Notes and Essays, Week Ending 5/30

5/24 N1: Corbin beating Skenes. What is the world coming to?

5/24 N2: A day or two ago, I used the Mets to argue that E.R.A./FIP ratio (and implicitly, BAbip) could be an indication of defense. The Mets FIP is better than their E.R.A., and Statcast Fielding Runs has them as a bad defense.

But this doesn’t work with the Rays. The BAbip against them is .261, 3rd-lowest in baseball. Their E.R.A. (3.54) is much lower than their FIP (4.01). Yet in Fielding Run Value, they are -9, 26th in MLB, and hardly better when we look just at “Infield/Outfield Range” (-7 Runs).”

The data show that the Rays don’t have good range, yet they are converting hit balls into outs very well. This is partly explained by the average exit velocity against their pitchers, 87.3, being 4th-lowest in baseball.

But if we trust the data, putting together the two pieces, if they had good defense, then the BAbip against them would be really low. There is the nagging feeling that the Rays have gotten really lucky as well.

5/24 N3: Opponents have not been hitting the ball hard against the Blue Jays — 87.0 MPH, the second-lowest speed in baseball. Yet, opponents have been finding holes — a .305 BAbip, 4th-highest in baseball.

5/24 N4: With his 3 sharp innings versus the Braves on Saturday, Brad Lord is again on pace for an 100-inning relief season that has none of the “bulk” about it — 3 innings is his longest outing, and he hasn’t pitched before the 4th this season. Lord has come to his 2.83 E.R.A. with an outstanding walk rate — just 4 unintentional walks in 35 innings on the season, plus 2 intentional walks.

5/24 N5: Hallelujah! A Daylen Lile triple!

5/24 N6: Lucas Giolito begins the season in the “more walks hits” club. Been that way for his first two starts. I’m not sure why, but over his career of 206 starts, the BAbip against him is only .277, which Baseball Reference says is 18 points better than the league in his years.

5/24 N7: The Yankees are #1 in Secondary Average, 42 points ahead of the #2 Dodgers (Secondary Average is TB - H, +BB, +SB, -CS, All Divided by AB).

Giants are 18 points last in Secondary Average, with the Mets second-to-last. The Giants have Jung-Hoo Lee, Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and Luis Arraez all as batting average qualifers who have secondary aveages under .200.

5/25 N1: If the interest in hitting streaks has died, I’m glad on-base streaks such as Kurtz’s have come into vogue, but like with OPS often taking the place of batting average, it will take time before we can dispense with a certain shorthand and understand on-base streaks on their own terms. For now, when presented with an on-base streak, I admit my eyes glaze over, and I do little but say “that’s impressive,” or “you evidently want me to think that’s impressive.”

To inject some clarity, functional on-base percentage for the steaking hitter is on-base percentage, but counting sacrifice hits as outs. So the .318 of this year becomes .3166.

Real batting average doesn’t except walks and hits-by-pitches, as those actually hurt your chances of getting a hit. Real batting average this year isn’t .239, it’s .2116.

It should go without saying that there has rarely been a time when it’s been so easy to get a walk or a hit-by-pitch and so hard comparatively to get a hit. If we’re looking for the next DiMaggio or Wee Willie Keller, we’re really going to be waiting around.

Anyway, although it depends greatly where you hit in the lineup, average plate appearances per game this year seem to be 4.20. Given the average on-base percentage, with four plate appearances, a hitter’s chance of reaching base is

1 - (1-.3166)^4, or 78.2%

His chances of getting a hit with the same 4 plate appearances are

1 - (1-.2116)^4, or 61.4%

Then, to figure the chance of a streak, we would of course form another conjunctive probabilty from thus, so that the chance of a 10-game on-base streak with four plate appearances a game would be 8.6% (although, in reality, it would be a bit lower than that, because the good pitchers hurt you more in the ultinate probability than the bad pitchers help you, and every game is not the same 78.2%).

Average plate appearances per game are 4.20, though, not 4, with the leadoff hitter basically assured to get 4. In a 5-plate appearance game, the chances of a .3166 hitter reaching increase to 85.1%, and his chances of getting a hit increase to 69.5%.

The ratio between the two ways of scoring success is down from 1.27 with 4 PA to 1.22 with 5. That this was a real trend and not a matter of rounding is confirmed by getting the two probabilities at 68.1% and 49.0% plugging in three plate appearances, or a 1.39 ratio. Or, we could just look at the initial ratio of an on-base plate appearance to a hit of 1.47, and understand the trend from that.

But whether this observation has practical implications or is a relevant framework as it plays out in the ultimate chance of a streak, I’m not sure.

5/25 N2: I suppose, more to the point, that if the chance of a 10-game on-base streak is 8.6% given the chance of reaching in any game being 78.2%, then the chance of getting a hit in 10 straight games, given the chance of a hit in any game being 61.4%, is less than 1%. So the two are vastly different things. But, when you get to where Kurtz is, even with on base, that is so remote, that it is still impressive, even if it’s not at all what it would be to get hits in 47 straight games.

5/25 N3: In Jacob Misiorowski and Dylan Cease, we have two starters who are doing something historic with strikeouts. Misiorowski’s 13.89-per-9 innings has him one strikeout clear of Gerrit Cole’s 13.82 in 2019, the 162-inning record; Cease’s 13.35 would have him 4th, with seasons by Spencer Strider (2023) and Randy Johnson (2001) also better, in addition to Cole’s 2019.

The Miz is the man. He’s had more strikeouts than innings in 9 of his 10 starts, and he had 5 in 5 1/3 the other time.

Cease isn’t far behind. He’s had at least as many strikeouts as starts 10 of 11 times and also came less than 1 short the time that he missed. But he has two parity strikeout/innings starts, while Misiorowski doesn’t have any.

