Benjamin Hill travels the nation collecting stories about what makes Minor League Baseball unique. This excerpt from his newsletter is a mere taste of the smorgasbord of delights he offers every week. Read the full newsletter here, and subscribe to his newsletter here.
After a long hiatus, the 2024 season saw the return of Crooked Numbers, a monthly column dedicated to Minor League Baseball on-field oddities and absurdities.
2025 now beckons, but before we give into its increasingly insistent demands, let’s take a moment to look back on the weirdness that was. What follows are some of the most intriguing items to appear in Crooked Numbers during the 2024 season, listed in chronological order.
April 23: Perhaps the most bizarre pitching line of the season belonged to Jhosmer Alvarez, who contributed the following headscratcher for the Visalia Rawhide:
1 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 6 SO
You’d think it couldn’t be done, but Alvarez did indeed strike out six batters over one inning of work against the Inland Empire 66ers. The Venezuelan right-hander entered the game in the seventh inning and whiffed five batters, two of whom reached on a wild pitch. He then came back out for the eighth and struck out one batter who, yes, reached first base on a wild pitch. Thus ended his glorious outing.
May 7: The season’s single-most prodigious inning, from an offensive standpoint, came courtesy of the Syracuse Mets. These Salt City sluggers plated 14 runs against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs in the seventh inning, en route to an 18-3 win. Trayce Thompson was the hero of this massive frame, hitting a grand slam in his first at-bat and a two-run double in his second. Less successful was Hayden Senger, who came to the plate three times and made both the first and final out.
May 11: A Saturday evening tilt between the Portland Sea Dogs and visiting Binghamton Rumble Ponies featured a matchup for the ages: Wyatt Young vs. Wyatt Olds. The former was Binghamton’s second baseman, the latter a righty reliever for Portland. Young batted with two outs and the bases loaded in the fifth inning and Olds struck him out. For those wondering: Olds, appropriately, is the older of the two Wyatts (by only by four months).
May 11: Meanwhile, in the Florida State League, we had what was perhaps the most memorable on-field animal delay of the 2024 season. The Bradenton Marauders hosted the St. Lucie Mets, and in the second inning the game was delayed by a turtle sauntering across the outfield. Marauders reliever Magdiel Cotto took matters into his own hands, literally, as he picked up the slowly absconding reptile and nudged it through the bullpen door.
June 4: Strange things happen at disproportionate rates in the Dominican Summer League, a Rookie-level circuit full of young players. Take, for example, the DSL Yankees 19-7 shellacking of DSL Arizona Black. The Yankees scored those 19 runs on eight hits … and 20 walks! In the first inning alone, three Arizona Black pitchers issued three walks apiece.
And since we’re on the topic of the Dominican Summer League, here are two more games of note:
On June 6, DSL Padres Gold squeaked by the DSL Dodgers, 31-2.
On July 12, three pitchers on the DSL Pirates combined to throw a seven-inning no-hitter against, wait for it, the DSL Pirates. (Pittsburgh is one of many organizations to have multiple DSL teams. Technically, it was DSL Pirates Gold who no-hit DSL Pirates Black.)
June 6: Columbus Clippers teammates Jonathan Rodrigues and Bryan Lavastida accomplished something that, over the past 50 years, has only happened once at the big league level: they both hit two home runs in the same inning. This dual power surge occurred in the ninth; Rodriguez’s second dinger was a grand slam that gave him three home runs and nine RBIs in the ballgame.
June 6: Meanwhile, John Garcia of the Asheville Tourists accomplished something that has never been done at the Major League level: He hit five doubles in one game. The last man to do it in the Minors was Keith McDonald of the Memphis Redbirds, on May 1, 2001.
June 8: It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Case in point: On June 8, the El Paso Chihuahuas trailed the Las Vegas Aviators, 15-1, after three and a half innings of play. They then mounted a comeback for the ages, eking out a wildly improbable 17-16 win. It was the biggest comeback in the Minors since the Clinton LumberKings erased a 16-run deficit against the Burlington Bees in 2014.
July 24: The late, great Rickey Henderson is the only player in MLB history to steal five bases in a game without recording a hit. Eduarqui Fernandez of the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers can now say he shares something in common with Henderson; he stole five bases against the Beloit Sky Carp without even recording an at-bat (he walked in all four of his plate appearances).
Aug. 13: The Las Vegas Aviators hosted the Oklahoma City Baseball Club, and BOTH teams featured Max Muncy in the lineup. The elder of the two, appearing for Oklahoma City in a rehab assignment before returning to the Dodgers, collected a hit. His performance was outclassed by Max Muncy the younger, the A’s No. 8 prospect, who collected four hits and drove in three. An added bonus: Both Max Muncys were born on Aug. 25, 12 years apart.
Aug. 21: Four teams in the St. Louis organization won via walk-off on Aug. 21, from the Major League Cardinals to Triple-A Memphis to Double-A Springfield to High-A Peoria. The only team that didn’t get in on the action was Single-A Palm Beach, but don’t blame them. They played St. Lucie and took the lead for good in the sixth inning, eliminating the need for last-minute heroics.
Sept. 4: Jimmy Herget of the Gwinnett Stripers pitched 1 1/3 innings against the Nashville Sounds, leaving the game after recording the third out in the bottom of the fifth. The very next pitcher to take the mound -- the Sounds’ fresh arm for the top of the sixth -- countered with two scoreless innings. That fresh arm? Kevin Herget.
Jimmy and Kevin -- no relation -- are the only known Hergets to have played baseball professionally.
And now we’ve reached the end. Or is it the beginning?
March 29: The Lehigh Valley IronPigs begin their season at home against the Worcester Red Sox, winning 7-4 on Rodolfo Castro’s grand slam.
Sept. 22: The Lehigh Valley IronPigs end their season at home against the Worcester Red Sox, winning 7-4 on a walk-off grand slam by Darick Hall.
This remarkably similar way of beginning and concluding a season will henceforth be known as a “Grand Salami Sandwich.”