ESPN Jayson Stark Blog

If there was no such thing as a Useless Information Department, we'd have to invent one just for games like that 18-inning Padres-Diamondbacks classic Sunday.

So let's kick off our latest barrage of Useless Info with some gems from that game:

• Our new hero, here at Useless Info Central, is Josh Wilson. He's an infielder by trade, theoretically. But he was the losing pitcher in this game. Which makes him the fourth position player in the division-play era to wander to the mound and take a loss. The others: Seattle's Jamie Burke on July 6, 2008 (in a 15-inning game), the Dodgers' Jeff Hamilton on June 3, 1989 (in a 22-inning game) and the famed Jose Oquendo (after pitching four innings) on May 14, 1988 (in a 19-inning game). The only position player to win a game on the mound in that span: Colorado's Brent Mayne on Aug. 22, 2000 (in a 12-inning game).

• But that's not Wilson's only claim to fame. Since he also threw an inning for Arizona on May 11, he's actually now the answer to one of the coolest trivia questions ever: Who's the only position player in the past 40 years to pitch for two different teams in the same season? The last guy to do that before Wilson, according to the Elias Sports Bureau: Willie Smith, who pitched twice for the Indians and once for the Cubs in 1968. But unlike Wilson, Smith was really a converted pitcher who became an outfielder/first baseman after the Angels traded for him and decided they liked his bat better than his arm. And also unlike Wilson, Smith didn't pitch for and against the same team in the same season.

• OK, one more on Wilson: He has now pitched three times in his career -- for three different teams (Padres, Diamondbacks and the 2007 Rays). As Elias reported in Monday's edition of Elias Says, he's the first position player to throw a pitch for three different teams since the ultimate short reliever, 5-foot-8 outfielder John Cangelosi, did that for the 1988 Pirates, '95 Astros and '97 Marlins.

• Then there's Mark Reynolds. He won this game with a home run in the 18th inning. He's only the 34th player in history to hit a homer in the 18th inning or beyond, according to the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR wizard David Vincent. And he's the fifth active player to do it, joining Adrian Gonzalez, Justin Morneau, Alfonso Soriano and Mike Cameron. But this just in: Reynolds is the first man in history to hit an 18th-inning homer against a position player.

• David Eckstein, of all people, tied this game with a three-run pinch homer with two outs in the ninth. So how many homers had he hit all season before that? Zero, of course -- in 220 plate appearances. The Sultan reports that Eckstein is the first player to have his first homer of the year be a game-tying pinch bomb this late in a season, after he'd spent the whole season with that team, since Marlon Anderson did that for the Mets on June 11, 2005.

• Maybe the most mind-boggling part of this game was this: After Eckstein's homer, 31 Padres hitters came to the plate. None of them got a hit. That's 9 1/3 hitless innings, with three extra-inning walks, by an Arizona bullpen that ranked 14th in the league in bullpen ERA before this game. I've been through all 26 games of 18 innings or more in the last 20 years, and can't find any other game in which any team's bullpen threw nine consecutive hitless extra innings. Where are those Texas Longhorns when you need them?

• There were an incomprehensible 593 pitches thrown in this game. In the past eight seasons, just two games featured more pitches than that -- last April's 22-inning Rockies-Padres game (658) and a 20-inning Marlins-Cardinals game in April 2003 (627). Last game of fewer than 20 innings with this many pitches: On May 27, 2006, the Astros and Pirates also threw exactly 593 in an 18-inning marathon of their own.

• Finally, 18 different pitchers combined to throw all those pitches. And you don't see that much unless there are 15 pitchers hanging out in everybody's bullpen in September. Loyal reader Eric Orns reports that this was only the third pre-September game in the past 55 years in which 18 men pitched. The others were an 18-inning Padres-Reds game on May 25, 2008, and an 18-inning Astros-Cubs game on Aug. 15, 2006.

In Other News

• Joel Zumaya was clocked at 100 miles per hour or above on 19 different pitches in the same outing Sunday. How crazy is that? According to the 2009 Bill James Handbook, only one pitcher in baseball hit 100 that many times all last season. That was Jonathan Broxton, who did it 26 times.

• How 'bout this bizarre Phillies stat? Since May 12, Brad Lidge and Jamie Moyer have combined for six losses (they're 1-6). The rest of the Phillies' staff is 18-2 in that stretch (with one loss each by reliever Chad Durbin and now-injured starter Brett Myers).

• The Rockies scored in double figures in three straight games Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And there's nothing unusual about that, right? Wrong. They did it on the road (in Houston and St. Louis), not in altitudinous Denver. That's only the second time in franchise history the Rockies have scored 10 runs or more in three straight road games. The other was the first three games of the 2006 season. Almost as incomprehensibly, they've hit double figures three games in a row just once in their past 184 home games -- July 20-22, 2008.

• Loyal reader Matt Yeo was all over that game Friday that matched the two best-hitting pitchers in baseball: Carlos Zambrano and Micah Owings. When the day was done, Zambrano had a .538 slugging percentage, and Owings was at .548. Well, watch those numbers for future developments. In the 35-year DH era, there has been only one season in which two pitchers slugged .500 with 50 or more plate appearances apiece. That was 2007, when Owings and Dontrelle Willis did it. If we lower the bar to 35 PA, we can add 1996, when Kevin Foster, Steve Avery and Jim Bullinger all made it to the .500 Club.

• In case you missed it, Zack Greinke actually gave up seven runs Friday to the Blue Jays (OK, only five were earned). It took Greinke 238 hitters to allow his first seven runs of the season. It took him just 22 hitters to give up seven runs Friday.

• Another tip of the cap to the always-fabulous Elias Says, which pointed out in Sunday's edition that Willie Bloomquist has four triples, two doubles and one homer this year. That would put him on pace for 15 triples, seven doubles and four homers this year -- in 402 at-bats. In case you're wondering -- and who wouldn't be? -- only six players in the division-play era have gotten through a whole year with more triples than doubles or homers, in a season of at least 400 at-bats. Here's that funky list, courtesy of Lee Sinins' Complete Baseball Encyclopedia:

Larry Bowa 1972 (13 triples, 7 doubles, 1 homer)
Jorge Orta 1973 (10 triples, 9 doubles, 6 homers)
David Hulse 1993 (10 triples, 9 doubles, 1 homer)
Luis Polonia 1990 (9 triples 7 doubles, 2 homers)
Roger Metzger 1975 (9 homers, 7 doubles, 2 homers)
Craig Robinson 1974 (6 triples, 4 doubles, 0 homers)

• Finally, here's this week's Reader Challenge: The Mets just traded for White Sox pitcher Lance Broadway. And, of course, how could a team from New York pass up an opportunity like that? So here's our question: Who's the last player with the same name as the most famous street in the town he played in? Send your submissions to uselessinfodept@yahoo.com or find us on Twitter at @jaysonst.