Cease’s 2021, with 12.27 SO/9, is 14th on the all-time list. It would be easy to assume that was the “putting it all together” season that made every team covet him, but that was actually 2022. 2021 was a 3.91 E.R.A. season for Cease….Dude has apparently never made the All-Star team, by the way.

5/25 N4: The Reds pulled the plug on Connor Phillips, who is tied for 7th in MLB in walks despite only pitching in relief, and despite only throwing 27.2 innings. They sent him down to AAA. With his stuff and former draft position, he’ll be back, but not with the walks.

Phillips was on pace to walk 87 batters. The most recent candidate in my mind to have ranked as high in total walks despite being a reliever was Mitch Williams. 1987, when he walked a career-high 94 in 108.2 innings, would be the season to check, But with the starter loads of that time, that only had him in a tie for 14th in MLB in walks (leading with 140 was his teammate, Bobby Witt).

As he worked 84 games in relief, no asterisk needs to be placed next to Williams’ walks, but he did have the advantage of starting a game, in which he walked 3. So his actual relief walk total was 91.

That there was that kind of experiment doesn’t surprise me, particularly not in game 159 of the season, but it does surprise me that Williams also started twice for the Cubs in September of 1990. Although he had a 1-7 record and his saves were down, he wasn’t having that bad of a year based on his 3.02 E.R.A., and the year before, “Wild Thing” mania had been at full throttle: the Cubs had won the division, and Williams had saved 36.

Zimmer and the Cubs gave Williams a chance in those starts, letting him throw 66 and 70 pitches, but the counterintuitive did not apply; starting in fact seemingly made things worse, as you would expect. In his three starts, Williams’ cumulative line was 15 hits, 13 runs, 7 walks and 8 strikeouts over 10 1/3 innings.

5/25 N5: I just mentioned Bobby Witt Sr., so I’m happy to be able to work in Lance McCullers Sr., too. I don’t imagine he’s connected to too many records. Despite pitching 84 games in relief in 1987 and walking 91 batters, Williams was only in 9th in MLB in relief batters faced that year (451). Tied at the top were McCullers Sr. and Mark Eichhorn (540). With the trend already going down, no one has faced that many batters in relief since.

But from 1980-1986, we have 12 seasons with more than 540 batters faced, including Eichhorn’s 612 the year before, which ranks #2. Eichhorn was a submariner. Bob Stanley (694 in 1982 and 602 in 1983) has the #1 and #3 places on the list.

All of the intentional walks from these pitchers stand out. I guess relief pitchers just had a ton, and these guys were facing the most batters among them. For the 1982 Pirates, Kent Tekulve (like Eichhorn an underarmer) walked 23 batters intentionally. If relievers were walking 23 people intentionally, then I was dropping all of my preconceptions, but that did lead baseball by a healthy margin, with San Francisco’s Greg Minton coming in next with 17.

The underarm thing is probably separate from the intentional walks, but the groundball tendency, and the allure of the potential double play, isn’t; Roger McDowell had 20 intentional walks in ‘91 (that wouldn’t have made sense for Davey Johnson, but McDowell was with the Phillies and Dodgers then).

5/25 N6: Witt Jr. right now “black type” in hits this year, as well as in 2025 and 2024, black type being determined on a league (not a MLB) basis. For all I know, he needed the extra time and would have spent it in the minor leagues, anyway, but despite being drafted out of high school, he was already almost 19 years old. Then there was the pandemic the next year. So he didn’t get his first full season of professional ball until 2021.

A MLB rookie the next year, he and the Royals did what they could to accelerate things, but his career hit total probably carries these random disadvantages. Still, 784 hits before your 26th birthday, and 187 hits-per-162 games, is impressive. Taking his exact age (25 and 345 days) and allowing ranges for hits of 718 to 850 and hits-per-162 games of 180 to 194, I find 19 comparables. They are

Ronald Acuna

Carlos Baerga

Tommy Davis

Larry Doyle

George Kell

Bill Knickerbocker

Carney Lansford

Francisco Lindor

Whitey Lockman

Marty McManus

Eddie Murray

Tim Raines

Pete Rose

Joe Sewell

Vern Stephens

David Wright

Carl Yastrzemski

Christian Yelich

Ryan Zimmerman

Somehow, using the hits and the hits per game actually managed to give quite a contemporary group, I am happy to say. I had imagined we would get more players from the 1920s and 1930s. I am also surprised at the number of shortstops or semi-shortstops who come up (for instance, the obscure Bill Knickerbocker was one). The modal case is clearly the really good player, your “Almost Cooperstowner” (in the parlance of Mark Kolier and his Substack), rather than your Hall of Famer. But Rose (#1 all-time in hits), Yaz (#9 all-time in hits) and Murray (#14) show that Witt is still in line to do just about anything he sets his mind to.

How about players above Witt’s window in both categories, hits and hits-per-game? To confirm what I mean, I took players with more than 850 hits and more than 194 hits-per-162 games at age 25, 345 days. A group of 25:

Henry Aaron

Richie Ashburn

Ben Chapman

Ty Cobb

Eddie Collins

Joe DiMaggio

Jimmie Foxx

Goose Goslin

Rogers Hornsby

Derek Jeter

Buddy Lewis

Freddie Lindstrom

Joe Medwick

Vada Pinson

Albert Pujols

Jose Reyes

Alex Rodriguez

Tris Speaker

Garry Templeton

Cecil Travis

Hal Trosky

Arky Vaughn

Joe Vosmik

Lloyd Waner

Ross Youngs

While there is plenty of crossover, and this group no doubt does have an ancient cast, it is clearly greater on average than the first. There are 15 Hall of Famers, plus Rodriguez and Pujols.

I at first erred and also included players with a better rate than Witt but not a better rate outside the top of his window. That would have made for the fun additions of George Brett, Orlando Cepeda and Orlando Cepeda, among others.

