THURSDAY
Q. Who
holds the major league record for the most home runs in a season by a catcher?
Hint: He
is one of only two players to have as many as 75 extra base hits in a season
when his primary position was catcher.
Hint: He
was the last player to have an OPS over 1.000 in a season in which he caught at
least 120 games.
Hint: He
received only one Hall of Fame vote despite having a higher career Wins Above
Replacement total than four HOF catchers.
Twint: He
was a National League Championship Series MVP, leading his team back from a 3-1
games deficit by hitting .542 with a 1.607 OPS.
A. Javy Lopez
FCR - J.J. McCoy, Washington, DC
Notes on JAVY LOPEZ
Lopez
hit 43 home runs in 2003, one coming as a pinch hitter and 42 as a catcher. Johnny Bench
hit 45 homers in1970 but only 38 came when he was in the lineup as a catcher,
the others came when he was in the game as an outfielder or at first base.
The
previous record was the 41 homers hit by Todd Hundley
in 1996. All 41 were hit while he was in
the game as a catcher . Mike Piazza
(40, all as a catcher, in both 1997 and 1999) and Roy
Campanella (40 as a catcher and 1 as a pinch hitter in 1953) are the only
other catchers to break 40 in a season. In Bench’s other 40-home run season in
1972 only 34 of his 40 homers came while he was in the game as the Reds’
catcher.
This was found with
the Baseball-Reference
Play Index sorting by Home Runs by players catching at east 50% of their
games. Each player’s Game Log was then
reviewed to see home many of the homers were hit as a catcher.
Lopez
had 29 doubles, 3 triples and 43 home runs in 2003 while catching 120 games. Bench had 84 extra base hits (35 doubles, 4
triples and 45 home runs) in 1970 while catching 139 games. The only other player to have 75 extra base
hits in a season in which he caught even one game was Jimmie Foxx, with 76 in
1935, a season in which we was behind the plate for 26 of his 147 games. This
was found with the Baseball-Reference
Play Index sorting by extra base hits by players catching a minimum of 1
game.
Lopez
caught in 120 of his 129 games played in 2003 and had an OPS of 1.065. Piazza (1997 and 2000), Chris Hoiles
(1993) and Hall of Famers Campanella (1953) and Gabby
Hartnett (1930) are the only other catchers to accomplish this. Note that in 2009 Joe Mauer
had an OPS of 1.031 but he only caught 109 games. He was either the DH or a pinch hitter in his
other 29 games. This was found with the Baseball-Reference Play
Index sorting by OPS by players catching a minimum of 120 games.
Lopez
has a career WAR total of 27.2, more than HOF catchers Rick Farrell
(26.3), Ray
Schalk (25.0), Al Lopez
(14.5) and Wilbert
Robinson (11.5), although these last two were almost certainly enshrined
for their managerial prowess. Found with Baseball-Reference Play
Index sorting by WAR for Hall of Famers.
Here
are the box scores and statistics from the 1996
National League Championship Series.
THURSDAY X 2
Q. Who
replaced Barry Larkin as the Cincinnati Reds’ starting shortstop?
Hint: He
was certainly Larkin-like that season.
Hint: He
and a teammate are the only National League duet to each hit switch-hit home
runs in the same game.
Hint: Normally
a position player, he once pitched with his team locked in a 0-0 tie.
Twint: He
switched teams in mid-season in each of his last four campaigns, and in five of
his last six years.
A. Felipe Lopez
FCR - Darrell Hanson, Altoona, IA
Notes on FELIPE LOPEZ
Barry
Larkin retired after the 2004 season having playing in 111 games at shortstop
that year. Lopez had been a backup for the Reds in 2003 (50 games at short
including 42 starts) and in 2004 (51 games at short, 42 starts). He then played 140 games at short in 2005,
starting in 133 of them. Lopez’s career statistics can be seen here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lopezfe01.shtml
In
his first season as a regular Lopez had a slash line of 291/352/486 with 23
home runs, 85 RBI, 97 runs scored, an All-Star appearance and a Silver Slugger
Award—by far his best season.
06-Apr-2009
Lopez and Tony
Clark accomplished this for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Bernie
Williams and Jorge Posada
also did it for the Yankees on 23-Apr-2000.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats20.shtml
Lopez
did this in his first and third at bats as a Diamondback and they were two of
the six home runs he hit in 394 plate appearances over 85 games before he was
traded to Milwaukee in July of that year.
On
17-Apr-2010
the Mets and the Cardinals played a 20-inning game that was tied 0-0 going into
the 18th inning. Lopez had
started the game at shortstop for the Cards then he moved to third base in the eighth
inning as part of a double switch. After
17 innings, manager Tony LaRussa
had used seven relievers for a total of 10 innings and was forced to start
sending position players to the mound.
