Clayton Kershaw Records 3000th Career Strikeout!

In today's Dodger game, Clayton Kershaw became the 20th pitcher with at least 3000 career strikeouts. He is the fourth left-handed starter in that club and is the fifth pitcher to record at least 3000 strikeouts for one franchise.

Here is the rank-ordered list of Major League Baseball's sll-time strikeout leaders.

Bradford Doolittle did an interesting exercise to rank the 20 pitchers with at least 3000 strikeouts. (He puts Kershaw at 11th.)

Update (7/03/25): Jay Jaffe has written a nice article about Kershaw's accomplishment and its context.

Shohei Ohtani Joins the 50/50 Club (and Has One of the Best Single-Game Performances in Baseball History)

Shoehei Ohtani makes a habit of doing things that none of us have ever seen before.

During today's game, he became the inaugural member of the "50/50 Club", as he now has both 50+ home runs and 50+ stolen bases this year. No member of the 50-home-run club had ever stolen even as many as 30 bases before.

He also joined the club in spectular fashion today with a game for the ages. Ohtani's performance today was one of the best single-game performances in Major League Baseball history. He went 6 for 6 with 2 doubles, 3 home runs, 10 runs batted in, 4 runs, and 2 stolen bases. There have been only 16 games in Baseball history in which a player has 10+ RBIs; this is the first one by a Dodger. This is the first time in Baseball history that a player has had 3+ home runs and 2+ stolen bases in the same game.

Since the RBI became an official statistic in 1920, Shohei Ohtani is now the only player in Baseball history who has a game — any game, so they each can occur in different games — in their career with 10+ RBIs, 6+ hits, 5+ extra-base hits, 3+ HRs, and 2+ SBs. Any game. Ohtani did them all in the same game. Amazing!

I have never seen any game like this in my life before.

(P.S. The Dodgers clinched a playoff berth with their victory today.)

Albert Pujols Becomes Fifth Major Leaguer with 2000 Runs Batted In!

Albert Pujols has become the fifth Major League Baseball player to reach 2000 runs batted in (RBIs). This is quite a rare milestone. Hank Aaron is first on the career RBI list, followed by Babe Ruth (with an estimated total), Alex Rodriguez, Cap Anson (with an estimated total), and then Pujols. Here is the list of career leaders.

The article shouldn't say that Pujols is the "third" player with 2000 or more RBIs. That statement is highly misleading.

RBIs do involve a lot of help from one's friends, but this is still very nice. Pujols is hanging on that this point, but given how RBIs work, hitting a few homers and having people like Mike Trout on base in front of him for three more years could be enough for Pujols to get the record. The chances are pretty good.

Adrián Beltré Now has More Hits than All Other Non-US-Born Players

Adrián Beltré now has more MLB hits than any other non-US-born player who ever played the game!

He passed Ichiro in the game that ended a few hours ago.

Adrián Beltré Gets 3000th Career Hit!

Adrián Beltré just got his 3000th career Major League hit.

Next stop, Cooperstown! And it will be on the first ballot.

Beltré has been appreciated more in recent years as his counting numbers approach 'magic' milestones, but I still don't think most people truly appreciate just how excellent his career has been. I can't remember who wrote this — was it 538.com? — but I recently saw an estimate that put him in the top-5 third basemen of all time.

There is also a discussion at 538.com about future members of the 3000-hit club. The next member will be Albert Pujols, who will become the second person from the Dominican Republic (Beltré is the first) in the 3000-hit club. I believe that the next person after that will be Miguel Cabrera and then Robinson Canó. (Here are the active leaders in career hits.)

Update: Here's a new article in 538.com about Beltré's greatness as both an offensive player and defensive player.

Ichiro Suzuki Gets 3000th Major League Hit!

Ichiro Suzuki tripled today for his 3000th career Major League hit. Spectacular!

Ichiro also got more than 1000 career hits in the highest level of professional baseball in Japan.

What an amazing player!

Albert Pujols Hits 500th Career Homerun

Albert Pujols just hit his 500th career homerun. Very nice!

Here are Major League Baseball's all-time homerun leaders. ESPN's story on Pujols's milestone is on this page.

4000 Hits

Ichiro Suzuki got his 4000th career hit today, where this count includes both his hits in the Major Leagues and his hits in Japan. I was planning to use the title "Mr. 4000" for this entry (in allusion to this movie), but ESPN already did that, so never mind. Ichiro has a place in Cooperstown reserved for him.