Subjectively, I don’t think this approach does justice to how hard it is to hit for average in today’s day and age. The early careers of players like Reyes and Pujols are relatively recent, but that really was another era.

5/25 N7: I remember when I effused about Moises Ballesteros and his .397 average. Although he’s drawn 7 walks, a 3 for 44 May has him down to .235. At age 22, he’s really playing with house money, but just how good he is or isn’t right now, what with the tough home park, on the one hand, and the advantage of never having to face lefthanders, on the other, requires a bit of sorting.

5/25 N8: PCA hit leadoff and drew 3 walks on Sunday. Not sure if there was a cause an effect, but it’s natural to see things that way.

5/25 N9: There are 10 pitchers who have allowed an average under .200 and are also on pace for 162 innings. They also occupy the top ten spots in baseball in OPS Allowed.

5/25 N10: Brandon Lowe is in his 9th season, and right now he has his career best in both BB% and SO%. Given that, you might think his 1.88 SO/BB ratio vs. his career ratio (2.81-1) would look even better.

5/25 N11: Corbin Carroll leads the NL in OPS despite a rate of just 4 HR/100 AB. Taking away home runs, he must be miles the best hitter in the league this year. Has been remarkable.

5/25 N12: I found some interesting age facts among hitters for the last couple of years (couretsy of the BREF site).

First, BAbip by Age Range this year is as follows:

25 And Under: .297

26-30: .288

31+: .275

This clearly could go with speed, although I’d look at launch angle, too (the oldest group hits the most home runs). Because 25 and under strike out quite a bit more than 26-30, they only lead 26-30 by a point in regular average, it should be noted.

The second trend is that 31-35 is having a much harder time of it than they had last year. While, between 25 and under and 26-30 the average batting average is only down 2.5 points and the average OPS only down 7.5 points from last year, among 31-35, the average is down 15 points, and the OPS down 36 points!

Huh? In one year? Maybe those old bones will get looser as the season goes on; we are looking at the first third of this year, versus all of last year. But we normally think the opposite.

5/25 N13: Clearly I brought the Angels luck. After my tepid vote of confidence Friday morning, they went out swept the Rangers. After I listed him as one who could do better, Zach Neto hit 2 home runs on Friday , and my similarly exhorted Reid Detmers had an astonishing outing yesterday, racking up a 90 game score, which tied it with Bailey Ober’s May 12th outing as the best of the year.

5/26 N1: I remember when I was in high school, I failed a music history test on merit, but the teacher overrode math and gave me a ‘D’ in acknowledgment of one thought essay. In the larger scheme of a MLB-worst 5.08 E.R.A, the Astros’ team no-hitter has some of this feel. In runs-per-game allowed, they do improve to 26th, but we might choose to take some separate note of E.R.A., since that is per inning and runs-per-game is not, and teams differ in the number of innings they play.

This split between the Astros best pitching games and their typical games has been something of a season-long trend: they are one of the eight teams with 6 or 7 shutouts (they have 6). Of the other seven, only the Phillies, at 4.06, miss out on having an above-average E.R.A. The average E.R.A. of the other seven teams is 3.64, vs. the 4.05 league average.

Imai did start one of the other shutouts, on April 4, and the other shutouts represent single starts of Teng, Arrighetti, Burrows and Lambert. The pitching staff stil doesl look fair at best, but the Astros did come into the no-hitter having allowed just 3.5 runs a game over their previous 10 games.

5/26 N2: After the Mets fell way behind early yesterday, Gary Cohen wasn’t talking about the action on the field much, and one thing he passed along was that the Pirates are on pace to score more runs than in any season since 1940. He said that was impressive because they had such good hitters in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I was more surprised in relation to the ‘70s teams, which seemed to have more depth than the Bonds/Bonilla/Van Slyke outfits. Perhaps I do overrate those ‘70s teams (and some of the earlier Clemente teams), but on the other hand, they won a lot of games and featured so many players who had significant and long careers. It is true that, aside from Stargell, their guys didn’t walk much, which hurt run production.

But I think the key to Cohen’s stat is that there didn’t used to be a designated hitter in the National League. That makes a big difference in runs. Anyway, obviously this whole thing could be excavated, but I really just wanted to make the DH point. The other thing, I guess, is that the Pirates were bad in the ~2000 era and didn’t take advantage of the offensive bounty then, giving them the unusual chance of being able to set this team record of sorts.

5/26 N3: We don’t usually think about going back to the baseball card for reassurance about stolen base potential, but if it weren’t for Chandler Simpson’s average of 99 for 115 in his 2023 and 2024 minor league seasons, you’d have to be concerned about his current 2026 14 for 22 ledger. I have to say, if he’s benched for not stealing as efficiently as hoped, that woulf probably be a first, although Billy Hamilton certainly didn’t live up to expectations when he fell to 34 for 44 in 153 games as a 27-year-old in 2018. And this idea that Elly De La Cruz might consistently live in the 100 range has proven to be a fantasy.

5/26 N4: Where Misiorowski had a particular advantage Memorial Day as he dominated the Cardinals was that he had them in between, you might say. Even compared to his lofty standards, their swing decisions look to have been poor. They swung at his pitches in the zone only 55.4%, his only start this year where that was under 60%. But the 42.5% swings he got from them outside the zone just missed being his highest of the season, with only the 42.9% againts the Blue Jays on 4/14 taking its measure. Numerically, the pattern appears very much, “strike 1 looking, strike 2 looking, strike 3 swinging.” But of course, this is the big leagues, and that exaggerates it. He did throw an average 4.0 pitches (exactly 4.0) a batter.

5/26 N5: It’s easy to focus on three straight games from Ketel Marte right now of at least three hits and an extra-base hits in each. Amazing player. Don’t know if he’s really his listed 6 feet, but he usually clears maximum exit velo of 115 each season quite easily….Another take on his current run, and extending it — he has nine straight games where he’s had at least 2 total bases. He is thus approaching the best streak of the 2020s, which is 11 games, and held by Jorge Polanco, Jake Cronenworth and Anthony Rendon.

