Best offensive performances at Coors
Can Bellinger or Chris Taylor crack the list?
Player Date Rslt PA HR TB RBI James Loney 2006-09-28 W 19-11 5 2 11 9 Raul Mondesi 1996-06-30 L 15-16 6 2 12 6 Mike Piazza 1996-06-29 W 13-10 5 3 12 6 Mike Piazza 1995-05-07 W 12-10 5 2 11 6 Alex Cora 2000-07-27 W 16-11 5 2 11 5 Gary Sheffield 2001-07-21 W 22-7 6 2 10 4 Eric Karros 1995-08-02 W 10-7 5 2 10 4 Adrian Beltre 2003-09-05 W 8-7 5 2 10 3 Todd Zeile 1997-07-14 W 14-12 6 2 10 2
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Generated 5/11/2017.
I can still remember the Loney game like yesterday but alas the other games are vague memories of Oh Yeah, but not really.
How about post-humidor? I heard it went into effect in 2003. I had to lower the Total base threshold to 8 from 10.
Player Date Rslt HR TB RBI James Loney 2006-09-28 W 19-11 2 11 9 Andre Ethier 2013-09-02 W 10-8 1 8 3 Matt Kemp 2011-06-09 L 7-9 1 9 3 Andre Ethier 2009-08-26 W 6-1 2 9 3 Matt Kemp 2006-06-11 W 6-5 2 8 3 Ron Coomer 2003-09-06 W 10-2 2 8 3 Adrian Beltre 2003-09-05 W 8-7 2 10 3 Adrian Gonzalez 2013-07-04 L 5-9 1 8 2 James Loney 2011-08-21 L 3-5 1 8 2 Casey Blake 2010-09-28 W 9-7 2 8 2 Jolbert Cabrera 2003-07-12 L 3-5 2 8 2 Hanley Ramirez 2013-07-03 W 10-8 1 8 1 Russell Martin 2007-07-29 L 6-9 1 8 1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/11/2017.
Rockies Preview – Are they for real this time?
The Rockies play host to the red-hot Dodgers as they try to keep claim to 1st place in the Western division. The Rockies handled the World Champion Cubs pretty good taking two of three. Before that, they knocked off the Diamondbacks two of three.
2014 – On May 7th they were 22 – 14 and in first
place. That would be the last time they were in 1st place
They ended 2014 with a horrific 66 – 96 record. The one time they made the postseason wasn’t based on a fast start but a torrid finish.
The one time they made the World Series wasn’t based on a fast start but a torrid finish when they went 20 – 8 in Sept of 2007 winning fourteen of their last fifteen games.
Right now they are 22 – 13 and are in first place. Will things be different this time?
Probably. This is a good team but they have the same Achilles heal they have always had. The rotation. The arms are better than in the past but these are baby arms. So many rookies are helping fuel the Rockie ascent, but can these baby arms handle a full year of Coors? It rarely happens and right now they need three of these baby arms to handle that load.
I see this team in two lights. One light is what they are now, and the second light is what they can become by upgrading the rotation by trading assets. The first light is very bright on May 11th, but will eventually dim because historically the load is simply too great for young pitchers, old pitchers, any kind of pitchers. The second light is too far in the future because we can’t gauge what moves they will make, we can only look at the team as it stands right now.
Let’s look at the current bright light:
Mark Reynolds, what an NRI signing. Usually when your big free agent signing breaks his hand in spring training that is trouble. For the Rockies, it was the best thing that could have happened. That injury allowed Mark Reynolds to make the team and become the starting first baseman. He has been the MVP of the team so far. They have three players with 1 WAR already in Reynolds, Blackmon, and Arenado.
They needed Reynolds to hit like he’s never hit before because Carlos Gonzalez is hitting like he’s never done before but in a negative way. Look at that chart. Cargo is dead last in wRC+ for the Rockies. He’s probably dead last in baseball in RF. Yup, using Fangraphs, Cargo is dead last. He’s so bad the player in front of him at 29th has twice as much wRC+ as Cargo. That is bad. That is horrifically bad. That would be like Chase Utley being your cleanup hitter every night. Every night.