Historically Choking

As baseball fans reading this know, the Red Sox and Braves both completed their epic chokes, and neither of them have made the playoffs. Instead, the Rays and Cardinals are the two Wild Card teams. The Braves choke was pretty epic, but that's only because the Red Sox choke---which was definitely of historical proportions, in the context of baseball---overshadowed them. And just look at how everything changed at the blink of an eye last night. Wow.

One other thing the Red Sox and Braves epic choke did: they pretty much made Matt Kemp's run at the Triple Crown go under the radar. Considering the modern media and that no Major Leaguer has accomplished that feat since 1967 and no National Leaguer has done it since 1937, that's not easy to do.

Two Dodgers and a Dunn

With last night's showing (3 doubles and a homer in 5 at bats), Matt Kemp's quest for the Triple Crown---leading* one of the leagues in batting average, home runs, and RBIs in the same season---suddenly is starting to look possibly realistic. I didn't blog about this earlier primarily because of the big gap in batting average between Kemp and the two people ahead of him, but after last night, Kemp is at .326, Jose Reyes is at .329, and Ryan Braun is at .330. Matt Kemp has 118 runs batted in, which is 5 more than Ryan Howard and 6 more than Prince Fielder. Kemp has 36 home runs, which is second to Albert Pujols's 37. The last Triple Crown winner was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, so Kemp's season has a chance to be historic. Obviously, Kemp is one of the leading Most Value Player award candidates, and I hope he wins it. If the season ended today, I think he would deserve the award---e.g., check out his wins above replacement and compare it to that of everyone else in the National League!. Of course, I expect him to be hurt somewhat in the voting by the Dodgers' place in the standings. (However, I expect that Kemp's run at the Triple Crown will mitigate this significant, so this might well be enough to push him over the top.)

Meanwhile, Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw is also having an awesome season, with an excellent chance to win both the Cy Young award and the Pitching Triple Crown (leading* a league in wins, earned run average, strikeouts in the same season). However, if you clicked on the link above, you'll notice that the Pitching Triple Crown is considerably rarer than the (Hitting) Triple Crown, which is therefore considered the more exciting of the two achievements.

Of course, Matt Kemp is not the only person having a remarkable season. In fact, Matt Kemp's season only has a chance to be historical; Adam Dunn's season is already historically bad, but he has a chance to set a rather dubious record: lowest batting average in a season by somebody with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. The White Sox left him completely out of the lineup for a while, and they were playing him increasing infrequently before than because of his execrable performance (which is rather amazing, given his prior hitting prowess). I think the ChiSox started playing Dun again because they calculated that he wouldn't get enough plate appearances to set that rather dubious record. However, I believe that there is still a way it can work: add imaginary at bats with hits in each one and see if Dunn's average would still set the record once this leads to having enough plate appearances. (Imaginary hitless at bats are added to people without enough plate appearances when it comes to determine who is awarded a batting title in the history books, so there's no reason the analog shouldn't apply in this case as well.)

It basically felt like the Dodgers were already out of it in April---until recently, that's what kind of season it's been. I was pleasantly amazed when we recently made it to .500, so hopefully we'll finish with a winning record. It is possible that Kemp will win the MVP (I hope he does!) and that Kershaw will win the Cy Young (I hope he does!). If I remember the answer to a recent Dodger-broadcast trivia question correctly, only one team in baseball history has had both the MVP and Cy Young winner and not gone to the postseason, and that team won 102 games and lost a 1-game playoff game to determine who would go to the postseason. For a while, it looked like the Dodgers might finish in last place and have both the MVP and Cy Young winners. Thankfully, our final win-loss record will be much better than that, and we still have a chance to make some baseball history.


* Being tied for first in a category is ok, though for batting average, one would of course go to the fourth digit and beyond if necessary.

Update (9/29/11): Matt Kemp didn't win the Triple Crown, but Kershaw got the Pitching Triple Crown. Kemp did end up leading the National League in HRs (39) and RBIs (126), and he also missed entering the 40/40 club (40 HRs and 40 SBs in one season) by just a single homer. It will be a crime if Kemp isn't the MVP. I actually think Roy Halladay deserves the CY Young more than Kershaw---the main reason is that his home park is a favorable to hitters whereas Kershaw's is favorable to pitchers---but I hope that Kershaw wins. If both Kemp and Kershaw win, then the Dodgers will make history (see the discussion above). Oh, and Adam Dunn has managed to have what is literally the worst season in history by a Major League position player. Ouch!

