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SAN FRANCISCO -- The Useless Info keeps on coming, three games into this wild and crazy World Series:
The Barry Bonds record-setting assembly line never seems to stop. If you can't recall ever seeing a man intentionally walked in the first inning of a World Series game with runners on first and third before the Angels did it with Bonds in Game 3, you're onto something.
The Elias Sports Bureau's Ken Hirdt reports that since intentional walks were first recorded in 1955, Bonds was the first player ever to be walked intentionally in the first inning with first base occupied in a World Series.
In the NLCS, you'll recall, he became the first player in 25 years to be intentionally walked in a postseason game with nobody on base. Last man to be accorded that honor was Greg Luzinski, by Tom Lasorda, in the 1977 NLCS.
In Game 3, Bonds also became the first man in history to homer in the first three World Series games of his career. and he joins Hank Bauer as the only two players to hit home runs in the first three games of any World Series. And he became the seventh man to homer in any three consecutive games of a World Series.
The others, according to the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent:
Lou Gehrig, 1928, Games 2-3-4
Johnny Mize, 1952, Games 3-4-5
Hank Bauer, 1958, Games 1-2-3
Reggie Jackson, 1977, Games 4-5-6
Lonnie Smith, 1991, Games 3-4-5
Ryan Klesko, 1995, Games 3-4-5
And still more: With his home run Tuesday, Bonds now holds the record for most home runs in a single postseason (with seven). But what separates Bonds' October from the other men with whom he used to share this record is how few chances Bonds even gets to take a swing. Check out his at-bats, versus the other men who hit six in one postseason:
Bonds, 2002 -- 7 HR, 35 AB
Troy Glaus, 2002 -- 6 HR, 48 AB
Jim Thome, 1998 -- 6 HR, 38 AB
Bernie Williams, 1996 -- 6 HR, 58 AB
Ken Griffey Jr., 1995 -- 6 HR, 44 AB
Lenny Dykstra, 1993 -- 6 HR, 48 AB
Bob Robertson, 1971 -- 6 HR, 41 AB
The Giants have now scored 19 runs this postseason following Bonds' record-tying 20 postseason walks. They've scored six runs after his eight intentional walks.
Finally, was Bonds' 485-foot home run the longest in World Series history? Not quite, according to long-distance home run historian Bill Jenkinson.
The one Series homer known to be longer was hit by Babe Ruth on Oct. 6, 1926, in St. Louis' old Sportsman's Park. Jenkinson estimates that one at 510 feet -- a transcontinental line drive that landed halfway up the center-field bleachers (which began 460 feet from the plate).
Second-longest, according to Jenkinson: Frank Howard, on Oct. 6, 1963 -- a 480-foot bomb in Dodger Stadium that landed in the eighth row of the second deck in left field.
And two more in the 465-470-foot range: Mickey Mantle on Oct. 6, 1960, over the 436-foot sign in right-center field in Pittsburgh, and Mike Shannon on Oct. 7, 1964, off the top of the scoreboard above the left-field bleachers in center field.
Where Bonds' homer ranks depends on how accurate you think that 485-foot estimate was. However many feet it was, though, it went so far that Angels hitting coach Mickey Hatcher quipped that "the fans needed a relay to throw it back on the field."
Thanks to the presence of pitcher Ramon Ortiz behind him in the lineup, Bengie Molina was intentionally walked in back-to-back innings (the second and third) Tuesday. Before that, he'd never even been intentionally walked twice in the same month, let alone the same game. Molina's last intentional walk before Tuesday was more than four months ago -- on June 12, by Pittsburgh's Scott Sauerbeck.
We're not sure if anyone ever led off four of the first five innings of a World Series game before David Eckstein did it Tuesday. But we do know this: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Angels' bat-arounds in the third and fourth innings represented the first time in World Series history that a team batted around in consecutive innings in the same game
The Angels have now batted around six times in this postseason -- and allowed their opponents to bat around once.
Giants reliever Jay Witasick gave up two runs in one-third of an inning Tuesday -- but at least he lowered his career World Series ERA. He started the night at 54.00. He's down to 53.89. Starting with the nine runs (eight earned) he gave up as a Yankee last year in 1 1/3 innings, 15 of the 20 batters Witasick has faced in a World Series game have reached base (13 hits, two walks).
In case you were wondering, yes, that 53.89 ERA is the highest in World Series history by a pitcher who worked at least 1 2/3 innings. And the second-highest belongs to his teammate, Russ Ortiz (37.80, 7 ER in 1 2/3 IP).
There were more than 31,000 strikeouts this season in the major leagues -- which comes to more than 1,000 a week. So what were the odds of a team going through an entire World Series game without striking out, as the Angels did in Game 2?
Oh, somewhere around the odds of the Rally Monkey getting his own TV series in San Francisco.
Even the Angels -- a team that struck out less than any club in the major leagues this year -- had only one game all season in which they didn't strike out (on June 4, against Texas' Dave Burba, Anthony Telford and Juan Alvarez).
But the really tough part of this equation was that they did it against the Giants. The last time Giants pitchers made it through a whole game without recording a strikeout in the regular season was more than seven years ago.
The date, according to ESPN research whiz Jeff Bennett: May 4, 1995. The opposition: the Padres. The pitchers that day: Trevor Wilson, Steve Frey, Rod Beck and that very same Dave Burba -- the clear king of the zero-strikeout game.
How long ago was that? How about 354 Barry Bonds home runs ago (not even counting the postseason).
And of course, you know which team had the most games this year without striking out. Who else? The Royals, who did it five times. The only other team with more than one was the Indians (twice).
Giants pitchers made 32 two-strike pitches in Game 2 -- and never got to strike three.
This was the eighth World Series game in history in which a team got through a game without a whiff -- but only the third in the last 50 years. Both of the other two came in the 1960 World Series. The Pirates did it in Game 2. Both teams did it in Game 7.
In other words, in the last half-century, the 1960 Pirates had two World Series games in which they didn't strike out -- and all the other teams combined have had two.
How much did losing the DH hurt these two teams? Two different teams, two different answers.
The Angels had to bat Ramon Ortiz, who was 0 for his career (0-for-14, 5 strikeouts). They lost Brad Fullmer, who was 3-for-6 in the World Series and hitting .360 for the postseason.
The Giants, on the other hand, substituted Livan Hernandez for their Game 2 DH, Shawon Dunston. And Hernandez actually had a higher batting average (.234-.231) and slugging percentage (.328-.286) than Dunston this year.
As it turned out, though, Hernandez only got to bat once -- and bunted.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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