As I detailed last year, the all-time record for consecutive “2 TB” games is Harry Heilmann’s 19 games in 1928. Second is a 17-game streak of Chipper Jones’s in 2006.

Jake Bauers also had a 9-game streak which wrapped up a week ago.

5/26 N6: So far, those who expected regression from Ernie Clement (.299/.324/.441) have not been right.

5/26 N7: I have said before, in so many words, that in his array of seasons, Ohtani is like a novelist who provides a fresh and exhilarating storyline with every work. His pitching this year has lived up to expectation. As for his offense, I expected more than “the one with the improved BB/SO ratio,” I must say. The facts on him are identical to Brandon Lowe: his 9th season, and both his best walk percentage ever, and his best strikeout percentage ever this year. He has 1.33 SO per every walk, while his best previous season was his 1.57-1 in 2023. For his career, with 4 more strikeouts, he would have exactly a 2-1 ratio of strikeouts to walks.

I’m impressed. But now, Shohei, it’s time to go on to something else!

5/26 N8: Mike Piazza’s career with the Dodgers: .331 average, .966 OPS, 160 OPS+, 2707 AB. Insane for a catcher.

5/26 N9: It’s not necessarily the case that Reese was a substantially better hitter, but the comparison to Rizzuto does break down when you see that he hit 126 home runs and Rizzuto hit 38. Reese hit exactly half of his home runs on the road, and Rizzuto, just 45% of his, so home ballpark isn’t the explanation. If by “Pee Wee” you think the idea is that he was a punch-and-judy hitter, this apparently isn’t right.

I am sure people do get a tickle out of both players now being credited with exactly 117 fielding runs, though.

5/26 N10: The slowest official sprint speed of a player who has a bolt (a run of 30 ft/sec this year): Aaron Judge, at 26.8. He is in the bottom half in official sprint speed, the 37th percentile. Jacob Wilson (27.1, 48th percentile) and Ronald Acuna (27.2, 50th percentile) also have a bolt. Altuve usually is the king of this: 26.9 speed last year, and 20 bolts.

5/27 N1: RIP Bob Horner. When he played, he hit, and did so at a position where he stood out for doing that, third base. Skipping over the strike yea of 1981, he had Batting Runs of 24, 20, 26, 28 from 1979-1983. Of course Atlanta helped him (65% of his HR there for the two years), but the 68 HR he had in his age-21 and age-22 seasons ranks 8th all-time (the top 10: Eddie Mathews; Joe DiMaggio; Johnny Bench/Albert Pujols/Giancarlo Stanton; Jimmie Foxx/Juan Gonzalez; Horner; Miguel Cabrera; Alex Rodriguez). Horner also played in only 245 games over those years and had more home runs than anyone in the National League besides Mike Schmidt (who did, frankly, have an edge equivalent to about a 10-length horse race win). Horner’s composite batting average in those years was also .292. And, until recently, I had forgotten that Horner lived up to expectations when joining the Yakult Swallows in 1987, flourishing there, producing a .327/.423/.683 slash in 93 games.

5/27 N2: Justin Crawford’s skillset certainly doesn’t support a .229 average. Also is negative in Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved. Despite his speed, has a 30% advance rate on hits, when the MLB average is 42%. Hitless over his last 7 games and 22 at-bats.

5/27 N3: Although Daulton Varsho’s batting average is .270, 43 points higher than what he came into 2026 with, his slugging average is actually down 8 points. This is his seventh year, and he has the best Batting Average on Balls in Play (BAbip) he ever has by 35 points, but the lowest Isolated Power he ever had by 18 points. The explanation seems to be that, when he came to Toronto in 2023, Varsho adopted a very heavy-fly ball approach, with GB/FB ratios of 0.69, 0.61, and 0.52. This year, his ratio is different, 0.96. It’s more balanced, which goes with a better average, but has contributed to fewer home runs.

5/27 N4: Not only am I beginning to believe in JJ Bleday, I believe, period…at least at the plate. When recalled in the second half last year, he also hit well (.252/.306/.495) but struck out in 34 of those 111 plate appearances. This year, he has just 21 ks in the exact same number of plate appearances. Has a .287/.387/.596 slash.

5/27 N5: A nice, “made for TV” game, it would seem, with Mune Murakami hitting a 2-run home run in the 8th last night to spoil Joe Ryan’s shutout and tie the contest. The 77 strikes Ryan threw places the outing behind only the 78 Parker Messick threw on 4/16.

Ryan has a 146 ERA+ and a 2.94 E.R.A. He’s actually been better than that. Note that that E.R.A. ranks him 18th in MLB among those on pace for 162 innings, but he is 5th in WHIP and 6th in FIP. Throwing out his 1/3rd of an inning start, he’s allowed 3 hits or fewer in 5 of 11 starts. His last four game scores have been 70, 69, 66 and 66, respectively (most recent start given first).

5/27 N6: The Marlins are calling the pitches from the bench, and this has exerted an influence. Using Sports Info Solutions data, which collapse four-seamers and sinkers, the team’s 40.2% FB use is the game’s lowest. It is also interesting, however, to see how this has varied by starting pitcher. With 53.5% fastballs, Eury Perez is actually 13th among 76 qualifiers. Sandy Alcantara’s percentage is 53rd, Janson Junk’s 70th and Max Meyer’s 72nd. The percentage that they have used fastballs more or less corresponds with their average velocity.

Perez: 53.5%, 98.2

Alcantara: 42.8%, 97.3

Junk: 35.8%, 94.3

Meyer: 34.5%, 94.6

5/27 N7: Ketel Marte’s home run Tuesday extends his streak of games with 2 total bases or more to 10.

