Shutouts, Shotime, Varshotime and more wild Stats of the Week

Here’s our weekly look at 10 mind-blowing notes from the last week in baseball (May 8-14).

Power and speed: Oneil Cruz hit his 10th homer of the season on Sunday and stole his 15th base, in just his 39th game played this year. He became the third player to reach at least 10 home runs and 15 stolen bases before playing his 40th game of a season, joining 1987 Eric Davis and 1967 Lou Brock.

Not wasting any pitches: Bailey Ober threw a Maddux on Tuesday — that’s a shutout in a game of at least nine innings on fewer than 100 pitches. It was his first career shutout, but not his first complete game in efficient fashion. It was the Twins’ sixth complete game on fewer than 90 pitches since pitch counts began being tracked in 1988. Ober is the only pitcher on that franchise list twice, also doing so on June 22, 2024. The others: May 20, 2005 Carlos Silva (74 pitches), Oct. 2, 1992 John Smiley (80), April 17, 1992 Bill Krueger (85) and Sept. 26, 1989 Rick Aguilera (88). Only Ober's on Tuesday and Krueger's were shutouts.

Shutout season at last: The Orioles shut out the Yankees on Wednesday, marking the first shutout Baltimore has been involved in on either side this season — in their 44th game. The last MLB team to go that long into a season without being part of one on either side was the 2017 Nationals, who pitched a shutout in their 48th game. The only other time in Orioles/Browns franchise history that they went this long into a season without being involved in a shutout was 1996, when they got shut out in their 67th game.

He is speed: Josh Bell had his first stolen base since Sept. 27, 2018 on Wednesday. It was the fifth of his career, but the gap is quite notable. Bell went 978 games in between, the longest streak by a batter in between two stolen bases since at least 1900, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Nobody beats the Miz: Jacob Misiorowski was back at it on Wednesday with his high velocity. He threw 30 pitches at 101 mph or faster, the second-most by a pitcher in a game under pitch tracking (2008, including playoffs), behind 33 from Hunter Greene on Sept. 17, 2022. Misiorowski now has 55 career pitches of at least 102 mph including playoffs, 43 more than any other starter under tracking. Misiorowski now has nine career strikeouts at 102.0+ mph, including each of the four fastest by starters. All other starters combined under pitch tracking have four — Greene (two), Tarik Skubal (one) and Yordano Ventura (one).

Grand finale: Daulton Varsho crushed a walk-off grand slam for the Blue Jays on Wednesday. It was the fifth walk-off grand slam in franchise history. Varsho joined Steve Pearce on July 27 and 30 in 2017, Gregg Zaun on Sept. 6, 2008 and George Bell on Sept. 4, 1988.

Shotime: Shohei Ohtani made his seventh pitching start of the season on Wednesday and lowered his ERA to 0.82. That’s the second-lowest by a Dodgers pitcher in his first seven starts of a season since earned runs became official in the NL (1912), behind only 1981 Fernando Valenzuela’s 0.29, which is the lowest MLB-wide in the first seven starts of a season (excluding openers).

Churn it up: Nick Kurtz extended his on-base streak to 36 games on Wednesday in grand fashion, crushing a slam. Then on Thursday, he extended it to 37 games with a leadoff homer. That’s the A’s fourth-longest single-season on-base streak in the last 40 years. He trails 1996 Mark McGwire (48 games), 1998 Jason Giambi (39) and 1997 Giambi (39).

Ewing for three — and more: A.J. Ewing had an electrifying debut on Tuesday, hitting a triple, drawing three walks and stealing a base. Ewing became the 17th player since at least 1900 with at least three walks in his MLB debut. Of the previous 16, none had a triple, stolen base OR multiple RBIs. Ewing did all three of those things, on top of his three walks. Then on Thursday, he hit his first career home run, marking his second career hit. He’s the first player in Mets history with a triple and a homer, in either order, for his first two career hits, per Elias.

Current Ironman: Matt Olson has played 826 consecutive games entering Friday, dating to May 2, 2021. His streak is the 10th-longest in MLB history. The only other streaks of at least 700 consecutive games to begin in the divisional era (1969) are, of course, 1982-98 Cal Ripken Jr. (2,632 games), as well as 1975-83 Steve Garvey (1,207), 2000-07 Miguel Tejada (1,152), 1978-83 Pete Rose (745) and 1981-86 Dale Murphy (740).

• MLB's all-time consecutive games leaders