Here’s our weekly look at 10 mind-blowing notes from the last week in baseball (March 27-April 2).
Just keep reaching: Joey Wiemer reached base safely in each of his first 10 plate appearances to start the season before finally making an out on Monday. That tied Carlos Delgado (2002) for the longest streak to start a season in at least the live-ball era (1920) and set a record for the start of a player’s tenure with a team in that span, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Welcome to the Majors: Jose Fernandez hit two home runs in his MLB debut on Tuesday, including the go-ahead shot in the bottom of the eighth inning. Fernandez became the eighth player in MLB history with two home runs in his first regular-season game, joining Chase DeLauter (3/26/26), Trevor Story (4/4/16), J.P. Arencibia (8/7/10), Mark Quinn (9/14/99), Bert Campaneris (7/23/64), Bob Nieman (9/14/51) and Charlie Reilly (10/9/1889), per Elias.
Max domination: Max Fried made his second start of the season on Tuesday and went seven scoreless innings. That came after 6 1/3 scoreless on Opening Night. He’s the seventh pitcher in Yankees history to begin a season with consecutive scoreless outings of at least six innings. He joins Ray Caldwell (1914), the only one on the list to extend it to three straight, Mel Stottlemyre (1967), Bob Turley (1958), Allie Reynolds (1947), Bob Shawkey (1922) and Slow Joe Doyle (1906).
Bang-eliers: Shea Langeliers is up to five home runs in the A’s first six games after hitting another on Wednesday. That ties 1992 Mark McGwire for the most by an A’s player in the team’s first six games of a season. Langeliers’ five home runs also tie Gabby Hartnett for the most by a primary catcher in his team’s first six games of a season (1925).
Strikeouts upon strikeouts: After striking out 11 with no walks on Opening Day, Kevin Gausman racked up another 10 K’s, again with no walks, in his second start on Wednesday. Gausman is the first pitcher since at least 1900 with at least 10 strikeouts and no walks in each of his first two outings of a season. Looking ahead, the only pitchers in that span to do so in three straight outings at any point in a season are Gerrit Cole (2021), Clayton Kershaw (2016 and 2015) and Chris Archer (2015).
MLB first: The Dodgers started Roki Sasaki on Monday, Shohei Ohtani on Tuesday and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Wednesday. With that trio going in order in the rotation, the Dodgers became the first team in MLB history to start a Japanese-born pitcher in three straight games, per Elias.
Putting up a lot of zeros: The Yankees’ pitching staff is off to a strong start this season. It has allowed a grand total of six runs, third fewest by a team in its first six games in MLB history, behind only the 2002 Giants and 1915 Phillies, who allowed five each.
The Cleveland Josés: José Ramírez has played 1,616 career games through Wednesday, all for Cleveland. He’s now four games from passing Terry Turner at 1,619 for the most games played in Cleveland franchise history. When he plays his 1,620th game, Ramírez will become the only active player to currently lead a franchise in games played.
The Greatest Sho: Shohei Ohtani made his first pitching start of the season on Tuesday and extended his scoreless streak to 22 2/3 innings dating to last regular season. That’s the longest scoreless streak of his career. In that game, he also extended his on-base streak to 36 games dating to last regular season. Then on Wednesday, he pushed that to a career-high 37 games. Ohtani currently has the longest active on-base streak in MLB and the longest active scoreless-innings streak among starters in MLB (22 2/3 IP). Truly incredible.
Current Ironman: Matt Olson has played 789 consecutive games entering Friday, dating 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).