At this time last year Trevor Story was the talk of baseball but this year he is struggling. Last year at this time Story had already hit eleven home runs with a .924 OPS. His OPS right now is .685.
Ian Desmond just got back off the DL and is now playing in the outfield instead of 1st base. Desmond hit two home runs his 3rd game back. Has not had an extra base hit in the next seven even with six of them at Coors.
Yet, they persevere. So watch out, because if the Rockies can win regularly while Cargo is the worse hitter in baseball and Story scuffles, they might have monsoon of offense coming their way when they get going.
All data below was compiled via fangraphs:
| Name | wRC+ | WAR | PA | HR | R | RBI | wOBA |
| Mark Reynolds | 165 | 1 | 136 | 12 | 24 | 30 | 0.456 |
| Charlie Blackmon | 126 | 1.1 | 156 | 8 | 22 | 27 | 0.396 |
| Nolan Arenado | 117 | 1 | 146 | 8 | 22 | 22 | 0.381 |
| Tony Wolters | 104 | 0.4 | 56 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 0.36 |
| DJ LeMahieu | 75 | 0.3 | 149 | 1 | 15 | 10 | 0.315 |
| Ian Desmond | 70 | -0.1 | 42 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 0.307 |
| Gerardo Parra | 67 | -0.1 | 99 | 3 | 12 | 13 | 0.303 |
| Trevor Story | 66 | 0.1 | 128 | 6 | 18 | 15 | 0.301 |
| Dustin Garneau | 56 | 0.2 | 67 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 0.286 |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 26 | -1 | 125 | 2 | 11 | 7 | 0.239 |
I’ll admit to not knowing half of the Rockie rotation before the season started. I rarely pay attention to Rockie starters. Jon Gray sure, he has great stuff and the chance to be one of the better historical Rockie pitchers before Coors claims his arm. Bettis because of his cancer issues. Chatwood because he was so good on the road. Tyler Anderson because he showed some promise. But NL Rookie of the Month Antonio Senzatela. Nope. Kyle Freeland Nope. German Marquez, I had heard of but didn’t pay much attention to. Now I will, he looked great last night. Brilliant even. Dodgers won’t be facing Gray who is still on the DL or Marquez but they will face three of the four below. Freeland will be replaced by Jordan Lyles making his first start of the season.
| Name | W | GS | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 |
| Kyle Freeland | 3 | 7 | 40 | 5.85 | 4.05 | 0.23 |
| Antonio Senzatela | 5 | 7 | 44 | 4.91 | 2.25 | 0.82 |
| Tyler Anderson | 2 | 7 | 36.1 | 8.42 | 2.97 | 2.23 |
| Tyler Chatwood | 3 | 7 | 43.2 | 6.39 | 3.71 | 1.85 |
The bullpen, however, is where the Rockies have excelled this season. The starters are 6th in the NL but the bullpen is second with only the Dodgers keeping them from nabbing the top stop. Greg Holland has been everything the Rockies could have hoped for. They love him. They love him so much they might kill him before the all-star game. Holland has saved 14 games already. He has been in 15 of the 35 games which isn’t that crazy a pace except the man didn’t pitch all of last year. They didn’t ease him into the closer role they shoved him, and they shoved him hard. Holland has plenty of help in lefty Jake McGee who rediscovered the ability to get outs, hard-throwing Adam Ottavino, lefty Mike Dunn, and lefty Chris Rusin.
Yup, they got a boatload of effective left-hand relief pitchers.
But can any of them contain Chris Taylor?
To answer the question, are the Rockies for real in 2017?
I think so, while the pitching will regress, I expect the offense to pick up the slack with the additions of Desmond/Dahl, and Cargo getting back to normal. This won’t be a repeat of 2014 when they went from 23 – 16 to 66 – 96. I won’t commit to the Rockies being in the postseason in 2017 but I will commit to them being a better than .500 team.
