Interesting Baseball Facts From The Last Week Or So

July 7

Wil Myers of the Padres hit three home runs in a 15-run loss (Diamondbacks 20, Padres 5), a new record for the largest loss by a player who hit three homers in a game. The previous record was set 124 years ago, when Jake Manning hit three homers on October 9, 1884, but he and the Phillies lost to the Cubs 19-7.

In the Myers game, Jake Lamb had a 4-3-0-0 batting line. The last player to have that batting line was Tony Gwynn Jr. of the Dodgers on June 2, 2012.

July 9

J.D. Martinez hit his 28th home run of the season. Martinez has 60 homers and 153 RBI in his last 162 games.

Since earned runs became official (1912 in NL, 1913 in AL), only three pitchers with at least 2,000 innings have a career ERA lower than Clayton Kershaw's 2.37:

Eddie Cicotte    2,170.1 IP  2.21 ERA  (Cicotte's career began in 1905; 3,226.0 IP, 2.38 ERA)
Hippo Vaughn     2,216.1 IP  2.33 ERA  (Vaughn's career began in 1908; 2,730.0 IP, 2.49 ERA)
Walter Johnson   4,190.0 IP  2.36 ERA  (Johnson's career began in 1907; 5,914.1 IP, 2.16 ERA)
Clayton Kershaw  2,004.0 IP  2.37 ERA

Looking at all of major league history, among pitchers with at least 2,000 innings, Kershaw's 2.37 ERA ranks 14th. That is beyond astonishing. Only one of the 13 men in front of him pitched past 1917 and that guy, Walter Johnson, retired after 1927. (Pedro is #74 on the list.)

July 10

When the Royals scored nine runs against the Twins, it was the most runs they had scored in a game since May 30. Kansas City snapped a 30-game streak of scoring five runs or fewer, the longest such streak since the 1979 Mets (40 games, August 17 to September 25).

Joey Votto has come to the plate two times in his career in the ninth inning or later, with the bases loaded, two outs, and his team trailing by one run. On May 13, 2012, he hit a walk-off grand slam against the Nationals. Tonight, against Cleveland, he hit a bases-clearing double.

July 11

This is the first day in major league history in which multiple teams had a lead of at least 17 runs through four innings: Cleveland led the Reds 17-0 and the Rockies led the Diamondbacks 18-1. Those games were tied for the largest lead by any team in the first four innings of a game over the last 10 seasons. (On May 30, 2012, the Mariners led the Rangers 17-0.) Cleveland has scored six or more runs in back-to-back innings twice this year. No other team has done it even once.

Rockies pitcher German Marquez's home run off Arizona infielder Daniel Descalso was the first time a pitcher homered off a position player since June 23, 1986, when Mike LaCoss of the Giants went deep off Dane Iorg of the Padres.

July 14

The Rays scored five runs in each of the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. They became the first team to score 5+ runs in three straight innings since the Giants scored 5-6-5 in the third, fourth, and fifth innings against the Phillies on July 14, 1991. The Rays have now scored a team-record 19 runs three times; they are the only active team to never score 20 runs in a game.

The Red Sox have hit nine grand slams this season. That's more than their total from the three previous seasons combined (eight). The nine slams are tied for the 2nd-most in team history (11 in 2005). Xander Bogaerts has hit three grand slams this year. (The all-time record is six, set by Don Mattingly in 1987; those six were the only slams of his 14-year career.)

July 15

Shin-Soo Choo extended his streak of reaching base to 51 games. That's the longest streak since Kevin Millar had a 52-game streak in 2007. The four longest streaks in history: Ted Williams (84 games in 1949), Joe DiMaggio (74 games in 1941), Ted Williams (69 games in 1941), and Orlando Cabrera (63 games in 2006).

Mookie Betts has scored 79 runs in 78 games. Only one player since 1940 has averaged at least one run scored per game: Rickey Henderson, who scored 146 runs in 143 games for the 1985 Yankees (1.02/G).