Records

As I’ve said before: even when the team sucks, you can watch a game and see something that’s never been seen. I watched Wednesday afternoon’s game and I’m not going to say my life was significantly altered, but all of us who watched the first inning saw a new record set, at least since this record has been kept: Most Pitches In An Inning Where Neither Team Scored. The new record is 71, 31 from Spencer Strider and 40 (!) from Justin Verlander. The previous record (recalling that pitch counts only date from 1998 with partial data back to 1988) came from the third inning of this game in which the Red Sox’ Greg Harris and the Orioles’ Pete Harnisch combined for 69 pitches with no runs scored.

About Verlander’s half-inning: in the pitch count era (i.e. all games in which Retrosheet has pitch counts) there are data on about 1.1 million scoreless half-innings. (I know it feels like all of them were from the Braves this year, but it’s not.) Verlander’s 41-pitch scoreless half-inning was tied for 6th place on that list. The record is held by the Angels” Jaime Barria, who in this game threw a 49-pitch inning against the Giants in the top of the first, an inning which included a 21 pitch at-bat from Brandon Belt before he lined out.

The Braves record, for what it’s worth is Mike Bielecki‘s 40 pitch top of the 2nd in this game. (His 40-pitch half-inning is tied for 13th place.)

The Last Part of The Game

I didn’t get home until 10 PM, just in time to see Michael Harris II hit a homer and hear Brandon and CJ talk about MHII’s progress for 10 minutes. That solo homer made it 4-1, though, and I had to look back to see who didn’t get it done. The first 3 came off Joey Wentz, who once again showed that he almost certainly has enough prowess to keep starting for the foreseeable future. He only gave up 4 hits in 4 1/3 innings and walked one to six Ks. He left trailing 3-0, but that’s pretty good pitching. Lightning Rod Bummer gave up one more and a smattering of other pitchers all did fine until Rafael Montero came in and was unable to find the plate. (It’s the five-sided object just in front of the catcher, Rafael.) He walked in a run to give back the run Harris generated; newest Brave Hunter Stratton came into the game and hit a guy with his first pitch for another run and a single and a sac fly completed the Triple Grybo with stuck landing to make it 8-1. at which point I just sat twiddling my thumbs until the game was over and I could post a recap.The Braves scored two more while I was thumb-twiddling.

City Connect Uniforms in Texas

Rowdy Tellez looks like a very fearsome beer league softball player. That is all.