OTDIB – May 11th – Koufax goes no no
May 11th, 1963 – Sandy Koufax hurls the second no-hitter of his career.
| Sandy Koufax takes a perfect game into the eighth inning before walking Ed Bailey on a 3-and-2 pitch, but will finish the Dodger Stadium contest with the second of four career no-hitters, blanking the Giants, 8-0. The Los Angeles southpaw beats San Francisco ace Juan Marichal, who will also author a no-hitter next month. |
This particular no-hitter by Koufax was rated his 22nd best game using game score. You know what is hard? Having a game score over 100, that is hard. Only 47 pitchers have done that since 1955. Only had a handful have ever done it more than once. Koufax and Kershaw have both done it once.
The Sandy Koufax regular season game score leaderboard:
Date IP H ER BB SO GSc 1965-09-09 9.0 0 0 0 14 101 1966-07-27 11.0 4 1 3 16 98 1964-06-04 9.0 0 0 1 12 98 1961-09-20 13.0 7 2 3 15 97 1963-04-19 9.0 2 0 2 14 95 1961-06-20 9.0 2 0 2 14 95 1965-09-29 9.0 2 0 1 13 95 1962-06-30 9.0 0 0 5 13 95 1960-08-11 9.0 2 0 1 13 95 1965-05-13 9.0 3 0 0 13 94 1965-08-14 10.0 5 0 0 12 94 1960-05-28 13.0 3 3 9 15 93 1963-07-12 9.0 3 0 1 13 93 1955-08-27 9.0 2 0 5 14 92 1964-05-04 10.0 3 1 3 13 92 1965-06-20(1) 9.0 1 1 2 12 91 1964-07-22 9.0 4 0 0 12 91 1963-07-03 9.0 3 0 0 9 90 1966-05-19 9.0 3 0 2 10 89 1963-06-13 9.0 3 0 2 10 89 1960-05-23 9.0 1 0 6 10 89 1963-05-11 9.0 0 0 2 4 89 1961-08-29 9.0 2 0 5 12 88
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Generated 5/11/2017.
You know what is even harder? Having a game score over 80 in the post season and doing it twice within a span of three days.
The Sandy Koufax postseason game score leaderboard:
Date Series Gm# Opp Rslt IP H ER BB SO GSc 1965-10-14 WS 7 MIN W 2-0 9.0 3 0 3 10 88 1965-10-11 WS 5 MIN W 7-0 9.0 4 0 1 10 88
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Generated 5/11/2017.
Wood / Urias / Maeda sweep away Pirates
The unlikely trio blew through the anemic Pirate offense to give the Dodgers a much-needed sweep as they head into Colorado for an early season bruhaha with the first place Rockies.
To accomplish the sweep the trio put up some personal accomplishments:
- The first time Maeda pitched into the 9th inning
- Heck, it was the first time Maeda pitching into the 8th inning
- The first time Urias got at least 17 outs
- 10th best game score of Alex Wood’s career (73)
- 4th highest game score of Kenta Maeda’s career (70)
- Highest game score of Julio Urias career (70)
Besides those personal accomplishments the starting pitching:
- Gave up only three earned runs in 19 2/3 innings
- Gave up only eight hits in 19 2/3 innings
- Struck out 21 and walked only 3 in 19 2/3 innings
- All three pitchers had a game score over 70
- 2nd/3rd/4th highest games scores of the season that did not involve Clayton Kershaw
Player Date IP H ER BB SO GSc Clayton Kershaw 2017-04-14 8.1 4 1 1 8 78 Clayton Kershaw 2017-04-03 7.0 2 1 0 8 75 Alex Wood 2017-04-26 6.0 1 0 1 5 74 Alex Wood 2017-05-08 5.0 2 0 1 11 73 Kenta Maeda 2017-05-10 8.1 5 2 0 5 70 Julio Urias 2017-05-09 6.1 1 1 2 5 70
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Generated 5/11/2017.
The sweep by these three left me wondering when was the last time the Dodgers swept a series that did not involve Clayton Kershaw while Kershaw was in the rotation.
