How many times was Mark McGwire intentionally walked?
“We have belief in our pitchers.” Mark McGwire, the hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who was intentionally walked 150 times in his 16-season career, thinks a strong era for pitching, especially the emergence of strikeout-heavy relief specialists, has been a major factor.
Barry Bonds was intentionally walked 688 times in his career.
Maddon has called for two of the eight known bases-loaded intentional walks in major league history (h/t Rangers PR). The only other manager to do it since the 1940s was Buck Showalter in 1998.
"The White Sox hit seven home runs during Saturday's game against the Blue Jays at U.S. Cellular Field, and made dubious history in the process. Those seven long balls, all amazingly of the solo variety, were not enough to prevent a 10-8 loss.
On June 9, 1990, the switch-hitting Murray homered from both sides of the plate as his Dodgers defeated the Padres 5-4 in 11 innings. It was Murray's 11th-inning blast that gave Los Angeles the victory – a shot which came on the heels of his second-inning home run.
Ruth is first in MLB history in this metric, while Bonds is third, one spot behind Ty Cobb. Additionally, Ruth is baseball's all-time leader in OPS, which combines on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Ruth finished his career with a 1.164 OPS. Bonds' career ended with a 1.051 OPS, which is fourth in MLB history.
Intentional walks weren't officially tracked until 1955, so we have no way of knowing how many Ruth had during his career, but the number was likely high. SABR member John Tattersall researched Ruth's 1923 season (170 walks) and credited him with 80 intentional walks.
Seager joins Barry Bonds in 1998 and Josh Hamilton in 2008 as players who have been intentionally walked with the bases loaded. Interestingly enough, Maddon was the one who made the decision on Josh Hamilton's walk in 2008 when he was coaching the Rays—against the Rangers.
| On Base Plus Slugging Single Season Leaders | 'Top 500' | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | OPS | Rank |
| Barry Bonds | 1.422 (1.42173) | 1 |
| Barry Bonds | 1.381 (1.38071) | 2 |
| Babe Ruth | 1.379 (1.37908) | 3 |
Who has the most walks in a game?
Barry Bonds, May 1, 2004 and September 22, 2004. 5 Intentional walks in an extra-inning game.
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| Cal Ripken Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Vote | 98.53% (first ballot) |
Through 2022, the all-time career leaders among starting pitchers were Chris Sale (5.3333), Jacob de Grom (5.3036), and Tommy Bond (5.0363).
A.J. Burnett once threw a no-hitter with nine walks
The only stipulation to throwing a no-hitter is that the pitcher may not allow any hits. It isn't like a perfect game, in which the entire slate has to be clean -- there's nothing about a no-hitter that says batters can't reach base.
Playing for a minor league team called the Minnesota Millers back in 1900, Andy Oyler hit the shortest home run in the history of the entire world. The home run traveled only 24 inches—that's right, two feet!
Babe Ruth was said to have hit a home run over 600 feet. A Mickey Mantle homer was originally estimated to have gone 734 feet. While those feats would shatter Meyer's mark, there was no technology or tool that could give an exact measure of those distances.
Thirteen players have hit two grand slams in a single Major League Baseball (MLB) game to date, the most recent being Josh Willingham of the Washington Nationals on July 27, 2009. No player has accomplished the feat more than once in his career and no player has ever hit more than two in a game.
Saccomanno homers in first AB
Kouzmanoff was the first player to hit a grand slam on the first pitch he saw as a big leaguer. His came against a young Edinson Volquez in the first inning, helping carry the Tribe to a 6-5 win. It was one of three grand slams Kouzmanoff hit in his career.
Stanton hit a 121.7 mph home run in 2018 against the Texas Rangers, which remains the hardest-hit home run to this day. He also managed a 121.3 mph home run against the Washington Nationals in 2020. Not to be outdone, Judge hit a 121.1 mph home run against the Orioles in 2017 when he was a rookie.
According to legend, Vladimir Guerrero once hit a home run off a pitch that bounced off the ground. According to similar legends, he hit more than one such home run.
Who is the most respected baseball player?
Mickey Mantle, New York Yankees
He is arguably the most accomplished player in MLB history, a seven-time World Series champion and a 20-time All-Star selection. He could slug home runs with the best of them, serving as the AL leader in home runs four times (1955, '56, '58, 1960) and won the 1956 Triple Crown.
1. Ty Cobb. The Georgia Peach's career batting average over his 24 seasons in baseball is the highest in major league history. Plus, historians have proven he wasn't the worst human being to ever play the game as early biographies reported.
In 2004, Barry Bonds, then 40 years old, was intentionally walked 120 times. 120! It's a record that will never be broken. Judge, in the middle of the greatest home-run hitting season we've seen since Bonds, has thus far been walked 102 times less than Bonds.
| HITS | |
|---|---|
| 1. Pete Rose | 4256 |
| 2. Ty Cobb | 4189 |
| 3. Hank Aaron | 3771 |
| 4. Stan Musial | 3630 |
Defenses shift all over the field to match a hitter's habits. The best pitchers' velocity in Ruth's day topped out at about 90 miles per hour, while relievers you've never heard of now flirt with 100 mph fastballs.
On an intentional walk, every runner gets to move up a base. 3. The hitter can decline the intentional walk, as if it were, oh, a holding penalty.
However, he must return to first base after overrunning it, or he may be called out. Overrunning is only allowed for batter-runners going to first base. If a runner overruns second or third base, they can be tagged out.
But he took it to the extreme Friday, opting to intentionally walk Texas slugger Corey Seager with the bases loaded and one out in the fourth inning to bring home a run after the Rangers were already ahead.
