Here’s our weekly look at 10 mind-blowing notes from the last week in baseball (June 5-11).
Freddie says walk off: Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off homer on Friday to give the Dodgers a 1-0 win. It was his 20th career walk-off hit, tying Andre Dawson and Albert Pujols for the sixth-most career walk-off hits (including postseason) since RBI became an official stat (1920), according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He trails Frank Robinson (26), David Ortiz (23), Dusty Baker (21), Tony Perez (21) and Roberto Clemente (21).
Nobody beats the Miz: Jacob Misiorowski pitched on Saturday and lowered his ERA over his last seven starts to a minuscule 0.20. The only pitchers with a lower ERA in a seven-start span since earned runs became official (1913), excluding openers, are Bob Gibson (0.14 in 1968) and Don Drysdale (0.15 in 1968) in the year of the pitcher, which led to the mound being lowered for the following season.
Bottom of the order getting it done: The bottom four spots in the Angels’ order went 13-for-15, including starting 11-for-11, on Sunday. It was the first time since at least the expansion era (1961) a team’s 6-7-8-9 spots started a game 10-for-10 or better, according to Elias. They finished the game with a .867 batting average, the highest by 6-7-8-9 batters in a game since at least 1900. The previous high in those spots during a game was .833 (15-18), by the A’s on July 9, 1928.
Keeping up with the Jones: Spencer Jones hit his first career home run on Tuesday, and it was crushed -- 443 feet and 112.2 mph off the bat. That’s the hardest-hit first career home run by a Yankees player under Statcast (2015) and the second-longest first career home run by a Yankee in that span behind only Aaron Judge (446 ft), according to research by MLB’s Jason Bernard.
High-scoring innings: The Dodgers had a 10-run inning on Tuesday, after a nine-run first inning on Saturday. Los Angeles batted in just 22 frames between those outbursts, the fourth-shortest span between innings with at least nine runs in Dodgers history, per Elias. The only times they had shorter waits were on July 10, 1943 (two innings), June 25-26, 1949 (12 innings) and May 17-21, 1952 (21 innings).
Welcome to The Show: Braden Montgomery had a storybook debut on Tuesday, hitting a walk-off homer. He became just the fifth player in MLB history to hit a walk-off home run in his MLB debut, per Elias. He joined Carlos Perez on May 5, 2015, Miguel Cabrera on June 20, 2003, Josh Bard on Aug. 23, 2002 and Billy Parker on Sept. 9, 1971.
Slam Francisco: The Giants pulled off an epic comeback on Wednesday, winning despite trailing 9-1 entering the eighth inning. The comeback was capped off by Bryce Eldridge’s grand slam with the Giants down by three in the ninth. Eldridge, at 21 years and 233 days old, became the youngest player in MLB history to hit a walk-off grand slam, per Elias. He surpassed Roberto Clemente on July 25, 1956 (21 years 342 days). Clemente's was an inside-the-park walk-off grand slam.
Schwarbs: Kyle Schwarber hit his MLB-leading 24th home run of the season on Wednesday. That’s also his 211th since joining the Phillies. He has the fourth-most home runs by a player in his first five seasons with a team, behind only Babe Ruth (235, Yankees), Mark McGwire (220, Cardinals) and Ralph Kiner (215, Pirates). And there’s plenty of season left.
Two to start: Tyler Callihan hit his first career home run on Wednesday -- off none other than Shohei Ohtani. Then, in the eighth, he hit a go-ahead homer. Callihan became the 13th player in Pirates history to hit each of his first two career home runs in the same game and first since Ryan Doumit in 2005. The first player in franchise history to do this? Doggie Miller in 1886.
Current Ironman: Matt Olson has played 850 consecutive games entering Friday, dating to May 2, 2021. His streak is the 9th-longest in MLB history. The only other streaks of at least 700 consecutive games to begin in the divisional era (1969) are, of course, Cal Ripken Jr. (2,632 games from 1982-86), as well as Steve Garvey (1,207 games from 1975-83), Miguel Tejada (1,152 games from 2000-07), Pete Rose (745 games from 1978-83) and Dale Murphy (740 games from 1981-86).