OTDIB – Nomar slams his way into history
All this information comes via Nationalpastime.com
May 10th, 1999 ex-Dodger Nomar inks his name into the record books
| In a 12-4 rout of the Mariners, Nomar Garciaparra hits two grand slams in the same game and adds a two-run homer as well. The Red Sox shortstop becomes the first American League player to drive in 10 runs in a game since 1975. |
May 10th, 2012 the Orioles become the first American League team to hit three home runs to lead off a game:
| At Camden Yards, the Orioles start the game with back-to-back-to-back home runs when Ryan Flaherty, J.J. Hardy, and Nick Markakis give the team a 3-0 lead on the first eight pitches thrown by Rangers starter Colby Lewis. The Birds’ trio of round-trippers to lead off the first inning marks the fourth time in major league history the feat has been accomplished, but it is the first occurrence in the American League. |
The funny part to me about this record is that the three names were Flaherty/Hardy/Markakis who have never struck me as home run hitters. Also, five years later both Flaherty and Hardy are still Orioles.
May 10th, 1970 ex-Dodger Hoyt Wilhelm makes his 1,000 appearance
| Hoyt Wilhelm becomes the first major league pitcher to appear in 1000 games. The 47 year-old Braves’ knuckleballer will end his 21-year career in 1972 with 1070 appearances. |
May 10th, 1955 – Newcombe is almost perfect
| Dodger right-hander Don Newcombe faces only 27 batters when he one-hits Chicago at Wrigley Field, 3-0. Newk’s bid for perfection is ruined by a fourth-inning single hit by Gene Baker, who will be thrown out trying to steal second base. |
Cream rises
The best part of a 162 game season is that it will shake out the pretenders and allow the cream to rise to the top. When the season started it would have been hard not to see the cream of the 2017 Dodgers. They were kind of loaded from old veterans like Adrian Gonzalez to a superstar MVP candidates like Cory Seager. When you made out the lineup the team didn’t have a hole no matter how Dave Roberts decided to make out the lineup.
Sure the offense would slump, individuals would slump, but over 162 games those slumps would normalize and an above average offense should emerge.
The real cream, however, was the rotation. When you start with the best pitcher in baseball, add in the best young pitcher in baseball, you only need to find three other arms to hand the ball too. Roberts was free to pick and choose between Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda, Ryu, McCarthy, and Alex Wood. The odds were good that at any time three of those six would be able to carry the workload and do a good job with it. That is exactly what is happening, so while Scott Kazmir and Brock Stewart are doing rehab to possibly help the team later, the Dodgers still have six options for three spots and the competition for those three spots seems to be working. I have no idea how Roberts will manage this rotation, but as they say, it is a nice problem to have.
What I didn’t count on were the globules of Cody Bellinger and Chris Taylor who have made the cream rise faster than you’d have expected after a 9 – 11 start. Cody Bellinger showing up before the end of April and simply dominating the game to the point where he will be the Dodgers cleanup hitter from this point going forward against right and left-hand pitching. Chris Taylor playing better than the player he replaced in Logan Forsythe. I did count on Austin Barnes being the best backup catcher the Dodgers have had in a long while and I’m thrilled he’s coming through for them.
This is a good team easily capable of between 90 and 100 wins even if injuries step in. Not using the DL as the injury standard that Dodgers have had to weather losing their 2nd baseman for a month. Their starting 1st baseman was below replacement level due to injuries before finally succumbing to the DL for the first time in his storied career. The young Joc in CF even took a hit.
Wait, that seems like a new column called Fortuitous injuries doesn’t it? Damn, I’ve lost my train of thought, onto the new column.
Empath mode
The dream was swirling around just before I needed to wake up. My friend Jerry was there, the old companion and I were in a somewhat modern world but different. People were around us and as we wandered a 50ish African American woman with a companion came up to us and we wandered around together. A tiny tot showed up and Jerry charged me to look after her. When I say tiny I mean tiny, not child tiny but insect tiny but human. Cartoonish. She had goggles on her head. I don’t know why I was now in charge of her but she was following us so I didn’t have to put much effort into it.
