldn't look for specific plays without going into the play by play for every performance. So it's possible Sabo had a bad game otherwise and then stepped up at the end.

It was Chris Hoiles, not Chris Sabo

Here is a list:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/walk_off_grand_slams.shtml

It has all walk off grand slams listed, and the ones in bold type came with 2 outs.