Showing posts with label Athletics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Athletics. Show all posts

Monday, May 10, 2010

Linking All of Baseball's Perfect Games

Yesterday Dallas Braden threw the 19th perfect game in baseball history as the Oakland Athletics beat the Tampa Bay Rays. I was wondering if you could connect all 19 perfect games through common teammates. With the help of Baseball-Reference's Oracle, here's how they connect (with the dates of their perfect games in parentheses).
Lee Richmond (June 12, 1880) played with Sadie Houck on the 1879 Boston Red Caps. Houck played with John Montgomery "Monte" Ward (June 17, 1880) on the 1880 Providence Grays. Ward played with Gus Weyhing on the 1890 Brooklyn Ward's Wonders. Weyhing played with Cy Young (May 5, 1904) on the 1900 St. Louis Cardinals. Young played with Addie Joss (October 2, 1908) on the 1909 Cleveland Naps. Joss played with "Shoeless" Joe Jackson on the 1910 Cleveland Naps. Jackson played with Charlie Robertson (April 30, 1922) on the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Roberston played with Ted Lyons on the 1924 Chicago White Sox and Lyons played with Bob Kennedy on the 1939 Chicago White Sox. Kennedy played with Don Larsen (October 8, 1956) on the 1954 Baltimore Orioles. Larsen played with Harvey Kuenn on the 1962 San Francisco Giants. Kuenn played with Jim Bunning (June 21, 1964) on the 1958 Detroit Tigers. Bunning played with Maury Wills on the 1968 Pittsburgh Pirates. Wills played with Sandy Koufax (September 9, 1965) on the 1961 Los Angeles Dodgers. Koufax played with Tommy Davis on the 1965 Los Angeles Dodgers. Davis played with Jim "Catfish" Hunter (May 8, 1968) on the 1970 Oakland Athletics. Hunter played with Dock Ellis on the 1977 New York Yankees. Ellis played with Len Barker (May 15, 1981) on the 1977 Texas Rangers. Barker played with Neal Heaton on the 1982 Cleveland Indians. Heaton played with Mike Witt (September 30, 1984) on the 1993 New York Yankees. Witt played with Wally Joyner on the 1988 California Angels. Joyner played with Tom Browning (September 16, 1988) on the 1995 Kansas City Royals. Browning played with Dann Bilardello on the 1985 Cincinnati Reds. Bilardello played with Dennis Martinez (July 28, 1991) on the 1986 Montreal Expos. Martinez played with Jeff Russell on the 1994 Cleveland Indians. Russell played with Kenny Rogers (July 28, 1994) on the 1992 Texas Rangers. Rogers played with David Wells (May 17, 1998) and David Cone (July 18, 1999) on the 1997 New York Yankees. Cone played with Mark Whiten on the 1997 New York Yankees. Whiten played with Randy Johnson (May 18, 2004) on the 1996 Seattle Mariners. Johnson played with Octavio Dotel on the 2006 New York Yankees. Dotel played with Mark Buehrle (July 23, 2009) on the 2008 Chicago White Sox. Buehrle played with Mark Kotsay on the 2009 Chicago White Sox. Kotsay played with Dallas Braden (May 9, 2010) on the 2007 Oakland Athletics.

