The Los Angeles Angels have experienced a slew of unfortunate injuries on top of the devastating death of young Nick Adenhart. If starting the season without Kelvim Escobar in the rotation wasn’t bad enough, John Lackey and Ervin Santana were both lost to ailments with the jury still out as to when they will return. Though the Scioscia-led Halos always seem to find a way to win, as Dave recently noted, all of this hardship might be too much.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Angels are currently showing interest in Paul Byrd, Pedro Martinez, and Mark Mulder. Tony Reagins isn’t going to sign all three of these unemployed hurlers but Robo’s report suggested that there is a better than good chance that one of them ends up in California by summer’s end. All three have issues, however, ranging from Byrd’s desire to play to the shaky health histories of both Martinez and Mulder.

Mark Mulder has not pitched a full season since 2005 when a +2.2 win value deemed him a league average pitcher. He had experienced great success in Oakland for several years before going to St. Louis in the Dan Haren deal, but his time in St. Louis worked out about as well as Carl Pavano’s with the Yankees. In 2006, he made 17 starts and posted an ugly 6.01 FIP in 93.1 innings of work, and had made just six total appearances over the last two seasons. At 31 years old, Mulder is not exactly a decrepit southpaw trying to hang on, but while his previous success will garner at least one more opportunity to pitch in the big leagues, why would the Angels, a team ridden with pitching injuries, sign someone with his history?

The same goes for Pedro Martinez, who might be a league average pitcher when healthy but who spends more time on the disabled list than on the roster. With Pedro, some think that signing him for just half of a season will eliminate the wear and tear that leads to his issues, but again, why take that risk?

Byrd publicly stated he was going to sit out the first half of the season, an odd move given that he has not exactly been at the top of everyone’s wishlist. Though durable, Byrd has not been truly effective since the 2005 season with the very same Angels. Strangely enough, Byrd’s strikeout rates experienced a sharp dropoff between the 2004 and 2005 seasons and have never looked back. He no longer fans hitters at a rate in the vicinity of the league average but is still tremendous with limiting free passes.

If the Angels were going to sign any of these three pitchers, given their injury troubles, Byrd makes the most sense given his durability. The bigger question is why would these three cover substantial ground on the Reagins Radar? A guy like Odalis Perez is available, likely for a fraction of the price of Pedro, and with much more of a track record for staying healthy than Mulder. I’m not necessarily advocating that the Angels sign Perez but rather questioning why their search would be somewhat limited to Martinez, Byrd and Mulder. A team suffering from pitching ailments should in no way, shape or form, bring in equally risky players to fill the void.

Earlier in the week we took a look at the starting rotation of the Houston Astros and how some of its members managed to string together 22.1 consecutive scoreless innings. With Wandy Rodriguez, Russ Ortiz and Felipe Paulino in the mix, the non-Oswalt shutting out of opponents was rather surprising. Another NL Central team boasted solid starting pitching in the same span: the Pittsburgh Pirates. No, pitchers like Ian Snell, Jeff Karstens, and Ross Ohlendorf are not going to rack up award votes this season but the entire Pirates rotation has been more than adequate to date.

Sitting at 8-6 after 14 games, Snell, Karstens, Ohlendorf, Zach Duke and Paul Maholm have combined for 10 outings featuring 6+ innings and a maximum of two earned runs. Additionally, on the heels of solid performances from several of these pitchers, the Pirates shut out their opponents four times in the seven game span from April 13-April 20.

Their scoreless innings streak did not match the Astros in large part due to the throttling of Zach Duke in an 11-1 loss to the Braves, but they have still pitched well. The news isn’t entirely sunny for the Pirates rotation, however, given their abysmal strikeout and walk rates. Ian Snell has the only above average K/9 of the quintet at 6.35 but control has continued to elude the once-heralded hurler. With a BB/9 of 4.76 his K/BB clocks in at a quite low 1.33.

Ohlendorf has fanned 4.0 batters per nine with Duke at 4.64. Maholm may have that sexy 0.87 ERA but his identical 2.61 walk and strikeout rates leave little to be desired. Karstens actually has a much higher walk rate at 6.3 per nine as compared to just a 3.6 K/9.