Mariano Rivera Sets Saves Record: Arrrrrrrr!

Ahoy, Mateys!

Yankee relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, t' best Major League reliever ever, recorded career save number 602, which puts him ahead o' Trevor Hoffman for #1 on t' all-time list. And that doesn't even include his postseason excellence.

And in case you're wonderin' why I be writin' this way, it's because today I be celebratin' one o' t' most important holidays o' t' year.

Avast, ye Scurvy Dogs!

Update (9/20/11): Apparently, the Pirate Party did very well in the Berlin elections on Sunday. Arrrrrr! (Tip of the cap to Karen Daniels.)

Jim Thome Hits 600th Career Homer

Jim Thome hit 2 home runs tonight and has become the eighth Major League player with at least 600 home runs. Very nice!

Derek Jeter Records 3000th Hit

Derek Jeter recorded his 3000th Major League hit today, becoming the first person to ever get 3000 hits in a Yankee uniform. I don't want to be accused of jeterating, but it is somewhat amazing that the Yankees of all teams have never had a player do this before. (I know, I know. There are only 28 Major League players with 3000 or more hits, but I am thinking in the context of the fact that there are quite a few rather excellent players who spent their entire careers or almost their entire careers with the Yanks.)

Tony LaRussa Manages 5000th Career Baseball Game

Damn, that's a lot of baseball games. In fact, it's the second most all time (to Connie Mack). That is quite impressive!

Roy Halladay pitches postseason no-hitter

In his first ever postseason game, Roy Halladay has just finished pitching the first no-hitter in the postseason since Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Yup, he's pretty good.

This is Halladay's second no-hitter of the season (he pitched a perfect game earlier... today, he walked one batter), and he became the first pitcher since Nolan Ryan in 1973 to pitch more than one no-hitter in the same season. Unless I am mistaken, Larsen's perfect game is the only other postseason no-hitter.

Alex Rodriguez hits 600th Career Homerun

Alex Rodriguez hit his 600th career homerun today.

You know, I actually considered not blogging about this---given the past several years, I just don't care as much about homerun records as I used to. In fact, I am hoping that no Major Leaguer will hit 40 homeruns this year. (Unfortunately, Jose Bautista probably will. But it would be really nice if nobody did it for the first time in a long time.)

On the other hand, if Cliff Lee breaks Bret Saberhagen's record for best single-season K/BB ratio, then I will very eagerly be blogging about that!

Jamie Moyer is awesome!

I have been watching the baseball game between the Phillies and the Blue Jays, and I have been doing this for one very specific reason: to watch Jamie Moyer give up career homerun #506 to set a new all-time record. Well, he just gave up this homerun to Vernon Wells and has now allowed the most homeruns of any pitcher who has ever played Major League Baseball. The (currently-in-progress) box score for the game is at this website.

Back in 1986, I didn't exactly think that he'd still be pitching now. Moyer is an amazing baseball player, a late-bloomer (he wasn't immediately successful in the Major Leagues), and a freak. (Moyer is 47 years old, and I wonder if he might still be pitching at age 50.)

Oh, and by the way: Moyer also pitched his 4000th career inning in this game.

The Perfect Game That Wasn't

Wow, a blown call by an umpire cost Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers a perfect game last night. (The umpire admitted after seeing replays that he blew the call.) This would have been the third perfect game of the 2010 season, which is already the first season with 2 perfect games. Well, the record books might indicate that there have been 2 perfect games this year, but unofficially there have now been three. Wow.

Among other things, I bet that this will help hasten the expansion of instant replay in baseball. This story isn't over.

Roy Halladay pitches a Perfect Game

Coming off of a bad start (and a couple of games of having thrown lots of pitches, so I avoided having him on my fantasy baseball team yesterday), Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched the 20th perfect game in Major League Baseball history. Dallas Braden of the Athletics pitched a perfect game earlier this month. Most baseball fans know that Halladay is a great pitcher, but I think that he's still underrated when it comes to all-time rankings (formal or informal).

"Derek Jeter Honored For Having Fewer Hits Than Harold Baines"

This article by The Onion is yet another awesome Onion article that pokes fun at jeterating. To be fair, though, Harold Baines was a good player for many years.

(Tip of the hat to Justin.)