If it's Friday, it must be time once again to grab a plate and a bag of chips as we present our weekly Generic Sandwich Awards. But before we rip open the envelopes, let's start with the eagerly awaited …
Munchies of the week
We normally don't write about the riveting Last Guy To Get A Hit competition until somebody wins it. But the LGTGAH duel has taken some twists and turns we didn't expect. BOTH of the last two hitless position players on an opening day roster -- Astros utility whiz
Jason Smith (0-for-24) and Brewers pinch no-hitter
Brad Nelson (0-for-21) -- found themselves booted out of the big leagues in the past week and a half. But the Astros had some injuries and re-signed Smith four days after he was designated for assignment. And then Nelson rejected a trip to Nashville this week and became a free agent. So if he doesn't resurface quickly, we'll declare Smith the winner. Only one minor technicality stands in the way: He has to get a hit first.
The Marlins are working on some history nobody wants to make. They started the season 11-1 -- and now have a losing record. Only one team in history -- the 2002 Indians -- ever finished under .500 after starting 11-1 or better. And only one other team -- the 1966 Indians -- ever finished .500 on the nose after a start like that.
If you believe everything in life happens in threes, you had to love that Astros-Rockies game Wednesday. The teams combined to score exactly three runs in each of the first SEVEN innings of that game. What do you want to bet that never had happened before?
How often do you see a walk-off grand slam in a 14-10 game? ESPN walk-off guru Mark Simon reports that Joe Crede's game-ending slam Wednesday was the first walk-off slam in a game in which both teams already had scored in double figures since Chris Hoiles sealed a 14-13 win for the Orioles with a May 17, 1996, salami off Norm Charlton.
Somebody explain to me how stuff like this is possible: Before Wednesday, Padres pitcher Chris Young had faced 174 hitters this season and given up a home run to exactly one of them (Chase Utley). Then he allowed two in one game Wednesday to Ryan Theriot, a man who went into this month with a 600-at-bat homerless streak.
Loyal reader Eric Walling read our note earlier in the week about how Randy Johnson and Daniel Cabrera hooked up for the tallest pitching matchup in baseball history -- and took it one more step: Johnson also was mixed up this season in a game that produced the two tallest pitchers ever to appear in the same game (although not as opposing starters). That was "The Big Unit" (at 6-foot-10) and Arizona reliever Jon Rauch (at 6-11) on April 25.
When Pedro Feliz drew four unintentional walks in one game Tuesday (after having drawn nine walks all season before that), loyal reader Dan Heisman wondered: Has anyone who walks less than Feliz (never walked 40 times in any season) ever drawn four unintentional walks in one game before? And the answer is … yes. Pudge Rodriguez, who isn't exactly Kevin Youkilis, once drew FIVE unintentional walks in one game, on April 8, 2003, as a Marlin.
And when Jayson Werth stole second, third and home in the same inning Tuesday, it stirred up the readers in all sorts of ways. Two loyal readers -- Julian McCracken and Ethan Kravitz -- reported that Werth (at 6-foot-5) was the tallest player ever to do that. The old record was shared by Bob Meusel (1927) and Don Kolloway (1941), both of whom were 6-foot-3.
Meanwhile, loyal reader Vince Nauss thought there ought to be some kind of name for that feat. And we agree. Is it an "orbit"? Or a "ring of steal"? Or a "wheel of steal"? Maybe "stealing for the cycle"? If you have an idea, send it along to uselessinfodept@yahoo.com.
Strike One -- The On A Roll Award
Maybe the Padres thought that when they let
Trevor Hoffman exit, stage right, he was just going to disappear into a Wisconsin cheese factory and never be heard from again. Uhhhh, not quite.
What "The Man Who Made 'Hell's Bells' Famous" is doing these days in Milwaukee is downright ridiculous.
In May, Hoffman is 6-for-6 in saves. He has allowed zero runs. He has faced 19 hitters and allowed precisely ONE to reach base -- on an infield single. And since his debut April 26, the Brewers' bullpen has a 1.42 ERA -- as opposed to a 4.92 ERA while Hoffman was on the disabled list. Maybe that's a coincidence, but we doubt it.
One big difference in Hoffman this season: He's using his fabled changeup a lot less than in the past. As recently as two years ago in San Diego, he was throwing it 34 percent of the time. This year, according to FanGraphs, he's down to just 20 percent changeups. And so far, so good. The league is hitting only .106 against him.
So what's the only regret his new manager, Ken Macha, has about waving for his closer? They play "Hell's Bells" too darned loud at Miller Park. In a note that appeared at the end of a Brewers game story on ESPN.com last week, Macha said he had to hide in the bathroom until the music was finished. "That baby is so loud," Macha said, "you should have OSHA investigate that."
Strike Two -- The Cold Cuts Award
A mere two weeks ago, I clearly jinxed the Padres for the rest of time by appearing on "SportsCenter" and calling them the National League's biggest surprise of April. Not that I was wrong. It's just that, unfortunately, the season didn't end right there. Actually, even more unfortunately, the season didn't end April 18. At that point, the Padres were 9-3 and tied for first place in the NL West. Since then, they're a disastrous 4-19 -- a cliff dive that includes a 1-15 record away from scenic Petco Park.
But you have to go back even further, to April 16, to find the last time any Padres starter won a game. That's 25 games in a row without a single starting pitcher winning a game -- a streak that only six other teams in the expansion era have matched, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Two more important nuggets you should know about this streak:
It will take another eight games of this winlessness to match the longest streak of the expansion era: 33 straight games without a win from a starter, by Odell Jones' 1979 Seattle Mariners.
And remember last week, when the Sandwich Awards Bureau reported that the Marlins had become the first team in history to find itself cruising along in first place and then go 20 consecutive games without a win by a starter? Well, it took exactly ONE DAY until the second team to do that came along. The Padres were tied for first when their streak started. Great sport, isn't it?
Strike Three -- The Super Sub Award
Is there a better warm-your-heart-cockles story in baseball right now than the tale of 31-year-old Cubs rookie
Bobby Scales?
Spent 11 years in the minor leagues. Piled up 3,303 minor league at-bats in eight cities for four organizations. Toiled for seven seasons in Triple-A alone. And never got to take that elevator ride up to the big leagues until this month.
But then Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano went down. And up came Bobby Scales. And the rest has been One Of Those Stories. He got his first big league hit off Tim Lincecum. Then came his first big league homer Tuesday, followed by a four-RBI game Thursday in his fourth big league start.
So a week and a half into the big league career he waited a lifetime for, Scales is 8-for-18 (.444), with more homers (1) than David Ortiz, more RBIs (5) than B.J. Upton (4) and more extra-base hits (4) than Geovany Soto (3).
At 31 years and 7 months old, he's the fourth-oldest player to make his major league debut with the Cubs since World War II. Not that that has stopped Lou Piniella from calling him a "kid."
"That's fine," Scales said. "Maybe we can hoodwink him and make him think I'm about 26."
Shameless Book Plug Dept.
Sorry to report there are no signings of "Worth The Wait: Tales of the 2008 Phillies" scheduled this week. Next signing: Saturday, May 23, at the Barnes & Noble in Neshaminy, Pa., from 1-3 p.m. But in the meantime, let me plug the new book by my friend David Vincent, the Sultan of Swat Stats. It's called "Home Run's Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Monumental Dingers, Prodigious Swingers and Everything Long-Ball." And if you pore through all the sensational home run lists in this book, you'll even find a chapter titled "The 10 Craziest Questions Jayson Stark Has Ever Asked Me." It's worth buying this book for that chapter alone!
Jayson Stark