Ohlendorf and Maholm each have nonexistent home run rates and Duke has a 0.42 HR/9 that in no way will stay that low. On the flipside, Snell may actually see his home run rate come down over the course of the season but it will take improved control in conjunction with the regressed gopher rate in order for him to remain effective. Looking at their xFIP, which normalizes the home run rate, we get the following numbers:

Zach Duke:      4.79
Paul Maholm:    5.42
Ian Snell:      5.17
Ross Ohlendorf: 4.77
Jeff Karstens:  7.46

While I hate to rain on the parade in Pittsburgh, fans of these guys should not expect results similar to what has been seen so far unless each of these pitchers improves in a few different areas. Pitching to contact while missing a somewhat limited amount of bats and getting bailed out by the defense is nice but usually translates into extended success when the pitchers have solid control on the forefront of their resumes. The Pirates starting staff has either walked too many hitters relative to their strikeouts or failed to strikeout a decent number of hitters, all the while posting unsustainable home run rates.

This does not mean that the members of their rotation cannot be successful so please avoid reactions proclaiming that Karstens or Ohlendorf CAN keep their performance up. I’m not arguing that they can’t but rather that they won’t if the current peripherals hold true. A lot needs to happen for this rotation to be successful in 2009 and while it might be a longshot it certainly falls into the realm of possibility.

Yesterday, we took a morning trip back to Saturday’s action, revisiting the 22-4 throttling of the Yankees at the hands of the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe scored 14 runs in the second inning, plating 17 batters in the process. Their scoring spree marked just the fourth instance of 14+ runs in a half-inning since 1954, the most recent of which occurred in 2003 when the Red Sox scored 14 in the bottom of the first against Carl Pavano and the Marlins.

One of our commenters, Shane, pointed out that the Indians had six different hitters loft longballs and questioned the rarity of such a feat. Curious myself, I turned to Retrosheet, created a table of home runs, counted the number of distinct batter identifications on these home runs, and grouped by the game code and batting team identification. The end result offered 35 different team games since 1954 that featured 6+ unique batter identifications to go yard. Again, this is not the total of home runs hit in a single game for a team but rather the number of different hitters to hit jimmy-jacks.

The highest tally was 8, belonging to the Cincinnati Reds on 9/4/1999 when just about every batter hit a home run against the Philadelpia Phillies. The home run club members that day: Eddie Taubensee (2), Jeffrey Hammonds, Pokey Reese, Greg Vaughn, Mark Lewis, Aaron Boone, Brian Johnson, and Dmitri Young. Of the hitters in the starting lineup that day, only Barry Larkin and Sean Casey failed to go deep.

Six other games involved 7 different hitters doing yard work, with the most recent coming on July 31, 2007, when the Yankees beat the White Sox 16-3. Bobby Abreu, Hideki Matsui (2), Jorge Posada, Shelley Duncan, Johnny Damon, Melky Cabrera, and Robinson Cano all knocked the ball out of the park off of Jose Contreras, Charlie Haeger, and Gavin Floyd.

The remaining 28 games on the list saw 6 different hitters rack up four total bases in a plate appearance at least once. The most recent of these games occurred on September 15 of last season, when the Red Sox accomplished the feat against the Tampa Bay Rays, in Tampa. In fact, prior to this Red Sox-Rays matchup, the same feat was accomplished just two months earlier when, again, the Reds did so, this time at the expense of the Cubs.

The oldest of these 35 games took place on June 1, 1957, when… you guessed it… the Reds had six different hitters add to their home runs total. The Indians became the 36th team since 1954 to see 6+ different batters hit at least one gopherball in the same game, certainly a rare feat but not nearly as rare as scoring 14 or plating 17 in the same inning.

The outlook is bleak for the Houston Astros this season, but as with any potential non-contender in any given season, it is safe to expect some extremely impressive spurts of performance from both position players and pitchers. Cecil Cooper’s gang currently sits at 4-8, but entering Monday’s action their starting pitchers had thrown 21.2 straight scoreless innings. While this feat does not necessarily battle the dominance on display thus far from Zack Greinke, how can we not be impressed that a foursome consisting of Russ Ortiz, Felipe Paulino and Wandy Rodriguez have pieced together a streak like this?