At some point, our African American companion came up to me and put on some glasses to stare at me with. This made me uncomfortable and I inquired what she looking for. She hadn’t been looking at me like into my eyes but at me, surveying me. She took them off and offered them to me and said: “look at me”. I hesitated but she was insistent “look at me”.
I put them on and the woman changed. The glasses allowed me to see her in a different way. She had scars everywhere, and she pruned for me to get a better look at them. They were everywhere, black hideous marks, sinewy muscle was destroyed, it went on and on. She held up the back of her arm, and Jerry poked at the skin and pulled at it, he could put his finger between the skin and bone. He said, “this is fake skin and muscle, her whole body was burned”. I had seen enough, I took off the glasses. Jerry intimated that I should have remembered hearing about her accident. That she had been famous. I tried to remember who she was. A famous singer I think. I could not come up with a name.
I just stared at her and told her how sorry I was. I felt like throwing up and her companion remarked to the scarred woman “oh great, now he’s going full empath on us”.
What a strange comment I thought. but yeah, I was feeling boatloads of empathy towards the scarred woman. So much empathy that I’d forgotten that I’d been charged with taking care of the strange goggled tiny tot. Jerry tersely told me again to watch the child. I looked down and she was still with us.
But not for long, moments later a small burrow opened up right in front of us and something went in the burrow. Like a child, the tiny tot bounced right in afterward. I groaned and got down on my knees to peer into the burrow. Someone whispered in my ear that I needed a flashlight and pointed to one of those cheap harbor freight give away flashlights. It was old and I doubted it would work as I brushed off the sand. It didn’t but I gave it a good shake and hit it with my hand. It turned on and the burrow was illuminated.
It was at that point I realized that the person who had whispered in my ear about the flashlight was the tiny tot who I had seen jump into the hole. I turned and looked and she was looking into the burrow as anxiously as I had been.
I woke up and in such a state that the dream stayed with me long enough to review it and put the highlights into memory. I went over it a few times but it was already fading so I got out of bed and hit the keyboard as quickly as I could. I wanted to remember this dream. I hadn’t dreamt with Jerry in a long time. I miss him so much. That quirky midwestern humor would be greatly appreciated in this day and age.
Dodger offensive resurgence fueled by Bellinger / Taylor / Toles
On the day the Dodgers brought up Cody Bellinger on April 25th their record was a floundering 9 – 11. Chris Taylor had been brought up on April 19th. Toles had an OPS of .678 on April 24th. It was like Bellinger lit a fire under his arse because one of them was going to go when Joc came off the DL. Luckily for both, it was Adrian.
Since the day of CODY the trio is on fire and has fueled the Dodger offensive explosion in May and propelled the Dodgers to a 9 – 3 mark and 18 – 14 overall.
| Player | PA | H | HR | BB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Andrew Toles | 45 | 14 | 2 | 1 | 0.326 | 0.356 | 0.535 | 0.890 |
| Cody Bellinger | 51 | 15 | 5 | 5 | 0.326 | 0.392 | 0.717 | 1.110 |
| Chris Taylor | 34 | 9 | 2 | 9 | 0.360 | 0.529 | 0.600 | 1.129 |
On this day in baseball – Eddie Murray makes history
I’ve always loved switch hitters who could hit from both sides of the plate. Most can’t but the ones who can and who can hit with power are a rare breed. Eddie Murray was a rare breed and one of the greatest switch-hitters in baseball history.
On May 8th, 1987 Eddie Murry puts his stamp on baseball history. Murry hit 65 home runs as a LAD and rumor has it, that he is Eric Stephens favorite player. Possibly one of my favorite players Reggie Smith sits right below Eddie Murray on the all-time bWAR chart for switch hitters. One was an easy HOF player, the other wasn’t. Guess those RBI and Home runs had something to do with it. You have to love just how much better Mickey Mantle was compared to his switch-hitting peers. Here is a list of every switch-hitter to ever hit a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game.
Eddie Murray becomes the first major leaguer to hit home runs from both sides of the plate in consecutive games when he connects connects off left-handed Bob James in the sixth inning of the Orioles’ 9-6 victory over Chicago at Comiskey Park. In yesterday’s contest, the Baltimore first baseman also homered off southpaw Ray Searage and righty José DeLeón.
