Here’s our weekly look at 10 mind-blowing notes from the last week in baseball (April 3-9).
The Jo Show: Jo Adell had a defensive game unlike any other on Saturday, making three catches that took away home runs. That alone is incredible -- even without stats -- but consider this: They were three home run saving catches, by the same player … in a game his team won, 1-0. That means that each catch truly saved the game. And it wasn’t any 1-0 victory; the Angels won it on a Zach Neto leadoff homer -- the first leadoff homer in a 1-0 win in Angels history. It was the 32nd instance MLB-wide since 1900, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Welcome to The Show: 19-year-old No. 1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin made his MLB debut on Friday. He’s just the fifth teenager in the divisional era (1969) to reach base safely in his first three or more career games, joining 1996 Andruw Jones (four), 1977 Alan Trammell (four), 1998 Adrian Beltré and 1991 Ivan Rodriguez.
At home on the road: Monday was the Dodgers’ fourth road game of the season, and they won, 14-2. That brought them to 45 runs in their first four road games, the fifth-most by a team in its first four road games in MLB history. The four teams with more? They were all quite a while ago: the 1884 St. Louis Maroons (57), 1890 Syracuse Stars (50), 1900 Phillies (49) and 1900 Reds (49).
The Cleveland Josés: José Ramírez played his 1,620th career game on Monday, all for Cleveland. That passed Terry Turner at 1,619 for the most games played in Cleveland franchise history. Ramírez is the only active player to currently lead a franchise in games played.
Raise the Jolly Roger: The Pirates' starting rotation was the last one in MLB to allow a homer, finally doing so on Tuesday in the team’s 11th game. The 10 consecutive homerless games by starters was the Pirates’ longest streak to start a season since 1943 (17 games). It was the longest such streak to start a season in MLB since the 2018 Giants (10 games).
What a start: Daniel Susac finally made an out on Tuesday, but not before he started the game 2-for-2 to begin his MLB career 5-for-5. Susac is the second player in at least the expansion era (since 1961) to start his career with hits in his first five or more at-bats, joining Ted Cox (6-for-6) with the Red Sox in 1977, per Elias. He’s the first Giant to do so since at least 1900, surpassing Willie McCovey's 4-for-4 start in 1959.
First at-bat, no problem: Ronny Mauricio got his first trip to the plate in the Majors this season in a key spot, with a runner on third in a tie game in the 10th inning on Tuesday. He hit a single to end the game, becoming the fifth player in Mets history with a walk-off hit in his first plate appearance of a season, per Elias. He joined Alberto Castillo (3/31/1998, single), Rodney McCray (5/8/1992, single), Ed Kranepool (4/8/1978, home run) and Jim Beauchamp (4/23/1972, single).
Miller time: Mason Miller hasn’t allowed a run in his last 26 2/3 innings dating back to last season, the longest active scoreless streak in MLB. He had another impressive streak extended and then snapped on Wednesday. Entering the game, he’d struck out each of the previous nine batters he had faced. Miller struck out the first two batters of the ninth to reach 11 straight before inducing a ground ball to end the game. His 11 consecutive strikeouts tied 2023 José Alvarado for the second-longest streak in at least the expansion era, behind only fellow Padre Jeremiah Estrada’s 13 straight in 2024, per Elias.
The Greatest Sho: Shohei Ohtani made his second pitching start of the season on Wednesday and allowed an unearned run, but extended his streak without an earned run to 28 2/3 innings dating to last regular season. That’s the longest of his career. He also extended his on-base streak to 43 games dating to last regular season, tying 2009 Ichiro Suzuki for the longest by a Japanese-born player in MLB history. Ohtani currently has the longest active on-base streak in MLB and the longest active streak of consecutive innings without allowing an earned run in MLB. Truly incredible. Ohtani is the first Dodgers pitcher to start a season with consecutive outings of at least six innings with no earned runs since Kenta Maeda in 2016. The only Dodger to begin a season with three or more consecutive such outings since earned runs became official in the NL (1912) is 1985 Fernando Valenzuela, with four.
Current Ironman: Matt Olson has played 795 consecutive games entering Friday, dating back to May 2, 2021. His streak is the 12th-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).