It all started last Thursday, when Ortiz toed the rubber against Jeff Karstens and the Pirates. Ortiz surrendered three earned runs in the first two innings and left after just 4.2 frames due to throwing 99 pitches. He settled down a bit after the second inning and held the Pirates scoreless in the third and fourth as well as his action in the fifth. After clocking out of work, Ortiz had the rather pedestrian line of 4.2 IP-5 H-3 ER-2 BB-2 K and had accrued a WPA of just -0.062. The Astros went onto win, however, and the streak for the starting rotation began.

On Friday, ace Roy Oswalt got the call and delivered a solid performance, holding the Reds scoreless over six innings of work. He did issue three free passes in his outing, uncharacteristic of Oswalt, and the relief corps failed the stalwart righty as the Reds won 2-1. Despite the loss the scoreless innings streak for their starters had increased to 8.2 innings.

The very next day, Wandy Rodriguez bested Oswalt with a very dominant performance. Rodriguez scattered two hits and two walks over seven scoreless innings, fanning 10 batters in the process. His 0.369 WPA helped the Astros beat Aaron Harang and the Reds 7-0, increasing the streak to 15.2 scoreless innings.

When rookie Felipe Paulino extended the streak on Sunday, the Astros lost once again, which speaks volumes for something, be it the early effectiveness of the rotation or early ineffectiveness of the relievers. Paulino was opposed by Edinson Volquez, and added six scoreless frames to the streak, striking out six batters and walking two. Unfortunately, the Astros hitters could not capitalize on the wildness of Volquez and the triumvirate of Tim Byrdak, Chris Sampson, and Geoff Geary allowed four runs after Paulino’s departure.

Mike Hampton started tonight, and after retiring two batters to increase the streak to 22.1 scoreless innings, he surrendered a two-run single to Edwin Encarnacion in the top of the first inning. The streak is now over but their rotation sure stringed together some impressive performances over the last few days.

In addition to our regularly scheduled commentary, us writers here at Fangraphs will be implementing a few different weekly specialty posts. The others should debut this week, if not today, but we will kickstart my Monday morning series right now, revisiting a really interesting game from the previous week of action. For the inaugural post, join me in a trip back to Saturday, to the new Yankees Stadium, where things, well, didn’t go as planned for the Bronx Bombers. The game graph says it all:

The Yankees actually had a decent shot at winning this game… in the first inning. Then everything fell by the wayside as the Indians absolutely torched Chien-Ming Wang and Anthony Claggett in the second inning. After a Mark Teixiera jimmy-jack (that term needs to be used much more!), the Yankees boasted a 65.9% win expectancy. One grueling half-inning later, the Yankees had but a 1.5% chance at winning the game.

The plummeting slope in the game graph represents the Indians scoring 14 runs in the top of the second frame. Travis Hafner singled and promptly moved up to second base when Jhonny Peralta followed with a single of his own. Shin-Soo Choo then knocked the ball out of the park, giving the Indians a 3-2 lead.

After Ryan Garko fouled out, Ben Francisco doubled and came around to score on an Asdrubal Cabrera single. Grady Sizemore doubled, advancing Cabrera to third, but neither would stay put very long as Mark DeRosa continued to showcase power, knocking both runners in with a double. At this point, the Yankees had retired just one hitter and now trailed 6-2.

Wang uncorked a wild pitch allowing DeRosa to move up ninety feet. Victor Martinez then singled DeRosa in, increasing the lead to 7-2, and ending Wang’s abysmal outing. Hafner then stepped in for his second plate appearance of the inning and smashed a double. Martinez held at third but both he and Hafner soon scored on a Peralta 2-run double. The Indians now led 9-2, and the Yankees had a win expectancy of just 4.6%.

