Utley Plunked Three Times

Chase Utley was hit by three pitches in today’s game to tie a Major League record. Oliver Perez hit him twice and then Scott Schoeneweis decided that twice wasn’t enough and hit him again! Utley was actually hit a fourth time if you count Carlos Delgado’s errant throw which nailed him right in the back.

The last player to get hit three times was Nomar Garciappara on July 3rd, 2006.

Johnny Cueto made his second big league start and struck out 8 with no walks in 6.1 innings of work. He gave up 5 hits and 1 home run in what turned out to be a no-decision instead of a loss thanks to….

Eric Gagne! The 2003 Cy Young award winner blew his second save of the season by giving up a solo shot to Corey Patterson. Gagne has now allowed 2 home runs in 3 innings of work. His fastball velocity appears to be at 88.5mph, which is down 4 from last year’s 92.3mph. It may be is just a sample size issue and considering the Brewers other options, I think it’d be wise to give Gagne a bit of breathing room.

Mark Reynolds hit his MLB leading 5th home run tonight and he’s making a strong case for his Reynolds being Reynolds approach at the plate. Apparently his hitting coach believes he’s been chasing pitches outside the strike zone considerably less. His hitting coach is indeed correct since the data shows that he’s cut down on swinging at pitches outside the strike zone by 6%.

In some site related news, FanGraphs has updated it’s leverage index (LI) tables to Tangotiger’s latest and greatest. You may see some very (very, very) slight changes in LI related stats.

The Great Clutch Project tracker page has been updated and now includes BABIP. Also, the wildcard players now have gray backgrounds so you differentiate between them.