5/27 N8: The Rockies posted a .579 slugging average in their loss against the Dodgers yesterday. The 22 total bases they had tied for the most they’ve had in a game in May. But that slugging average broke down to .259 in 8 innings against Eric Lauer and Jonathan Hernandez, and 1.364 in 1 inning hitting against Miguel Rojas. Complete farce. I don’t think any manager is even close to Dave Roberts in his fondness for putting in position players to pitch when his team is winning, and I don’t think it’s a matter of the Dodgers have the sort of monopoly on blowout wins this implies. In every blowout, there is a winner as well as a loser, but we obviously see the winning team go to position-player pitchers far less often.

5/27 N9: I clicked with the relatively new Greg Maddux interview that is a part of the SABR Oral Archives. What I liked about Maddux personally is that he came across as “no bullshit.” He was perfectly polite and made his enthusiasm for the game clear, but I could tell he would have no part of answering a question dishonestly or of being phony. Gwynn was the “best pure hitter in the game,” Bonds “the most feared.” It was understated, but no more need be said. No need to wax eloquent.

But I think the crux of this honesty is really about someone whose whole life is immersed in facts. Maddux lived on video to prepare, and he said his seeming uncanny memory for the history of his confrontations with batters really reflected this. Because he lives in facts, he also was able to be articulate and specific in describing how Smoltz pitched and how Glavine pitched and how pitchers in general pitched compared to how they do today. Those ideas were in his head, so when he was asked, he just had to transmit them.

He said one thing that I have never heard before. Elaborating on the fielding that won him 18 Gold Gloves, Maddux said that he would monitor how many total chances he had as a fielder every season. He thought of three chances to an inning and of free innings that could add up over a season, and his goal was to get 100 total chances every year.

Pitcher total chances has never been on my radar screen. While realizing that they are dependent on ground ball versus fly ball style, I will now enjoy paying attention. Other than pickoffs and stolen bases, it never occurred to me how one might take pitcher fielding out of the realm of the subjective.

5/28 N1: Cristopher Sanchez has scattered hits throughout his streak, giving up 3, 4, 6, 6, and 6 across his shutout starts. That’s a total of 25 from 39 innings, or a very unremarkable 5.8-per-9, considering the shortness of the streak. But he’s given up just 3 walks in the 39 innings, and has turned away 24 batters who have hit with runners in scoring position (in all of this, I realize I am discounting his final 6 scoreless innings after being touched fo 2 runs n the 1st against the Giants on 4/30). Before he got on the shutout run, with 13 walks in 40 innings, Sanchez was walking batters early in the season, .

In any event, I hope his next game is widely available on the television, and he gets the attention he deserves. It seems there has been a lot of determination behind keeping the streak alive. Dominance is in the eye of the beholder, but it seems it has been far from inevitable.

5/28 N2: How can Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez combine for 7 hits, and the Marlins only get 1 run? This happened yesterday in the team’s 2-1 loss to the Blue Jays.

5/28 N3: With his two-single day, Marte ties the best streak of the 2020s with his 11th straight 2-total base game. Arizona plays the Mariners and George Kirby next, after an off day.

5/28 N4: A few of Ramon Laureano’s recent miseries I found:

A .147 average in May, from 68 AB.

Only 1 multiple-hit game from his last 24 starts.

A strikeout in 33 straight starts.

On the year, Laureano has a 32.5% strikeout rate, versus his career 27.2%. This means he’s running about 10 strikeouts ahead of expected, since he’s had 197 plate appearances.

5/28 N5: The highest rate of HR to H ever for a pitcher who faced 502 batters belongs to Josiah Gray in 2022, who threw 148.2 innings, striking out 154 batters with 136 hits allowed and 38 home runs. That’s 27.9% of hits going for home runs. Jameson Taillon, with his abysmal 8.2 HR-per-AB allowed this year but just a .235 BAbip, has allowed exactly 1 home run per every 3 hits (19 HR. 57 H). Compared to Gray’s rate, he is then over 3 home runs ahead. He could set the record.

Eric Lauer is also on pace for both the batters faced (has 184, while 175 would have him about on pace) and the HR/H portion (12 HR, 42 H, 28.6%). Even when going well last year, Lauer had an extreme 0.59 GB/FB ratio. Doing that, he tends to maximize on home runs and minimize on other hits, and will generally have an above-average ratio.

Besides Gray, 2022, there have been eight other 502 BF seasons with at least 25.0%+ HR/H.

Shota Imanaga 2025 26.50%

Ariel Miranda 2017 26.43%

Justin Verlander 2019 26.28%

Caleb Smith 2019 25.78%

Jake Odorizzi 2017 25.64%

Drew Smyly 2019 25.40%

Michael Kopech 2023 25.22%

Mike Foltynewicz 2021 25.20%

All of these guys are closer to Gray and much closer to Imanaga than Gray and Imanaga are to Taillon, although it is a longshot that Taillon can keep ot going for a whole season.

The Verlander 2019 season is the fascinating one. In general, home runs allowed don’t recommend a season, but I would make an exception here. To give up just 66 runs all year on 36 home runs, you have to boggle the mind. He led MLB in innings with 223. His strikeout rate was 35.4%, his OBP Allowed .219. He won the AL Cy Young.

With his 3.73 E.R.A., Imanaga was also fairly effective despite his ratio, but five of the pitchers had E.R.A.s over 5.00. So the Verlander season is a phenomenon.

A very robust home run rate and a low batting average have converged and resulted in 25%+ seasons, which as you can see, never happened before 2017.

5/28 N6: I was going to ask what on earth Jorge Mateo was doing starting a game at DH for the Braves, but I forgot that there is no gravity with the Braves this year, that all of their players are great and can suddenly do anything. Mateo is now hitting .313 in 64 AB, and rewarded Weiss with 2 hits in the game. Mateo’s actual resume included on-base percentages of .217, .267, ,267, .267 his last four years, and even a career OPS against lefties of just .676.