With Peralta on second, Claggett walked Choo and surrendered a single to Garko to load the bases. Francisco finally provided that second out by striking out, but Claggett could not parlay that into further success as Asdrubal Cabrera hit a grand slam. With the bases empty and the Tribe up 13-2 the heels of a salami, Grady Sizemore just added insult to injury by launching a solo homer. Claggett fanned DeRosa to end the inning, but the proverbial damage had been done, with the Indians turning a 2-0 deficit into a 14-2 lead.

Though they would eventually win the game by a score of 22-4, the second inning is what made this particular game earn the weekly honor. The Indians plated 17 batters in the top of the second, scoring 14 runs in the process. I checked my Retrosheet database to see how rare it was for this many batters to come up in a specific half-inning.

From 1954-2008, there have been 4,466 half-innings with 10+ batters. Just 17 of those innings featured 17+ batters. Just 8 of those 17 saw 18+ batters come to the plate. The top of the second inning in this Indians-Yankees affair became just the eighteenth half-inning since 1954 to feature 17 or more plate appearances. The most plate appearances in this returned resultset was 20, belonging to the Reds on 8/3/1989.

Relative to runs scored, only three games since 1954 have featured teams scoring 14+ runs in a single inning: the Red Sox scored 14 in the bottom of the first against the Marlins on 6/27/03; the Reds scored 14 in the bottom of the first against the Astros on 8/3/1989; and the Rangers scored 16 in the bottom of the eighth against the Orioles on 4/19/96. The second inning for the Indians marks just the fourth time this occurred.

This self-appointed game of the week might not have seemed all that great for the Yankees faithful, but for historical purposes and sheer rarity of the events involved, this GOTW honor is bestowed upon the 4/18 Indians-Yankees matchup.

On Thursday we discussed the odd accomplishment from Rich Harden in his last start against the Rockies: Harden became the first pitcher since at least 1954 (as far back as my database goes) to pitch 3+ innings in a single game and not retire anyone via a traditional ball in play. Harden pitched three frames, requiring nine outs. He fanned eight hitters and recorded the other out when Chris Iannetta was thrown out attempting to take an extra base. No groundouts, no flyouts, no lineouts… not even any popups or foulouts.

The ELIAS Sports Bureau provided ESPN with an interesting stat similar yet different to the aforementioned bit of trivia. According to ELIAS, Harden faced 17 hitters, struck out eight, walked four, and gave up five hits. Add together the hits, walks, and punchouts and the sum equals the exact number of batters he faced. Apparently, over the last 80 or so years, nobody has had their PA = (H+BB+K) while facing as many hitters as Harden did against the Rockies.

I ran a query in Retrosheet to doublecheck this info and found that there have been 33,185 instances of PA=(H+BB+K+HBP) from 1954-2008. Of the 33,185, just 29 such games involved the pitcher facing 10+ hitters. That percentage is so low that my calculator actually provides the answer in scientific notation: 8.738 x 10^-4, or 0.0008738.

The highest tally of batters faced in this query belongs to former Cubs great Kevin Foster, who, on May 11, 1997, faced 14 hitters in two innings of work. Foster issued three free passes, hit a batter, struck out six, and surrendered four hits. He struck out the side in both of his innings and allowed four balls in play, all of which resulted in hits.

The next three pitchers accomplished the same feat while facing 12 hitters each: Chan Ho Park, Joe Coleman, and John Hudek.

Park faced 12 Giants hitters in two innings on April 17, 1996. One hit, five walks, and six punchouts later, his batters faced perfectly equaled the sum of these three parts. Joe Coleman of the Tigers faced 12 hitters in 1.1 innings on September 27, 1972, allowing three hits, walking five, and fanning four. Lastly, John Hudek of the Reds faced 12 hitters in two innings on September 13, 1998, walking two, striking out six, and allowing four hits.

Harden faced 17 hitters in three innings of work, but has anyone else been seen their batters faced equal the sum of hits, walks, and strikeouts in greater than two innings? Four pitchers met this criteria: Tom Niedenfuer on 5/18/85, Clint Sodowsky on 5/17/97, Tim Stoddard on 4/30/79, and Francisco Rodriguez on 9/27/02. All four went exactly 2.1 innings, making it abundantly clear that Harden’s outing last Wednesday was truly remarkable even if his overall performance was underwhelming.

