Justin Verlander flirted with his 4th no hitter the other night going into the 8th inning before giving up a hit. Only Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax have 4 or more no hitters, with the incmparable Ryan throwing 7.
When he pimped the hit my first thought was "this is going to be a close play". That is one of my pet peeves and one I tried to drill out of my kids' heads when coaching. It is more likely to decrease a play's level of success by pimping a hit vs. running hard from contact. If that bounce hadn't been the miracle bounce, pimping the hit very likely would have decreased the number of bases that would have been earned. Good hit, lucky bounce, good 50% base running.
I read somewhere just this morning that Nolan Ryan threw 20+ no-hitters into the 7th inning before giving up a hit in the 7th, 8th, or 9th. I can't remember the actual number, but it was in the mid twenties.
I don't think I've ever seen an inside the park HR in MLB where there wasn't some batter's luck involved, either a weird bounce like this one or an OF trying to make a running and diving shoe string catch and coming up short. Kes, I must have missed something. Where was the "pimping"? It certainly wasn't how he left home plate. He took off immediately. I didn't see the entire running of the bases, but what I saw was a fast player running as fast as he could around the bases.
I thought he was watching the ball thinking it was out of the park, then he realized it was and took off.
To me, he watched the ball then started trotting before realizing he was going to have to work for the bases. I couldn't immediately find base running footage, but from this video, I offer the following timestamps: - contact made at 0:49 - reaches second at 0:59 - reaches third at 1:02 - reaches home at 1:04 / 1:05 Split time of second to home is not faster (by 2x!) than split time to second unless he was pimping the hit (or turned out at first, which is no way). Base running is USUALLY slower on the back half, especially the back fourth. (btw - ball bounced off the wall at 0:54, when he should have been at least on his way to second)
Watching that I noticed that he didn't start running very quickly...was busy watching thinking it was going over the wall. Then he decides to hustle to the point of diving into home plate when there wasn't even going to be a throw and Donovan is telling him he can stay up.
That was a good one Stu. The Bluejay went for the great catch and didn't make it and it bounced way out of his reach and the CF was no help.
Here as some more. Amazingly Prince Fielder has 2 of them, a lot of them are guys going for the catch at the wall and missing, one of Prince Fielders has to be the worst played flyball in history! Oh and Willie Wilson has the most inside the park home runs in the modern era. He had 13! I guess he might have been pretty fast!
I personally witnessed two ITP home runs in the same game in the first inning, one by both teams. The Royals v the Yankees around 1977-78 in old Yankee Stadium. Frank White did it in the top of the 1st; Bucky Dent in the bottom.
I am so glad that Pujols is ending his career as a Cardinal. Cardinals' Albert Pujols makes historic debut on the mound in win over Giants
Not a record to be proud of! Boston Red Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi became the third pitcher in major league history to allow five home runs in one inning Tuesday night. In his Fenway Park start against the Houston Astros, Eovaldi lasted just 1⅔ innings, allowing eight hits and six earned runs while striking out none. In the second inning, after working a three-up, three-down first, Eovaldi allowed homers to Yuli Gurriel, Michael Brantley, Jeremy Pena, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez as Houston raced out to a 9-1 lead amid boos from the Boston faithful.
One Red Sox fan caught 2 of those HR's, 1st one he got on a ricochet and the 2nd one he caught on the fly...bet that one stung. Unlike some fanbases he didn't throw them back on the field.