Player WAR/pos OPS+ From To HR RBI BB Mickey Mantle 109.6 172 1951 1968 536 1509 1733 Chipper Jones 85.0 141 1993 2012 468 1623 1512 Carlos Beltran 70.1 121 1998 2017 423 1546 1054 Tim Raines 68.9 123 1979 2002 170 980 1330 Eddie Murray 68.0 129 1977 1997 504 1917 1333 Reggie Smith 64.5 137 1966 1982 314 1092 890 Mark Teixeira 51.9 126 2003 2016 409 1298 918 Lance Berkman 51.8 144 1999 2013 366 1234 1201 Bernie Williams 49.2 125 1991 2006 287 1257 1069 Roy White 46.7 121 1965 1979 160 758 934 Jorge Posada 42.6 121 1995 2011 275 1065 936 Ken Singleton 41.7 132 1970 1984 246 1065 1263 Augie Galan 40.9 122 1934 1949 100 830 979 Chili Davis 38.0 121 1981 1999 350 1372 1194 Victor Martinez 34.2 123 2002 2017 228 1095 671 Roy Cullenbine 32.0 132 1938 1947 110 599 853 Bobby Bonilla 30.0 124 1986 2001 287 1173 912 Mickey Tettleton 29.3 122 1984 1997 245 732 949 Ripper Collins 23.5 126 1931 1941 135 659 356 Carlos Santana 21.2 121 2010 2017 154 526 655
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/9/2017.
Woo Hoo, Carlos Santana makes the top 20 switch-hitting bWAR cut.
On May 8th, 1998 old friend Jerry Ruess gets his 200th win while pitching for the White Sox. Ruess would end winning 220 games and 86 of those came as a LAD.
With the White Sox’ 3-0 victory over Baltimore at Memorial Stadium, 38 year-old Jerry Reuss becomes the 86th pitcher to record his 200th major league career win. The southpaw joins Milt Pappas as the only other pitcher to reach the milestone without the benefit of a 20-win season.
May 8th, 1961 – No Dodger connection here, but Fernando Tatis scoffs at two grand slams in one game.
In a 13-5 victory over the Twins, Jim Gentile becomes the fourth major leaguer to hit two grand slams in the same game. The Orioles’ first baseman, the first to accomplish the feat in consecutive at bats, goes deep in the first two innings of the contest.
May 8th, 1943
Who knew?
Due to poor grade of rubber cement used to make baseballs because of wartime rubber shortages, a different type of baseball is put into play today, with dramatic results. In eight games, six home runs are hit, compared to a total of nine homers tallied in the season’s first 72 games.
Chris Taylor RBI machine
Before Chris Taylor reaches 100 at-bats tonight I wanted to get this little RBI leaderboard out there. Taylor has shown a propensity for multi base-runner hitting and thus has accumulated a startling number of runs batted in before reaching 100 at-bats.
Hitting up Baseball Reference I found three players who had driven in at least 15 runs and had less than 100 at-bats as a Dodger.
Chris Taylor will fall off this list probably tonight but Mike Busch and Marlon Anderson will forever be on it.
Player AB RBI From To Age Mike Busch 100 23 1995 1996 26-27 Chris Taylor 96 19 2016 2017 25-26 Marlon Anderson 90 17 2006 2007 32-33
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/9/2017.
Mike Busch was kind of famous as the foil in the Brett Butler scab war of 1995.
Busch got another reminder of his second-class status when his teammates voted on the distribution of playoff shares.
Butler, who had rejoined the team 11 days before Busch, having spent most of the season with the New York Mets, was awarded two-thirds of a full share. It was worth $9,274.
Busch was awarded nothing.
Those stats above are the sum total of Mike Busch’s career. A man who drove in 23 runs in his first 100 at-bats was never given another major league at-bat. I found it bizarre at the time that the multi-million dollar players could compare being a replacement player for the posh’s union in the world to a teachers scab but that is what Butler/Karros/Piazza did.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 