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Wild Pitches: Jennings simply does it all By Jayson Stark ESPN.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Babe Ruth didn't debut like this. Wes Ferrell didn't debut like this. Mike Hampton didn't debut like this.
In the history of baseball, 1876 to whatever moment you're reading this, the Elias Sports Bureau tells us that only one man ever hit a home run and pitched a shutout in his first game in the major leagues:
Jason Jennings, Colorado Rockies, Thursday night, Shea Stadium.
While we're on the subject of pitcher home run trots, it's hard to beat the "trot" turned in by Cardinals reliever Mike Matthews on Tuesday after the unlikely first homer of his career. It was clocked by trot experts at ESPN World Headquarters at a leisurely 25 seconds -- which is about how long it takes Greg Maddux to zip through an inning. When the St. Louis Post Dispatch's trusty Cardinals beat man, Rick Hummel, began surveying the clubhouse on Matthews' tour of the bases, he found the troops somewhere between bemused and delirious. "Ask the big man (Mark McGwire) what he said about it," said reliever Gene Stechschulte, who had reason to talk, since he'd hit a pinch homer earlier this year. "I've got 576 home runs," McGwire said, with mock outrage, "and I never walked around like he did. If I was a pitcher, I would have knocked him on his butt." No one is normally more religious about playing the game right than manager Tony La Russa. So suffice it to say he noticed this wasn't quite your typical trot. "The boys were getting on him to pick it up a little bit," La Russa said. "I don't think he knew what to do." Well, the usual procedure is: first base, followed by second, followed by third and home. But at times like this, it gets tough to keep that complicated stuff straight. "I didn't even know if I was going the right way," Matthews said. "All I remember is, I swung and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the ball was in the air. I kind of ran hard to first, and then when I saw it go out, I just went in a daze." But at least it was the best daze of his life. RBI man of the week Despite all of those offensive heroics by the pitching population cited above, however, the least likely two-run single by any pitcher anywhere came off the bat of Diamondbacks closer Byung-Hyun Kim last weekend.
Even the Elias Sports Bureau doesn't keep stats on this sort of thing. But we're pretty sure Phillies spring champ Brian Hunter made history Wednesday against the Astros: Biggest jump in the history of baseball. While leading off second in the fourth inning, Hunter saw Wade Miller go into a quasi-windup and thought: "If he does this again, I'll have to take off." So on the next pitch, Hunter did indeed break for third. Except "break" might not be the right word here. Because by the time the ball left Miller's hand, Hunter had reached the dirt cutout around third base. So by our calculations, his "jump" was 80 feet. "It was like a cartoon," said Phillies pitcher Robert Person. Needless to say, Hunter made it into third standing up, then gave a kidding nod at his old teammate, catcher Brad Ausmus. "I guess Brad figured he didn't have much chance to throw me out," Hunter chuckled. "Why'd he hold it?" Hunter's jump was so humongous, it made some observers wonder whether anyone had ever stolen third base and home on the same pitch. If ever a guy had a chance to do it, this was it. "He was rounding third," said Phillies broadcast-humorist Larry Andersen. "But they held him up." Boo who of the week In some towns in our great land, men who once pitched their teams into the World Series return after changing teams and are showered with emotional displays of appreciation for all they did. Then there's New York. And Mike Hampton. Who made his first appearance at Shea Stadium on Tuesday since shutting out the Cardinals to finish off the NLCS for his old team, the Mets. Hard to believe Hampton got booed from the moment he put his socks on. Not that his old buddies, the Mets, were amazed by that sound. "We've been giving them a lot of practice this year," Mike Piazza said. "They were definitely warmed up." Hampton may have entered the game with more homers (seven) than five of the Mets' eight position players. But he gave up five runs in the first two innings -- including a humongous 462-foot mash by Piazza that actually hit the TV camera platform beyond the center-field fence. "They're going to have to start building those things farther away," said the Rockies' Rich Donnelly. "They put that right in his range. It's like putting a camera on Tiger Woods 300 yards down the center of the fairway." Cyclist of the week If ever there were proof that the cycle is baseball's most fascinating quirk, as opposed to one of baseball's greatest feats, Toronto's Jeff Frye proved it last weekend.
