Gary Seymour, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
When a chubby middle-aged pitcher hits a home run, it can be a big deal, though usually it’s celebrated with his softball buddies and the first round is on him.
It was a bigger deal last week because the homer came in a major league baseball game from a guy who’d never hit one.
Forty-two-year-old Bartolo Colon of the New York Mets got ahold of a fastball from San Diego’s James Shields and put it in the left field corner seats for the first round-tripper of his 19-year major league career, giving Colon and the Mets a thrill and handing Shields a spot in history he’d sooner have avoided.
It was one of a few statistical anomalies that unfolded across the league, another one being Washington’s Bryce Harper reaching base seven times in a game without an official at-bat.
Closer to home, the Milwaukee Brewers’ Aaron Hill hit home runs in three consecutive trips to the plate, the last one being a 10th-inning grand slam that led the Brewers to a 13-7 win over Cincinnati.
Hill’s three homers and seven RBIs in one game tied the team record held by Ryan Braun and gave his season totals a nice beefing up; he came into that game with just one home run and eight RBIs. It was a milestone day for Hill, but his three straight jacks were still one short of the major league record.
Six players in major league history have homered in four consecutive at-bats in one game: Mike Cameron, Rocky Colavito, Carlos Delgado, Lou Gehrig, Bobby Lowe and Mike Schmidt.
It’s not a shock to see the names of boomers like Gehrig or Schmidt on that list. Likewise, Delgado, Colavito and Cameron all had long-ball power. It was Lowe’s big day that really stands out, because over his career he averaged fewer than four homers per season.
What were the chances of that? What are the chances of Hill’s having gone deep three straight times? For that matter, what are the chances of anyone hitting a home run on any trip to the plate?
For the intensely dedicated numbers freak, the answers may be distilled with the help of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
But while there is no formula to determine the chances of your eyes glazing over after wading through terms like Defense Independent Component ERA, or Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, the odds are they’re fairly high.
Suffice to say there are enough baseball games played by enough teams through the years to make the statistical oddities perhaps not so odd – rather on the order of the infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of laptops, wherein one of them will eventually become a best-selling author, represented by another who typed up his contract.
But still, there are crazy events worth noting, like the one that happened in an April 2009 game. Jermaine Dye of the Chicago White Sox homered off Detroit’s Zach Miner for the 300th home run of his career, and then six pitches later, the next batter, Paul Konerko, also took Miner over the wall – for his 300th career home run.
Statistical aberrations involving the home run may generate the greatest interest because in the pitcher vs. hitter duel, the four-bagger is the ultimate hitter win. But the most rare occurrence for a hitter is going for the cycle.
The Brewers’ Hill also comes into the picture here. As a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks four years ago, Hill singled, doubled, tripled and homered against Seattle on June 18 of that season – and then did it again 11 days later against the Brewers.
It was a remarkable individual achievement. Hill is the only guy this century to do it twice in the same season.
Now, if the Brewers can somehow long-shot their way to leapfrog four division rivals, we’re really talking.