Career Slugging Percentage Leaders
Babe Ruth has the highest slugging percentage of all time with a career mark of . 6897.
Babe Ruth, the all-time leader in OPS.
What is the best OPS possible?
800 or higher, which indicates the hitter is having an above-average season at the plate. An OPS of . 900 or higher means the player is having an All-Star season, and a 1.000 OPS or higher suggests the hitter is having an MVP season.
In a 22-0 shellacking of the Chicago Cubs that day, Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Rennie Stennett would record a hit in all seven of his at-bats – becoming the first and to date the only modern-era player to accomplish this in a nine-inning game.
Bill Mazeroski hit a walk-off home run in Game 7 to clinch the 1960 World Series title for the Pittsburgh Pirates over the New York Yankees.
It wasn't until third baseman Kuo Fu-Lin led off the ninth inning with a walk-off home run that Verdugo earned his perfect game. The media could not be played.
400. On September 28, 1941, the last day of Major League Baseball's regular season, the Boston Red Sox's Ted Williams gets six hits in eight at-bats during a doubleheader in Philadelphia, boosting his average to . 406.
Left fielder Ted Williams, who played 19 seasons for the Boston Red Sox, has the highest career on-base percentage, . 4817, in MLB history.
The most doubles hit in a MLB season by an individual player is 67 by Earl Webb (USA) playing for Boston Red Sox in 1931.
The rarest type of triple play, and one of the rarest events of any kind in baseball, is for a single fielder to complete all three outs.
More than 9,000 men have taken the mound in a big league game, but what pitcher Johnny Vander Meer accomplished more than three quarters of a century ago by tossing back-to-back no-hitters is considered by many one of the game's most unbreakable records.
The Chicago Cubs had gone nearly 50 years without falling victim to a no-hitter until the Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels zapped them in 2015. That leaves the Oakland Athletics with the longest streak of avoiding a no-hitter, having last been no-hit 31 years, 4 months, 24 days ago back in 1991.
Who is the hardest player to strikeout?
Over nearly 145 years of professional baseball, no player was tougher to strike out than Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Sewell. In 7,132 career at-bats, Sewell heard the umpire say “Strike three” just 114 times. That's one strikeout for every 63 at-bats, or once every 17 games, or in just .
Since 2007, Barry Bonds holds the record for most career walks drawn with 2,558. Rickey Henderson (2,190), Babe Ruth (2,062), and Ted Williams (2,021) are the only other players to draw more than 2,000 walks in their careers.
Sewell holds the record for the lowest strikeout rate in major league history, striking out on average only once every 63 plate appearances, and the most consecutive games without a strikeout, at 115.
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Walk-off hit by pitch.
The Reds' Fred Toney is credited with a no hitter, completing the accomplishment in 10 innings. Game went 10 innings. Newsom gave up a single with two out in the 10th (the only hit against him) but lost the game.
However, since the redefinition the totals for each season have been reduced to 8 in 1884 and 7 in 1990, 1991, 2012 and 2015. The 2021 season saw a new record being established, with 9 nine-inning no-hitters (and a couple more in scheduled 7-inning games as part of doubleheaders, that are not considered official).
1. A limit of one intentional walk per player per game.
Seager joins Barry Bonds in 1998 and Josh Hamilton in 2008 as players who have been intentionally walked with the bases loaded.
Stanton hit a 121.7 mph home run in 2018 against the Texas Rangers, which remains the hardest-hit home run to this day. He also managed a 121.3 mph home run against the Washington Nationals in 2020. Not to be outdone, Judge hit a 121.1 mph home run against the Orioles in 2017 when he was a rookie.
17. 12. 18. Mike Cameron, Rocky Colavito, Carlos Delgado, Scooter Gennett, Lou Gehrig, Bobby Lowe, J.D. Martinez, and Mike Schmidt hit each of their four home runs in consecutive order!
Can you intentionally walk without pitching?
The wording of the new rule: “The start of a no-pitch intentional walk, allowing the defensive team's manager to signal a decision to the home plate umpire to intentionally walk the batter. Following the signal of the manager's intention, the umpire will immediately award first base to the batter.”
Definition. A walk (or base on balls) occurs when a pitcher throws four pitches out of the strike zone, none of which are swung at by the hitter. After refraining from swinging at four pitches out of the zone, the batter is awarded first base. In the scorebook, a walk is denoted by the letters BB.
- Babe Ruth.
- Cal Ripken Jr.
- Stan Musial.
- Mark McGwire.
- Sammy Sosa.
- Ernie Banks.
- Ichiro Suzuki.
- Kirby Puckett.
In 2007, Ichiro Suzuki became the first, and to date only, player to record an inside-the-park home run during an MLB All-Star Game.
The 1919 World Series resulted in the most famous scandal in baseball history, often referred to as the Black Sox Scandal. Eight players from the Chicago White Sox (nicknamed the Black Sox) were accused of throwing the series against the Cincinnati Reds.
Fastest pitch ever thrown
As a result, Aroldis Chapman is credited with throwing the fastest pitch in MLB history. On Sept. 24, 2010, Chapman made MLB history. Then a rookie relief pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, the fireballer unleashed a fastball clocked at 105.1 mph by PITCH/fx.
Playing for a minor league team called the Minnesota Millers back in 1900, Andy Oyler hit the shortest home run in the history of the entire world. The home run traveled only 24 inches—that's right, two feet!
Giancarlo Stanton's 119.8 mph HR.
Four of Green's six hits were home runs, equaling the record for most home runs in one game. Jim Bottomley, Walker Cooper, Anthony Rendon, and Wilbert Robinson hit 10 or more runs batted in (RBI) to complement their six hits.