If you go to the “appearances” section of his page on Baseball Reference, you will see 19 DH games for Mateo. But, from “Splits,” including yesterday we learn he has just 10 DH plate appearances.

The “Standard Fielding” section oddly includes DH as a position broken down into starts and games. And from this we find that Mateo only had one other start at DH, which (it turns out) specifically came in his first year in 2020 (on 9/5 against Oakland — while he was with the Padres).

5/28 N7: Kody Clemens got his first-ever start in center field yesterday. With all of the positions he can play, with 14 career Defensive Runs Saved, with 5 steals this year and even a bolt, Clemens is plucky and handy.

5/28 N8: It’s not June yet, and the AL batting leader (Yordan Alvarez) is hitting just .312? This has officially reached a crisis point. Hell, bring in all the position-player pitchers you want and ban errors.

5/28 N9: I’m not sure what his more extensive batting average was before Retrosheet sunk their teeth into him, but Rogers Hornsby’s average is .358497. I used to just know that as .358, which was easy to learn and kind of pretty with Joe Jackson being the even number (.356) right behind. But one more hit or one fewer at-bat, and Hornsby would be .359.

5/28 N10: It has always been my assumption that Shoeless Joe Jackson was a natural and could do no wrong, but if you look at his record, he comes across as mortal and not a cut above everyone else. He was not a Stan Musial who had his career truncated, nor was he 98% of Ty Cobb.

He was banned at age 33, but his peak had long past by that points, encompassing his early seasons with Cleveland. Hitting was tougher in the second half of the 1910s, but look at Jackson’s averages in his years of 100 or more games:

.408, .395, .373, .338, .308, .341, .301, .351, .373.

Or his OPS+s:

193, 191, 192, 156, 147, 166, 143, 159, 172

What particulalry stood out to me was that Jackson’s lowest average, the .301, came on the great 100-54 1917 Chicago World Series winners. Cobb outhit Jackson by 82 points that year. Jackson had the best hitting season on the team (31 Batting Runs vs. 25 for Eddie Collins vs. 20 for Happy Felsch), and that counts for something, is important (at any rate, doesn’t leave us saying “say it ain’t so”). Jackson’s 1917 World Series, statistically, was ho-hum — .304, but all singles, and only one walk.

Jackson never won a batting or OPS+ title. In the seasons I statted above (and 1918, which Shoeless missed because of the war), Cobb won 8 batting titles and 7 OPS+ titles.

The “98% of Cobb” idea applies rather well to Jackson’s brilliant 1911-1913 period. Cobb comes away with all three OPS+ titles, but with indices just an eyelash better: 196, 200, 194. These seasons keep Jackson’s career average up (which is o.k., they count). His 170 OPS+ is in fact in front of Musial, who was 159 for his career. I

If you average Musial’s 1943-1954 OPS+s, when he was about the same ages as Jackson and hadn’t yet experienced any meaningful decline, those seasons for Musial come to 172. So that looks like Jackson.

But, first, Musial, won five OPS+ titles in his career, all through 1954. Second, Musial was 170 or better in OPS six times in the span given, 160 or better in every season except 1947. “The Machine” worked for Albert Pujols (169 OPS+ with the Cardinals, but it just as easily could have been used for Musial. With Jackson, I don’t think it works.

5/29 N1: Historically, Baseball Reference’s Batting Age and Pitching Age have run together, but now pitchers are more than a year older than batters. Here is PAge - BatAge, sampling some years:

2025+2026: 1.3

2010: -0.5

2000: -0.3

1985: -0.5

1965: 0.4

1950: 0.2

1935: 0.3

But I think Baseball Reference should give separate ages for relievers and starters. Relievers have their own distribution, with a 25-year-old qualifying as a young reliever. So as relievers have taken up a greater and greater share of pitching, pitching age has gotten older. If you what you are concerned about is the age pitcher/hitter ratio, because of this bias, the numbers may not really work for historical comparison.

5/29 N2: This is a bit random, but is also could good information to have. PAge - BatAge this year shows the same 1.3 difference in the International League as in MLB (with 27.4 and 26.1 in the IL). I took starters in the league with 9 or more starts (33 of them) and relievers with 20 or more games (14 of them). Just using starters, the age comes down to 26. 4 — almost where the hitters are. The average age of the relievers with 20+ games was 28.4.

5/29 N3: Baseball Reference/The Baseball Register gives you a minor league split you don’t get for major leaguers, which is performance against older and younger players. It is at the bottom of “Minor League Pitching Game Logs & Splits,” etc. So that we can know that old batters are 5 for 46 against the comebacking (new reliever) Drew Rom this year, young batters 16 for 43 against him. I’m guessing the idea is that a pitcher who is only getting young batters out might not have his success translate, and the split is not designed with the Rom case in mind, which is hard to see as anything but coincidence.

5/29 N4: Tomoyuki Sugano has gotten good results this year (1.3 bWAR, 116 ERA+) despite 4.7 SO/9 and 1.7 HR/9. Last year, he gave up an AL-highest 33 HR, and per inning, he is only 10% below that this year. Sugano has survived, it appears, because all 11 home runs he has given up have been solo home runs. With men on, he’s allowing a .270 slugging average; with the bases empty, .592. Before long, unfortunately, it seems likely teams will be putting up crooked numbers against him with nearly the regularity they have against his fellow starters Kyle Freeland and Michael Lorenzen.

5/29 N5: With Payton Tolle, it seems it is “here it is, hit it,” and they don’t. Only 13% of his pitches have been non-fastballs or cutters this year, and only 5% to left-handers.