In his first start of the season on April 10, Rich Harden tossed six tremendous innings, issuing one free pass while racking up 10 punchouts at the expense of the Brewers. Yesterday, Harden performed less effectively against the Rockies in what amounted to a 5-2 loss. He only spent three innings on the mound due to an escalating pitch count that reached 92 thanks to four walks and four earned runs surrendered. Even so, Harden managed to rack up eight more strikeouts.

There are only nine outs to get in three innings of work meaning that Harden recorded strikeouts for all but one of the required outs. The other came on a hit by opposing pitcher Jason Marquis, when Chris Iannetta was thrown out while running to third base. Three innings… nine outs… eight strikeouts + one baserunning out. Combine these factors and it becomes clear that Harden did not retire anyone via a ball in play, which reeks of rarity.

I turned to my Retrosheet database to determine just how rare this event was, and not shockingly at all, it is incredibly rare. The number of similar games really depends on what constitutes a ball in play. If we look at groundouts, flyouts and lineouts only, there have been six games from 1954-2008 in which a pitcher logged at least three innings and recorded no BIP outs.

If we change the definition of balls in play to include foulouts as well as the aforementioned three, our sample of six games is halved to just three. Either replace foulouts with popouts or include both foulouts and popouts in conjunction with the groundouts, flyouts, and lineouts, and no games from 1954-2008 surface. That is, there has never been a game in this 50+ year span in which a pitcher tossed three or more innings and recorded no outs by any of these five forms of balls in play.

Rich Harden certainly didn’t record any lineouts, groundouts or flyouts yesterday but popouts and foulouts were also absent. Essentially, Harden’s game yesterday is the only such occurrence of the above feat since at least 1954, the start of my database.

At 28 years old, Nelson Cruz is not much of a prospect anymore relative to the traditional usage of the term, but he is definitely going to great lengths to rid the Quad-A reputation he has developed over the last few seasons. Cruz’s story has been pretty well documented across the saber-savvy blogs, based on an odd ability to absolutely demolish minor league pitching while posting meager results in major league action. Cruz’s minor league numbers from 2006-08 were just silly:

2006 (AAA): .302/.378/.528 and .398 wOBA in 423 PA
2007(AAA): .352/.428/.698 and .464 wOBA in 188 PA
2008(AAA): .342/.429/.695 and .467 wOBA in 448 PA

Cruz was clearly much too dominant to stay in Triple-A, but his .279 and .288 wOBAs in the majors in 2006 and 2007, respectively, left many questioning whether or not he would ever succeed at the big league level. He went from resembling Albert Pujols with the bat to producing Punto-esque statistics. Last season, Cruz posted a .438 wOBA in 133 PA in the majors, proving that he could in fact produce at the highest level.

This season, even with the solid performance last season, many were still on the bubble with regards to believing in Cruz as a legitimate major league threat. Entering last night’s action, Cruz boasted a .406 wOBA with four dingers in his eight games of action. In a 19-6 rout of the Orioles, Cruz hit his fifth homer, a grand slam off of Radhames Liz. Nine games is still too small of a sample and Cruz could do well to improve his patience at the plate, but five home runs and a .400+ wOBA in the first couple weeks of the season are definitely promising performance components.

The Rangers ranked very high on Dave’s list of franchises moving forward thanks in large part to their dominant offense and extremely solid farm system. If Cruz can cement himself as a power threat in the major leagues contributing even 5/8 of his ridiculous minor league numbers, Rangers fans have to feel even more optimistic about the chances of their team moving forward.

After it became abundantly clear that the Mets were going in a different direction to fill the back of their rotation, Pedro Martinez had very limited options. Teams certainly had interest in his services but not for the $5-6 mil asking price. Considering that Martinez is closer to replacement level than very productive these days and that he is an incredible injury risk the hesitance made perfect sense. Many advocated the signing of an incentive-laden deal that would pay Martinez handsomely if he actually stayed on the field. Not realizing that he is but a shell of his former self, Martinez rejected the idea of such deals.

