ESPN Jayson Stark Blog

Nothing warms up Father's Day weekend like a big spread of our world-famous Generic Sandwich Awards. So Happy Father's Day to all of you out there. Now whet your appetite with a whopping serving of the …

Munchies Of The Week

• The Phillies are 23-9 on the road, a .719 winning percentage. But they're only 13-19 at home, a .406 winning percentage. In answer to e-mails from approximately 7.8 billion Philadelphians, the Elias Sports Bureau reports that no team in history has ever had a .700-plus winning percentage on the road and a sub-.500 winning percentage at home.

• Break up the Nationals. After getting exactly one win from their rotation from May 15 through June 16 (31 games), they actually got wins from starting pitchers on back-to-back days in Yankee Stadium this week. Now they'll go for three in a row for the first time all year. But the Nats have a longggg way to go before they can challenge the record for this sort of thing. The record, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, is 373 straight games without back-to-back-to-back wins by starters, by Boom-Boom Beck's 1940-41-42 Phillies. The Nationals were only at 102, dating back to last year, heading into Friday night.

• Rick Porcello is 20 years old. He also leads the Tigers in wins. In the division-play era, only four pitchers 20 or younger have ever won at least 15 games and led their team in wins -- CC Sabathia (Indians) in 2001, Dwight Gooden (Mets) in 1984 and '85, Dave Rozema (Tigers) in 1977 and Don Gullet (Reds) in 1971.

• As loyal reader Scott Thomas so astutely observed, on Monday in San Francisco, the Giants and Angels combined for 31 hits -- and zero walks. I spent way, way, way too much time poring through baseball-reference.com's addictive Play Index to determine that there hasn't been a game with that many hits and no walks since July 13, 1985, when the Braves and Phillies combined for 32 hits and no ball-fours.

• Loyal reader Alex Jamar detected that Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton is on pace for 15 wins and close to 40 saves this year. He should know that only one closer in history has ever saved 40 games and won 10 or more in the same season -- Billy Koch (44 saves, 11 wins) in 2002.

• On June 9, all three Dodgers outfielders had assists in the same game. So loyal reader Wade Jansa couldn't help but wonder the last time that happened. Well, it's not as rare as it looks. Retrosheet founder Dave Smith reports that the Dodgers were the sixth outfield to pull this off since 2000. And the Rays did it just last year, on July 12 at Cleveland.

• What's definitely more unusual than that trifecta was the feat Blue Jays catcher Rod Barajas pulled off Tuesday. He hit pop-ups that invoked the infield-fly rule in three straight at-bats. Now don't ask me to research this. Can't be done. But I'm going out on a limb and saying that's gotta be a record.

• Have you noticed that three different teams -- the Pirates, Mets and Braves -- have no hitters with 10 homers yet? And the Pirates are a team you should really watch closely, because their co-leaders (with nine) are Nate McLouth, who got traded this month, and Adam LaRoche, who could easily get dealt himself. And nobody else on this team has more than five homers. So what was the last team to have no player on the roster hit 15 homers in a full season? The Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent, reports that it was the Nationals last year, when Ryan Zimmerman led the team with 14. But they're the only team that can make that claim since the 1985 Phillies and Expos.

• Finally, great stuff from the Astros on the fun connections between Pudge Rodriguez and the man whose games-caught record he broke this week, Pudge Fisk: The opposing catcher in Rodriguez's first game (on June 20, 1991) was Fisk. The opposing catcher the night Fisk set the record for games caught was Rodriguez. And when Rodriguez broke Fisk's record, he broke it against Texas, the same team Fisk was playing against when he broke the same record. Which got me to thinking: Who's the last player to break a record held by a guy with the same nickname as him? If you have any ideas, send them along to uselessinfodept@yahoo.com or via Twitter to @jaysonst.

And now, those Sandwich Award envelopes, please …

The On A Roll Award

There's a high-ranking official on one American League team whom I speak to on a regular basis. Every time I bring up Joe Mauer's name, he immediately says: "Best player in baseball."

Says it without fail, 100 percent of the time. It's like having one of those toys on your coffee table with a button you push to get your favorite wisecrack.

But in Mauer's case, this is no one-liner. This guy isn't just great. He's scary great. And he's heading for what is shaping up as a year for the history books.

First off, this fellow is hitting .425 -- 190 plate appearances into his season. And if you think we wake up every year on June 19 and find somebody with an average that high, uh, try again. We haven't had anybody else with that many plate appearances and an average that high on this date in any of the previous 52 seasons. In fact, even Ted Williams was hitting "only" .417 on this date in 1941.

And Mauer isn't exactly slowing up. Over the last week, he's a mere 12 for 25 (.480) -- with one strikeout.

He's also riding a 10-game hitting streak, during which he's 19 for 43 (.442), with six multi-hit games.

And this stuff has been going all season. Mauer was the AL player of the month in May, when he hit .414 after missing the entire month of April. And now he's hitting .443 in June, while reaching base in every game he's played. If he hits .400 this month, too, he'll be just the ninth player in the last 50 years to do it in back-to-back months, according our streak guru, Trent McCotter.

Finally, this man's average has sat at .400 or above for all but two plate appearances all season. And McCotter reports that if Mauer keeps this up all year, he should know that only one .400 hitter in history ever did better than that. That was Nap Lajoie in 1901, who made an out in his first at-bat of the year and then was over .400 for every AB the rest of the season.