Friday, April 23, 2010

The Yankee Clipper: A-Rod Disses Dallas

Not exactly Debbie Does Dallas, but because A-Rod is involved, there's just as much controversy. The Yankees take their 5th series to start a season matching the 1926 squad and two wins in Los Angeles this week would set a new franchise record. Before we get there, let's look at the series that was:
  1. A-Rod vs. Dallas Braden. Here's my quick opinion: Dallas Braden was wrong and A-Rod was wrong in how he responded to it. As far as A-Rod's controversies go, this ranks pretty low on the list. Everyone weighed in: The New York Times' Ben Shpigel (picture to the right from that article), ESPN's Wallace Matthews, LoHud's Sam Borden, HarballTalk's Craig Calcaterra, River Ave Blues' Mike Axisa, FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal (with a quote from Tim McCarver), Mark Feinsand of the Daily News, TonyBlogs, the Posts's Joel Sherman (who made an unfunny joke), and Jay from Fack Youk (who weighed in on everyone weighing in). Twitter users oh_gee_en and LadyBlueICU came up with funny pictures. 'Duk from Big League Stew summed it up nicely: "You can read more of [what Braden and A-Rod said] at MLB.com or listen to his interview at the LoHud Yankees Blog....On one hand, it's nice for A's fans to see that one of their young guns won't cede any ground or be intimidated by one of the best players on the defending world champs...But on the other, there's something to be said for knowing your spot in the game and earning enough capital to call out a perennial All-Star over something so petty." ESPN's Rob Neyer adds another layer to it: "There's something odd about this, though: The inning was over. Braden wasn't on the mound anymore. It wasn't his mound."
  2. Oh, by the way, the Yankees turned a triple play yesterday (no, not that triple play or that triple play). According to John and Suzyn, it was the first triple play turned by the Yankees in a long time. According to the broadcast team, the last one was June 3rd, 1968: Dooley Womack to Bobby Cox to Mickey Mantle ("yes that Bobby Cox and yes that Mickey Mantle"). More than 6600 games ago. I saw one in person last year (unassisted) when the Mets had one turned on them in Citi Field (DJ AM threw out the first pitch that game, sadly enough). It's a really cool feat. Too bad they couldn't follow it up with a win. Quick side note: I also got to hear Suzyn say during the broadcast: "Isn't texting just the best thing in the world." Ummm...

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Yankees Hughes-Wang Problem

The Yankees had back-to-back years with perfect games as David Cone and David Wells became "baseball immortality". In 2001, Mike Mussina took an September ESPN start to two strikes and two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning with a perfect game. And then Carl Everett broke it up. Since then, Yankees pitchers have come oh-so-close to no-no's only to fall short. So far this year the Yankees had CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes throw 1-hit gems. This is the second time that Hughes has come close--but failed--to throw the no-hitter, joining former Yankee Chien-Ming Wang among the unlucky this past decade. So for Hughes to Wang (by the way, I've wanted to use that title for a while), the Yankees have been unlucky in finishing out the no-hit bids.
So close. Near no-no's. The forgotten games. Moose's I will never forget. He was dealing and looked totally unhittable. He dominated a really tough Boston lineup in a really tough ballpark. 26 up, 26 down. 13 K. And Carl Everett ruined it. You wonder how many times Mussina goes back to that 0-2 pitch and wishes he would have wasted one there instead of throwing a meaty pitch for Everett (a Yankee foe, indeed) to club.

35 times the Yankees have had a pitcher go 7 innings and give up two hits or less since the beginning of the 2000 season. Mike Mussina has 6 such games in his Yankee tenure. Chien-Ming Wang and El Duque are tied for second with four each. Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, Randy Johnson and A.J. Burnett have each had 3. 

Some of them stick out in your mind.  

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tonight's Pitching Matchup: Some Good News For Javy Vazquez

Since the man can use some good news before his start tonight in Oakland, I ran Javier Vazquez's numbers vs. the current Athletics hitters (including postseason) on Baseball-Reference. Here were the results:

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SH SF IBB HBP
Travis Buck 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0
Rajai Davis 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0
Ryan Sweeney 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0
Kurt Suzuki 10 9 1 0 0 0 1 0 3 .111 .200 .111 .311 0 0 0 1
Gabe Gross 8 5 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 .000 .375 .000 .375 0 0 0 0
Mark Ellis 17 16 3 0 0 0 0 1 1 .188 .235 .188 .423 0 0 0 0
Kevin Kouzmanoff 6 6 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .167 .167 .333 .500 0 0 0 0
Eric Chavez 12 10 1 0 0 1 3 2 2 .100 .250 .400 .650 0 0 0 0
Jack Cust 9 8 1 0 0 1 2 1 2 .125 .222 .500 .722 0 0 0 0
Coco Crisp 17 16 5 0 0 1 3 1 3 .313 .353 .500 .853 0 0 0 0
Daric Barton 6 5 2 0 0 0 1 1 1 .400 .500 .400 .900 0 0 0 0
Jake Fox 4 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 0 0
Eric Patterson 7 5 1 0 0 1 2 2 1 .200 .429 .800 1.229 0 0 0 0
Cliff Pennington 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 2.000 3.000 0 0 0 0
Total 105 93 18 2 0 4 12 11 17 .194 .286 .344 .630 0 0 0 1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/20/2010.
As you can see, only Coco Crisp has had sustained success against Vazquez and he's on the disabled list. Of course, these are all small sample sizes, but Vazquez has look pretty good against tonight's foe in the past. Let's hope the success can continue tonight.