Lopez
started the 18th by getting Henry Blanco
to pop up before pitcher Raul Valdes
singled. Fortunately for Lopez’ ERA,
Valdes was gunned down trying to stretch the hit into a double. Lopez followed this by walking Angel Pagan
before ending a scoreless inning by getting Mike Jacobs
to fly out to right.
Lopez
would have been the winning pitcher if the Cards had scored in the bottom of
the 18th, but they didn’t. Lopez moved back to third base for the 19th
inning and Joe
Mather moved from third base to the mound. Mather surrendered a run but the Cards
answered in the bottom of the inning. Mather then gave up another run in the 20th
inning and the Mets won the game when the Cards were held scoreless in the
bottom of the inning.
And
this is a recap of the game: http://espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=300417124
Lopez
travelled a lot in his career. He came
up through the Blue Jays’ system and played parts of 2001 and 2002 in Toronto. After 2002 he moved to the Reds as part of a
four-team transaction and spent the next three seasons in Cincinnati before he
started to move around. Here are his stops during the rest of his career:
2006
– Cincinnati
(85 games) and Washington
(71)
2007
– Washington
(154)
2008
– Washington
(100) and St.
Louis (43)
THURSDAY X 3
Q. Who,
until 2012, had been the only player ever to hit home runs off two pitchers who
threw perfect games that same season?
Hint: He
won the 2008 All Star Game Home Run derby at Yankee stadium.
Hint: In
the next day’s All Star Game he scored the winning run in an extra inning,
walk-off victory.
Hint: He
was the last major leaguer to play in more than 162 games in a season.
Twint: He won
a league MVP award despite only leading his league at his position in two categories: sacrifice flies and assists.
Twint: He
switched his uniform number to have the same one as his boyhood hero, who
played another sport.
A. Justin Morneau
FCR - Derek Norin, Arlington, VA
Notes on JUSTIN
MORNEAU
In
2010, Dallas
Braden and Roy Halladay
each threw perfect games, on 09-May
and 29‑May
respectively. Morneau homered off Braden
on 04‑Jun
and off Halladay on 20-Jun. Amazingly, this feat was repeated twice in 2012—and by teammates no less: Philip Humber
tossed history’s (now) most hidden perfecto on 21-Apr. Felix Hernandez
duplicated the feat in the same ballpark on 15‑Aug. Hitting home run in the same season off each
of these hurlers were Angels Albert
Pujols and Mike Trout. They both went deep on Humber on 03-Aug
and then went long individually on Hernandez on 26‑May
and 10‑Aug.
Josh
Hamilton set a Home Run Derby record in 2008 with 28 home runs in the first
round but Morneau outdueled him in the final 5 to 3. Summary of the derby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Major_League_Baseball_Home_Run_Derby
Morneau
entered the 2008 AS game
in the sixth inning, replacing starter Kevin
Youkilis and he played the rest of the game at first base. He led off the bottom of the fifteenth inning
with a single, went to second on Dioner
Navarro’s one-out single, to third on J.D. Drew’s
walk and scored on Michael
Young’s sacrifice fly.
Morneau
played in 163 games in 2008, including a one game
playoff with Chicago for the AL Central championship.
Since
expansion extended the season from 154 to 162 games there have been 33
instances of a player appearing in 163 or more games in a season. Some are because of a playoff (Tommy Davis,
Maury
Wills and Jose Pagan
in 1962), a team having a tie game (Hideki
Matsui with the Yankees in 2003) or a player changing teams mid-season and
joining one that had played fewer games than the team he left (Todd Zeile
in 1996). This is becoming rarer: it
happened 17 times in the 1960’s, 5 times in the 70’s and 6 times in the 80’s
but only 5 times since 1990.
In
2006 Morneau lead the American League with 11 sacrifice flies and 111 assists
at first base. He also had top 5
finishes in total bases (5th), RBI (2nd), putouts (3rd)
games at first base (2nd). He
won a very close MVP race over Derek Jeter.
Here are the results of the 2006 American League MVP voting: http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_2006.shtml#ALmvp
Morneau
wore 27 in his first three years then changed to 33 after the Twins traded J.C.
Romero to the Angels at the end of 2005. 33 was the number worn by Patrick Roy, Hall of
Fame goalie for the Montreal Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche. In addition to being a baseball player Morneau
was a goaltender for his hockey teams, including being the third string goalie
for the 1998 Memorial Cup champions Portland Winter Hawks. His number switch is reviewed in the third
paragraph of this article: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=olney_buster&id=2718457
This Wikipedia page reviews the 1998 Memorial Cup and shows
17-year-old Morneau on Portland’s roster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Memorial_Cup
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