Like most pitchers, Tolle favors four-seamers to the opposite side batter, sinkers to the same-side. Batters are hitting .111 versus his four-seamer, .324 versus his sinker. There is of course then a correlation between these numbers and his platoon splits, which have been reverse.

Even last year, between the minors and the majors, the right-handed OPS against him was .631, the left-handed .654 (he is left-handed), with his strikeout percentage also better against righties, 36 vs. 32.

5/29 N6: Ian Happ has 12 home runs, topping the Cubs by 5, so he will take some catching. He was just 5th on the team last year with his 23 home runs, but also led the team in 2024 and 2020. He is on pace for 34, which would obliterate his career high, and is also on pace for 105 walks and 216 strikeouts.

With Michael Busch having even more walks than Happ, the Cubs now lead MLB quite easily in walks. Their May walk rate of 12.0% is even better than their March/April of 11.4%, but the 90-point slide in their slugging percentage (.427 March/April, .337 May) has proved more material.

5/29 N7: Just like I assume today’s baseball players were better athletes in much better shape than those of 100 years, I have relative ideas about the baseball journalism of that time. I assume that the performance analysis, such as it existed, betrayed naivety, but the writing was better, and the product less sloppy. But I found the following glaring error. This is from the 8/21/1926 New Orleans Morning Tribune.

“[Wilbert] Robinson, one of the famous Baltimore Oriole squad, which also carried John J. McGraw, Hughey Jennings and other famous players on its roster, assumed management of the Brooklyn club in 1914. Six years later he piloted it to a world championship over the Cleveland Indians.”

Hmmm, why did the Brooklyn fans go so crazy in 1955? Shouldn’t they have taken everything in stride, what with that 1920 World Series win?

And on the Cleveland side, how unfortunate that the 1920 fatal beaning of Ray Chapman wasn’t at least offset by some brief joy and distraction from a World Series win? There really is no God.

5/29 N8: Here’s more evidence that triples didn’t use to have much to do with speed. Sliding Billy Hamilton, he of the four 100 stolen base seasons and 914 for his career, was only top 10 in triples one time, when he was 8th in the American Association in 1889. For the 12 subsequent years Hamilton was in the National League, the average triple rate was 1.67 per at-bats. Hamilton’s career ate in the National League was 1.41 per 100 at-bats.

If we didn’t have anything to go on but this, we might hypothesize that steals didn’t mean what they do today. Actually, what with the Juan Soto 38 steal seasons, I’m not sure steals of 2022 mean quite what they do today.

I rather liked the old way better. Maybe it should be like Little League, where you’re only allowed so big a lead.

5/29 N9: A rather unfortunately named fellow — Doug McWeeny. At 37-57, was rather short of run support, but had bWAR seasons of 4.1 and 4.5 for Brooklyn in 1926 and 1928. Hailing from Chicago, he also made his debut with the White Sox the year after they had to get rid of the World Series fixers (1921). As he had a 6.08 E.R.A. and allowed a .325 average that year,at an age (24) when he might have been read, his eventual reemergence with the Robins was a triumph. Had seasons of 15-7, 20-12 and 20-5 for the San Francisco Seals in between Chicago and Brooklyn (with some overlap with the Chicago time, as he also appeared for the White Sox in 1922 and 1924).

Run support with the Seals was probably a little better than he had to get used to, what with Paul Waner on a couple of those Seals teams and hitting .401 with 280 hits and 75 doubles on one of them (Waner would actually hit 62 doubles one season with the Pirates).

5/29 N10: The 1928 Boston Braves had three of the top seven hitters in the National League, two of whom were named Rogers Hornsby and George Sisler, yet the Braves still scored just 631 runs, which was last in the league, and lost 103 games. Hornsby had a 202 OPS+ in 140 games. It can’t have been that dreary a time; I would have gone out to the park to see him play.

At 2987 a game, the Braves did outdraw the Phillies, who lost 109 games of their own, with Chuck Klein not debuting until July 30. The Cubs and Giants both made it into five figures in attendance, but were beaten out by the Cardinals (9891 a game) for the pennant, and the right to lose to the Yankees in the World Series.

5/30 N1: Last year, Dodger relievers faced the 2nd-most batters in MLB, this year they have faced the fewest. So in this respect, they are a completely different team than a year ago.

60 earned runs allowed instead of 59 means that the Padres and Braves edge them in reliever E.R.A., but Dodger relievers have allowed the lowest OPS in MLB. Certainly, that low number of batters faced helps, but the Dodgers have allowed 3 fewer home runs than any bullpen in MLB, and 4 fewer doubles.

5/30 N2: There are four exceptions to the norm of more home runs against your starters than against your relievers.

Rays: 32 HR vs. relievers, 26 HR vs. starters (E.R.A.s, 4.47 and 2.99)

Angels: 31 HR vs. relievers, 27 HR vs. starters (E.R.A.s, 5.31 and 4.45)

White Sox: 32 HR vs. relievers, 30 HR vs. starters. (E.R.A.s, 4.61 and 4.01)

Astros: 38 HR vs. relievers, 38 HR vs. starters (E.R.A.s, 5.31 and 4.78)

The overall average for each group is relievers 24 HR in 216 IP, starters 37 HR in 292 IP.

A ratio of starter HR-to-reliever HR of 2.00 or greater:

Dodgers 3.55

Marlins 2.93

Mariners 2.67

Rangers 2.42

Giants 2.28

Athletics 2.21

Padres 2.13

It would make for an interesting angle if the Mariners relievers had actually been better than their starters this year. In addition to home run percentage, they do have a better bullpen E.R.A. than a starter E.R.A. But the fact that their ‘pen has allowed the second highest batting average in MLB suggests that it can be had.

5/30 N3: Through 150 plate apperarances, a .425 Secondary Average for Curtis Mead.

