Garza's No-Hitter

photo credit:  flickr user imagesbyferg

Matt Garza threw the first no-hitter in Rays' history last night, and the fifth no-no all year.  How does his no-no stack up against the the others?  Probably the easiest way to compare all the no-hitters and perfect games is to use game score*.  I used Baseball-reference.com's play index tool to create this table:

Rk	Player	Date	Opp	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	GSc
1	Roy Halladay	2010-05-29	FLA	9.0	0	0	0	0	11	98
2	Dallas Braden	2010-05-09	TBR	9.0	0	0	0	0	6	93
3	Matt Garza	2010-07-26	DET	9.0	0	0	0	1	6	92
4	Ubaldo Jimenez	2010-04-17	ATL	9.0	0	0	0	6	7	88
5	Edwin Jackson	2010-06-25	TBR	9.0	0	0	0	8	6	85

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/27/2010.

*Game score is calculated thusly:

1) Start with 50 points.
2) Add 1 point for each out recorded, so 3 points for every complete inning pitched.
3) Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th.
4) Add 1 point for each strikeout.
5) Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed.
6) Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed.
7) Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed.
8) Subtract 1 point for each walk

So, Garza's no-no was the third best no-hitter this season, behind the perfect games thrown by Roy Halladay (according to game score, Halladay's perfect game against the Marlins is actually the best pitching performance of the year) and Dallas Braden, though it would probably be tied with Braden's perfecto if it weren't for that one walk he issued.  There have also been a couple of one-hitters with higher game scores than Garza's performance last night:  Matt Cain's nine strikeout complete game against the Diamondbacks (94) and Johnny Cueto's eight strikeout, nine-inning performance against the Pirates (93).  How does Garza's no-no rank in baseball history?  Well, according to game score, Garza's performance ranks 67th among the no-hitters thrown since 1920 (that's as far as the retrosheet data used by baseball-reference.com goes back). He only struck out six, which hurts his ranking quite a bit (every single pitcher in the top 20 recorded at least 10 strikeouts).  What makes this performance particularly interesting, though, is that Garza's own team has been no-hit three times in the past year,  and four times in franchise history.   So, for fun, here is how Garza's no-hitter ranks compared to those thrown against his team:

Rk	Player	Date	Tm	Rslt	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	GSc
1	Dallas Braden	2010-05-09	OAK	W 4-0	9.0	0	0	0	0	6	93
2	Mark Buehrle	2009-07-23	CHW	W 5-0	9.0	0	0	0	0	6	93
3	Derek Lowe	2002-04-27	BOS	W 10-0	9.0	0	0	0	1	6	92
4	Edwin Jackson	2010-06-25	ARI	W 1-0	9.0	0	0	0	8	6	85

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/27/2010.

Garza's no-hitter is tied with Derek Lowe's performance and just slightly behind both Braden and Mark
Buehrle's perfect games (walks will haunt).  Not surprisingly, it is far more impressive than former teammate Edwin Jackson's no-hitter, in which he walked more batters than he struck out. 

Cooperstown and the Boss

It's hard to believe it now, but when that episode of Seinfeld aired way back in 1994, the Yankees really were a laughingstock.  They hadn't won the pennant, or even had a postseason appearance since 1981, finishing the season with a losing record five times.  King George was regarded more as a buffoon than one of the greatest owners in all of sport.  Since then the team has embarked on an era of dominance, winning five World Series titles, making fourteen postseason appearances, and missing the postseason only twice, in 1994 and 2008.  The last time the Yankees had a losing season was in 1992, that's nearly 20 years!  An entire generation of Yankee fans has never seen a losing team.  Putting that in perspective:  there have been three U.S presidents since the Yankees last had a losing record.  I finished sixth grade, junior high, high school, my first college degree, failed at three different careers, and returned to college in that time.  I'll probably be well into my forties before the Yankees have another losing season.  So, naturally there is talk that late owner George Steinbrenner should be inducted into the Hall of Fame.  I think it's worth examining whether he has a case.

Unlikely Triples

It's old news by now, but Bengie Molina, of all people, hit for the cycle against the Red Sox in Fenway Park on July 16th.  Probably the most incredible aspect wasn't his grand-slam home run, though only eight cycles in major league history have included a grand slam (including, in my highly biased opinion, the greatest cycle of all time).  No, the triple seems the most unlikely aspect of this cycle, because, let's face it, Bengie Molina is not the fastest runner ever.  I mean, from the video (which MLB will not let me embed, for shame), it looks more like several outfield blunders than a true triple, but hey, if the official scorers wish to grant Molina a place in the record books, I'm certainly not going to argue.  Anyway, according to Wezen-ball's Tater Trot Tracker, there have been a couple of inside-the park home runs this year that were faster than Molina's triple:

Molina's 3B:  14.67 seconds

vs.

Angel Pagan's inside-the parker:  14.48

and

Brett Gardner: 14.61

Naturally, this got me to thinking about other players who would be unlikely candidates to hit a triple, but did so fairly recently.  Specifically, it got me to thinking about Mike Redmond's triple against the Rangers last year.  I was going to compare the two, to see whose was faster, but I couldn't find good enough video of the event to accurately time Red Dog's three-bagger (if I had to guess, though, I would probably say Molina's was faster).  However, based on triples per plate appearance, I can easily figure out which player was the least likely to do so.  It might not tell us much of anything useful or interesting, but here it is:

Bengie Molina:  0.00119928

Mike Redmond: 0.00119856

So, the two are about equally likely to hit a triple, though it should be noted that Red Dog was a career backup, while Molina has almost exclusively been a starter and has logged nearly twice as many plate appearances.  Also, Molina is three years younger and, despite his rather large girth, a bit more athletic than Red, which also tilts the likelihood of hitting a triple in his favor (though Red did spend half of his career in a ballpark more conducive to misplays in the outfield).  As far as cycles go, I don't think we need to do any advanced math, or any math really, to figure out Molina was far more likely to hit for the cycle than Red.  Bengie Molina has quite a bit of power for a catcher, with a career .140 isolated power, while Mike Redmond has never been much of a home run threat, with an ISO of just .072.  Of course, it helps that Fenway is a bandbox, and probably second only to the old Metrodome as the most difficult outfield to play, making the event of a cycle by a rather unathletic catcher all that more likely.

Long Time, No Blog

I've been busy with my other project, and I've had a ton of crap to do to get ready for school, even though the semester doesn't start until September 8th.  But, hey, it's not like I've been completely neglecting this space; I did put a couple of days into a design overhaul.  I do have a ton of stuff in the pipeline for this blog, including:

Bengie Molina's cycle

George Steinbrenner in the Hall of Fame?

My thoughts on the Mikko Koivu contract

My thoughts on the Al Jefferson trade and some of the Wolves' other moves

And some stuff on some of the worst teams in baseball