When nobody bit, he resorted to using the World Baseball Classic as an audition of sorts. Pedro did not exactly “wow!” anyone in the WBC and continues to remain available. Yet instead of lowering his asking price in the hopes that someone will bite, Pedro is now resigned to the idea that a team will see a pitcher or two go down with injuries and view him as a knight in shining armour… worth $5-6 mil on a guaranteed deal.

Mitch Williams mentioned that the Cleveland Indians might be a fit especially with the uncertainty surrounding someone like Carl Pavano. The Angels are certainly not among the interested parties as they are convinced injured pitchers like Ervin Santana and John Lackey could be ready in the same amount of time that it would take a free agent to prepare. The aforementioned Halo stalwarts certainly project more optimistic lines than Martinez as well.

Beyond Pedro, Odalis Perez is still available, and though it may seem as if I am beating a dead horse here, Perez is still quite productive and incredibly consistent. Over the last four years he has virtually posted identical +1.5 win values. How someone like Tim Redding was given a guaranteed deal by a contender with worse production and a more storied injury history than the equally aged Perez, who couldn’t even get a major league contract from the Washington Nationals will continue to puzzle me.

Pedro Martinez has had a tremendous career. He is a first ballot hall of famer and, in my eyes at least, owner of the two best pitched seasons in the rich history of this sport. He should not be signed, however, for anything above what Odaliz Perez could be signed for given that the latter has proven himself durable over the last several seasons and closer to league average. Pedro might provide better value when healthy but if I am investing a certain amount of money and have two options, my risk-averse personality is going to lean in the direction of the more reliable option. Pedro is one of the best pitchers of all time but he is not anymore, and $5 mil at this point for a fifth starter who might make three starts and then miss the rest of the season just does not make sense for a team, especially given that the teams in question are looking to fill voids that came undone due primarily to injuries.

The last day and a half has been particularly difficult for me, having lost one of my heroes in Harry Kalas, the announcer that brought baseball to life in the city of Philadelphia and who helped introduce me to the wonderful nuances of the game. This week has been one of even more terrible news with the untimely and unfair death of Nick Adenhart and the passing of Mark Fidrych. Even with the sadness, this tremendous game of baseball is still doing its part to entertain and bring joy to its dedicated followers. While this in no way cancels out the losses it certainly helps to heal the wounds.

The regular season is basically just a week old and we have already taken in two monumental feats, been entertained by the soft-tossing of a non-pitcher and have bore witness to some incredible and surprising starts from players and teams alike.

Earlier this season, Felipe Lopez and Tony Clark of the Arizona Diamondbacks became the first teammates to homer from each side of the plate in the same game since 2000, a feat that had never before been accomplished on opening day. There aren’t a ton of switch-hitters in the league, let alone on the same team, and both of these guys managed to jack the ball out of the park as a lefty and a righty in the same nine-inning span. Amazing.

Yesterday, Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko entered their game against the Tigers sitting on 299 HRs. Neither are hall of famers or icons but hitting 300 HR is definitely a feat in and of itself. In the top of the second, Dye hit #300 off of Zach Miner. The very next batter was Paul Konerko, who promptly proceeded to hit his own 300th dinger. These two longtime teammates entered the season with the milestones an inevitability and got to celebrate together, becoming the first two teammates to hit century mark home runs in the same game, let alone right after one another.

If that wasn’t enough, we got to witness our first position player pitching outing of the season yesterday, as Nick Swisher of the Yankees tossed an inning against the Rays. As RJ noted this morning he even struck out a batter… swinging no less.

In the incredible performance department, we have the scorching starts of Evan Longoria, Kevin Youkilis, the aforementioned Swisher, and Miguel Cabrera. And don’t leave out the dominance on display from pitchers Johan Santana, Josh Johnson, and Erik Bedard. With regards to teams, sure it is a small sample bound to regress over the next 150+ games but even teams with playoff hopes ranging from slim to none this season like the Padres, Royals, and Mariners have shown the ability to compete.

Baseball has always been a game of hope that gives its fans a reason to cheer. Even when it seems that the pile of terrible gets thicker and thicker, this wonderful game provides anecdotes and moments that make us remember why we love it so much in the first place.