Of course, there's a lot of season to go. But it's never too soon to be ready with all our historical facts. And of course, it's also never too soon to hand a Sandwich Award to (repeat after me) "the best player in baseball."

The Cold Cuts Award

Was it really only a month ago that Reds speed-race king Willy Taveras was hitting .290? Yep. Sure was. You could look it up. But that was last month.

This month, on the other hand -- well, it hasn't gone so hot.

Since May 29, Willy Taveras has had kind of a rough time of it. He couldn't buy a hit. He couldn't rent a hit. He couldn't steal a hit. He couldn't even win a hit in the lottery.

He's a terrifying 1-for-46 since then -- with (just to make this really interesting) no walks. That comes to a spiffy .022 batting average, for a man who has spent that entire stretch hitting at the top of the Reds' order (either first or second).

Out of curiosity, to see where this might be leading, I went through every June in the last 25 years with baseballmusings.com's day-by-day database. The lowest June average I could find by any player who got this many plate appearances was .080, by Phil Nevin, who went 4-for-50 in June 1995. So Taveras would have to go on a tear in the next week and a half just to beat that number.

His 1-for-46 mess also includes an 0-for-32 funk that was the longest by any Red in 35 years -- since Denis Menke went 0-for-33 in 1973. If it's any consolation to Taveras, Menke went on to become (what else?) a hitting coach. But you know one thing he never won? A sandwich award, of course.

The Can We Box That Up For You Award

Johan Santana gave up four earned runs in April -- in five starts. That's just one more reason we're all still trying to comprehend his box-score line last Sunday in Yankee Stadium. Ready to peruse it one more time? OK, here goes:

3 IP, 9 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 1 HR, 82 pitches to get 9 outs.

Just to put this in a little better perspective:

The Yankees batted an incomprehensible .529 (9-for-17) against Santana in this game. It was only the second time since the first start of Santana's career (April 12, 2000, in Boston) that opposing hitters had ever batted better than .500 against him in a game. The other: May 23, 2004, versus the White Sox (10-for-19).

It took Santana until his ninth start -- and 226th hitter -- to give up his first nine earned runs of this season. It took him only 19 hitters to give up nine in this game.

Santana has had 12 different months in which he didn't give up more than nine earned runs since he became a full-time starter midway through the 2003 season.

And ESPN research guru Mark Simon reports that Santana was only the fifth Mets starter in history to give up at least nine earned runs in a game in which he got no more than nine outs. The others: Dave Williams in 2006, Octavio Dotel in 1999, Pete Harnisch in 1995 and Jack Fisher in 1967.

But here's one thing that start won't necessarily do: Disqualify Santana from winning a Cy Young award.

Four times in the last 30 years, believe it or not, a pitcher has given up nine earned runs or more in a game and gone on to win the Cy Young -- Chris Carpenter in 2005, Randy Johnson in 2001 and Roger Clemens in both 1998 and 1991.

But no one, naturally, has ever done it and won both a Cy Young and a Sandwich Award in the same year.

Reader Challenge Dept.

After the Mets traded for Lance Broadway this month, I asked you loyal readers whether you could come up with any other examples of players whose last names matched the most famous street in their city. It's amazing my inbox didn't explode. Here are some of the fun responses, a bunch of which were submitted by dozens of you. And thanks to everybody who checked in on this, even though there were way too many of you to name.

• Terry Mulholland (Drive) in Los Angeles, first submitted by loyal reader Jake Lauer.

• Robin Ventura (Boulevard) in L.A., also first submitted by Jake Lauer.

• Dave Madison (Avenue) in New York, also first submitted by (yep) Jake Lauer.

• Donne Wall (Street) in New York, first submitted by (here he is again) Jake Lauer.

• Bob Rush (Street) in Chicago, first submitted by loyal reader Mike Eidelbes. I've decided to disqualify all of you who proposed Glendon Rusch from both this competition and all future spelling bees.

• Chan Ho Park (Avenue) in New York, first submitted by loyal reader Naoki Hayashi.

• Steve Lake (Shore Drive) in Chicago, first submitted by loyal reader Matthew Palmer.

• Elvis Pena (Boulevard) in Denver, first submitted by loyal reader Dan Murasky.

• Dante Powell (Street) in San Francisco, first submitted by loyal reader Dave Patterson.

• Sorry, I'm not counting Huston Street or any other Streets, Lanes or Rhodes. Too easy!

• But my favorite submission -- although it's technically ineligible -- came from loyal reader Michael Kun, author of the Baseball Uncyclopedia. His nominee: The 405 Freeway in L.A., in honor of Jeff Weaver's ERA at the time he wrote this. And just to cover himself, in case Weaver's ERA changed (which it did), he even looked up that Eric Hull had a 4.05 ERA for the Dodgers in 2007. Tremendous!

Friends, you did great with this, as always. And best of luck on that Pudge-and-Pudge challenge.

Shameless Book-Plug Dept.

With Father's Day looming, we have a tripleheader's worth of signings of "Worth The Wait: Tales of the 2008 Phillies," on Saturday. They'll be from 10 a.m. to noon at the Barnes & Noble Oxford Valley in Langhorne, Pa., then Saturday from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Frame Game in Newtown, Pa. And from 5:30 p.m. till whenever, I'll be signing away at Citizens Bank Park. The Barnes & Noble Oxford Valley event will also feature ESPN Radio 950's Mike Missanelli. For a complete list of signings of "Worth The Wait," click here.