|
SAN FRANCISCO -- It's time to put some new batteries in the calculator -- and check out a Game 5 edition of our World Series Useless Information Department:
We saw a Barry Bonds evening Thursday you almost never see anymore. Bonds had three hits in this game -- and none of them was a home run. Bonds had eight games of three hits or more this season. But in only one of them did he get three hits that weren't homers on the same day. That was on Sept. 14 -- a trot-free 4-for-4 game in San Diego.
More Barry Bonds notes du jour: Bonds now has gone through five games of the World Series with the surreal OPS of 2.144. Tough to keep that up, but if Bonds does, he would still have only the second-highest in World Series history. At least it would trail a guy he's heard of -- Lou Gehrig (2.433 in the 1928 Series). He's just ahead of Babe Ruth (2.022), also in 1928.
Bonds also increased his Series on-base percentage to .727 (22 plate appearances, six hits, 10 walks). That would break the all-time World Series record -- set by Gehrig in 1928 (6-for-11, with six walks).
And that 1.417 slugging percentage of Barry's? Second all-time to (yep) Gehrig in 1928 (1.727).
The Giants went into Game 5 with five fewer runs scored in this World Series than the Angels (27-22). That's not a big issue after their 16-4 blowout win Thursday. But it still raised the question: How many teams have been outscored in a Series and still won it?
Well, the answer is 20, believe it or not. But only seven have been outscored by five or more and still won. And here they are:
1960 Pirates -28
1996 Yankees -8
1997 Marlins -7
1912 Giants –6
1940 Reds –6
1972 Athletics –5
1991 Twins –5
It's been a bizarre postseason for Jarrod Washburn. He has had two different starts in which he gave up three home runs. He didn't do that in any regular-season starts. After getting eight double-play balls all season, he got four in his first postseason start, in New York. And Thursday, he did something else he didn't do all season. He walked four hitters in an inning. In fact, Washburn made just three starts all season in which he walked four in an entire game (and never more than four). Then he walked four in the first inning of this game.
The really amazing thing about that four-walk inning: None of those walks was by the human walking machine, Bonds. The Angels didn't intentionally walk Bonds in the inning (for good reason, though -- runners on first and second). But they did intentionally walk Reggie Sanders (whose postseason batting average at the time was .204).
This was the 36th game of this postseason. When the night began, there hadn't been either a shutout yet or an extra-inning game. There were seven shutouts in the 2001 postseason and two extra-inning games (back to back, in Yankee Stadium, in the World Series, as you may recall). Last postseason without a shutout: 1992, back in the old two-round format. Last postseason without an extra-inning game: 1989. There hasn't even been a World Series without an extra-inning game since 1998.
Only two chances left for a shutout in this postseason, and Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson are nowhere to be found. The starting pitchers in this World Series have allowed 44 runs and 70 hits in 42 2/3 innings. They have a combined 9.07 ERA. They've averaged under five innings per start. Last year? A little different story. The starters gave up only 26 earned runs in 83 1/3 innings, averaged a shade under six innings per start and had a 2.81 ERA.
The Angels against Jason Schmidt in this World Series: 14 strikeouts in 10 innings (12.6 per nine innings). The Angels against all other pitchers in this postseason at the point Schmidt departed Thursday's game: 55 in 105 1/3 innings (4.7 per nine innings).
Jeff Kent's two-homer game was the sixth multihomer game in this postseason -- third-most of all time. The most, courtesy of the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent:
9 -- 1995
7 -- 1996
6 -- 2002
It isn't true that Felix Rodriguez has seen more action in this World Series than Reggie Sanders. But it seems like it sometimes. Rodriguez has pitched in every one of the five games so far. And that makes him just the fifth pitcher ever to do that. The others, according to the Elias Sports Bureau:
Rollie Fingers, Oakland, 1972
Darold Knowles, Oakland, 1973
Mike Marshall, L.A., 1974
Dan Quisenberry, K.C., 1980
Of that group, only Knowles (who pitched in all seven games of the '73 Series) and Quisenberry (who pitched in all six games in 1980) extended the streak beyond the first five games. Of course, Marshall had a great excuse: There was no sixth game in '74.
Benito Santiago is now 6-for-11 in this postseason following a Bonds intentional walk, with two homers and eight RBIs. But he started out this World Series 1-for-8 following walks to Bonds of any size or shape. Then he singled in the tying run in Game 4 and singled in two more runs in the second inning Thursday.
Those two bases-loaded double plays Santiago hit into in Game 4 were more than just a record for one game. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there had been 88 times before Wednesday when a player had grounded into a bases-loaded double play -- and no one else had ever done it twice in a career. Santiago then did it twice in two at-bats.
Another tremendous note from the Elias Sports Bureau: In Game 4, the Giants became the first team to come from three runs down or more to win a World Series game when it was also trailing in games in the Series since Game 4, 1996. That was the fabled Jim Leyritz Game, in which the Yankees climbed out of a 6-0 canyon against the Braves.
Francisco Rodriguez was the first pitcher to win a postseason game before he won a regular-season game. But in Game 4, he became only the second pitcher to lose a World Series game before he lost a regular-season game. The first was -- coincidence of coincidences -- the brother of the winning pitcher Wednesday night. That was Todd (Brother of Tim) Worrell, in Game 6, 1985.
Then there's Benji Gil. He's picked a heck of a month to have his best month of the season. He's 8-for-12 in this postseason. He only had one month in the regular season (June) where he had more than eight hits. He went 9-for-47 in July and August combined.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
| |
|