5/30 N4: Brayan Bello’s pitching Friday night certainly among the most memorable and best performances of the year. Following Tyler Samaniego, it required him just 63 pitches to get through 7 innings and 24 batters (2.63 pitches a batter). He even had a 28.6% whiff rate for the game, so didn’t get contact at every turn. And he did all this against the Guardians, the team that on the season has seen the most pitches per plate appearance.

5/30 N5: Shota Imanaga has been left out to get shellacked in each of his last three starts, ballooning his E.R.A. from 2.32 to 4.37. He’s worked 15 2/3 innings across the three starts and given up an .815 slugging average. The average innings with that very elevated slugging average has meant 17.7 total bases allowed a start. The average this year is 7.7 total bases allowed with 19.4 at-bats. Imanaga has had an average of 21.7 at-bats against him in the three starts.

His total pitches have been fairly low, so it’s been somewhat natural for Counsell to leave him out there. They’ve ranged from 75-94, and remarkably, he’s only thrown 15.8 per inning, despite mixing in 29 baserunners.

The picture is that, perhaps, batters are jumping all over him early in the count. But at least for the first pitch, and on the season, this isn’t true. The average against him when hitters put the first pitch in play is .273, which is lower than the MLB .334. Even in slugging average (.636 vs. the league .560) he isn’t materially different, considering how sensitive these averages are in a small sample.

If we rank pitchers based on hits and total bases, overall, Imanaga is tied for the 42nd-most hits allowed. On first pitches, the 9 hits he’s given him have him tied for 69th. In total bases, overall Imanaga is tied for having given up the 9th-most. On first-pitches, he is tied for having given up the 28th-most total bases.

Note that here, the variable is not just average and slugging average allowed, but how often batters swing at the first pitch against you, and more specifically put it in play. We’re looking at totals with hits and total vases, not totals per at-bat (which isn’t to say that these totals aren’t influenced by the extraneous factor of total batters faced, though).

Most hits allowed on first pitches this year:

17: Shane Baz, Aaron Civale, Ryne Nelson

16: Slade Cecconi, Nathan Eovaldi, Seth Lugo, Logan Webb

15: Sandy Alcantara, Nick Martinez, Cristopher Sanchez

First, being among the league leaders in hits allowed really doesn’t mean you’re a below-average pitcher. I’m not sure if restricting to first pitches means that the quality of pitchers increases or decreases.

Most total bases allowed on first pitches this year:

(1) Aaron Civale 38

(2) Nathan Eovaldi 32

(2) Jameson Taillon 32

(4) Sandy Alcantara 31

(5) Shane Baz 30

(5) Ryne Nelson 30

It’s really many of the same guys. A high base for hits is generally going to mean a lot of total bases, too.

For those who have given up at least 10 first-pitch hits this year, the lowest total bases per hit :

(1) Matthew Liberatore 1.18

(2) Cristopher Sanchez 1.20

(3) Reid Detmers 1.23

(3) Walbert Urena 1.23

(5) Cam Schlittler 1.25

5/30 N6: Aaron Judge’s slugging average down to .549. It’s not the round number of .500, but a .550 slugging average is something that I find separates a lot of hitters, that few can achieve. For his career, Judge is .612. Foxx, Bonds and Greenberg are below him in the low .600s, with the Negro Leaguers Stearns (.618), Suttles (.617) and Charleston (.611) also similar.

Of late for Judge, power has been the problem. His slash in March/April, and then in May:

March/April: .252/.381/.622

May: .253/.379/.463

Given his age, to expect him to continue as the monster he’s been since he was in his walk year and hit 62 home runs probably isn’t realistic, but over a period of time, there is next-to-no chance that Judge isn’t going to hit for serious power. All general managers should have such concerns.

5/30 N7: I’m not sure Ben Rice is Lou Gehrig, but he could play him in the movie, I’ll say that. Gehrig’s 1925 and 1926 were more hints (127 and 153 OPS+es) than revelations, then his 1927 was one of the historic seasons.

The game has just changed so much. So much more depth now, while even in 1926, when he hit just 16 home runs, Gehrig was different and potentially special because of his power.

Rice could play Gehrig in the movie, but if you take license and forget about George, he has Ruth’s initials.

5/30 N8: Marte’s streak is over. The 12th straight game of 2 total bases claims another victim. He ties with Anthony Rendon, Jake Cronenworth and Jorge Polanco for the best streak of the decade.

5/30 N9: The first sentence of a 1926 article refers to Hall of Fame catcher Ray Schalk as the “diminutive backstop.” That wasn’t one of the characteristics that had gotten through to me. I always found him to be preceded by “fiery.”

Baseball Reference lists him as 5’9” 165. By height, that then ranks him as second lightest of the 18 Hall of Fame catchers, with only Rick Ferrell (who began his career about when Schalk finished up) lighter. By height, Yogi Berra is listed as 5’7”, with Roger Bresnahan, Roy Campanella and Pudge Rodriguez also 5’9”.

It is quite the varied group. Ernie Lombardi (6’3”, 230) was huge for his day. Mauer was 6’5”, 225, and Biz Mackley 235 lb.

Berra was not only the shortest Hall of Famer catcher, but one of only five catchers 5’7” or shorter, period, who caught 600 games. George Miller (1884-1896) was shortest at 5’6”, and then also at 5’7”, Larry Brown, Malachi Kittridge and Frankie Pytlak. Christian Vazquez is 5’8” and coming up on 1000 games, and Tucker Barnhart, who retired mid 2025, is 5’8”.

Vazquez hit 23 of his 75 career home runs in 2019. You do a double take because he’s never even been in double digits in any other season. If you take into account his lower at-bat totals in other seasons, the season is still certainly is indispensable fodder for anyone who wants to get up to a Ben Lindbergh level of appreciation for how out of whack the 2019 home run totals were, but I don’t know that it’s Exhibit A. He hit 7 home runs in 173 at-bats the next year, for instance.