Nothing and nobody else can stop the Mariners. But our favorite knuckleball king, Steve Sparks, can. He beat them again Monday, with a complete-game five-hitter. And that marked the second time in two seasons he'd gone into Safeco and five-hit them. "There's no doubt in my mind," teammate Jeff Weaver told Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler, "that unless there are three knuckleballers in somebody's rotation, they're going to win the World Series." De-Unitizers of the week Not to suggest it had been a long time since the Pittsburgh Pirates beat Randy Johnson or anything. But last time they did it, he was 5-foot-7. OK, not really. But the last time they did it, it was 1989, and it took a two-homer game by Glenn Wilson, who has been retired for eight years. 
To beat the Unit on Thursday, all the Pirates had to do was strike out 15 times in the first 6 2/3 innings -- including a sixth inning in which Johnson struck out the side on nine pitches -- and then erupt for four unlikely runs, launched by a two-run homer by Kevin Young.
That enabled the Pirates to become the first team all year to beat Johnson and Curt Schilling in the same series.
"I know we're not supposed to bet in baseball," said Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon. "But I bet a lot of people lost money on this game."
Foursome of the weekJust a couple of weeks after somehow scoring exactly one run in five straight games, the Tigers launched another fascinating streak last weekend: They scored exactly four runs in four straight games -- for the first time since 1983. "What I want to know," said manager Phil Garner, "is, why can't that number be eight? Why can't we score eight runs about seven games in a row?'" Trifecta of the week Remember when it used to be a big deal to see a guy hit three home runs in a game? Well, last Friday at Coors Field, Rockies rookie second baseman Jose Ortiz hit three homers in a game (after having hit two in his whole career before that) -- and wasn't even named the star of the game. (His doubleplay partner, Juan Uribe, won it, for assorted all-around heroics.) "Three in one game just isn't enough at our place," reported Rockies coach-witticist Rich Donnelly. "I'm not sure four is enough. If you hit five or six, I think you get a $25 gift certificate worth tickets to that McDonald's Monopoly game." BP wizard of the week With interleague play over, only one AL pitcher continues to take batting practice. Mysteriously, that's the Tigers' Jose Lima. Last Saturday, he actually hit a BP home run off coach Juan Samuel, then told Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler: "I was swinging hard, because it's a long way here. I've got an Enron Field swing." Samuel, who was still grumbling over his second annual suspension by discipline czar Frank Robinson, was asked if he expected another suspension for giving up a Lima homer. "Frank is not around," Samuel quipped. "So I'll probably get away with it." Box score line of the week White Sox pitcher Sean Lowe, Monday vs. the Royals: 7 IP, 13 H, 10 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 2 HR, 1 WP. Fact of the day Of the 12 pitchers who have given up 10 or more runs in a game this year, Lowe was the first to still get through seven innings. Quote of the day "Believe it or not, I felt awesome," Lowe said. "I threw all my pitches for strikes and had good command. It just didn't work out." Long and short of the week In their three-run sixth inning last Sunday, the Tigers' two biggest hits were a 40-foot single by Tony Clark (dribbler down the first-base line) and a 420-foot single by Robert Fick (off Carlos Beltran's glove at the distant center-field wall). "You probably saw the longest single," Clark said, "and the shortest single." Fick, meanwhile, jokingly accused Bobby Higginson of tagging up at second on the play just to hold him to a single and keep his RBI total down. "I would have liked the RBI," he grumbled. "Higgy thinks it's a competition." To which Higginson retorted: "Actually, I didn't think Robert could hit it that far." Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears each week. |
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