Teams are playing extra-inning games at a record pace, and the Yankees, for one, would prefer to pass, thank you.
The Yankees played the longest – 18 innings – of three extra-inning games that occurred last Thursday, and some of their players achieved unprecedented levels of futility.
Travis Hafner and Vernon Wells each failed to get a hit in eight times at bat against Oakland pitchers, and Kevin Youkilis was hitless in seven at-bats, walking in his other plate appearance.
Their combined failure to hit safely earned them an assortment of firsts. Throw in Mark Teixeira and his 0-for-5, and the team known for decades as the Bronx Bombers can be rebranded as the Bronx Bums.
Teixeira, Hafner, Youkilis and Wells batted fourth through seventh in Joe Girardi’s lineup, meaning there was a huge gap in more than a third of the batting order. Leave it to Elias Sports Bureau to tell us how huge.
It marked the first time in modern major league history (since 1900), Elias research found, that four starters batting in consecutive lineup spots were hitless in a combined total of 28 or more at-bats.
But there’s more. Elias also found that it was the first game in modern history in which a team had three players who were hitless in at least seven at-bats and struck out at least three times.
Apparently not wanting to be outdone by his lineup mates, Teixeira also struck out three times, making it the first game in Yankees history that four of their players each struck out at least three times.
Can we ask for more, all of these firsts and extra innings, too?
Those extra innings are causing this sort of futility. In regular nine-inning games batters don’t bat enough to produce that kind of offensive futility.
Entering play on Friday, there had been 110 extra-inning games in the majors this season through 983 games. At that rate of one extra-inning game every nine games, the season would end with 270 games of 10 or more innings, eclipsing the high of 237 extra-inning games played in 2011, The previous high, according to Major League Baseball, was 220, a number shared by the seasons of 1986, 1991, 2007 and 2010.
This season Colorado has played the most extra-inning games, 12 (5-7), followed by the Chicago White Sox 11 (4-7), Cincinnati 11 (4-7), and Arizona 10 (8-2). Cleveland has played 5 extra-inning games and won them all. No other team can boast a perfect extra-inning record.
Then again, no team besides the Yankees can boast of the dreadful performance of their hitters against the Athletics in their 18-inning game. The 0-for-8s for Hafner and Wells are the worst for any hitter in the 110 extra-inning games.
Youkilis’ 0-for-7 has been matched by 10 other players: Derek Norris of Oakland in the game against the Yankees, Luke Scott of Tampa Bay against Boston (14 innings), Macier Izturis of Toronto against Texas (18), Pete Kozma of St. Louis against Arizona (14), Gerardo Parra of Arizona against St. Louis (14), Jose Bautista of Toronto against San Diego (17), Jamey Carroll of Minnesota against Milwaukee (14), Josh Hamilton of Anaheim against Oakland (19), Placido Polanco of Miami against the New York Mets (15), Austin Jackson of Detroit against Anaheim 13).
The season’s longest game, the Marlins and the Mets in New York June 8, produced no notably hitless performances, but there was a collection of one-hit efforts: for the Marlins Ed Lucas, Derek Dietrich and Polanco each 1-for-8 and for the Mets Daniel Murphy and Omar Quintanilla each 1-for-9 and Lucas Duda 1-for-7 with 4 strikeouts.
There have been, on the other hand, some good hitting performances in extra-inning games. Most notable was Jean Segura’s 6-for-7 (all singles) for Milwaukee in a 14-inning game against Minnesota May 26, the same game in which Carroll was 0-for-7 for the Twins.
With all of these extra-inning games, maybe the union should consider seeking overtime pay in the next round of collective bargaining. In all of those years when the owners sought a payroll cap and even forced a strike over it, the players should have countered with a proposal for overtime pay.
At a 2013 salary of $23,125,000, Mark Teixeira could have earned $214,120 at time and a half for the Yankees’ 18-inning game in Oakland last week.
STRIKEOUTS ASCENDING
Players aren’t just failing to hit in extra-inning games; they’re not making contact with the baseballs too well in any innings.
Through mid-week last week, MLB said the strikeout ratio per nine innings was 7.58, higher than for any complete season in history. The highest-ever season ratio was last year’s 7.56, and that marked the fifth successive season the ratio had risen.
Total number of strikeouts has also risen each of the past five years, reaching a record 36,426 last season. If pitchers and hitters continue at their present production, the majors will complete the year with 36,726.
Total strikeouts last year were up 5,032 from a decade earlier, representing a 16 percent increase.
Hitters simply don’t care about striking out. They cared once upon a time, but now they don’t care if they strike out three times in a game if in their fourth time at bat they hit a home run.
As a result, pitchers are harvesting strikeouts in bushelfuls.
Starting pitchers, MLB says, have struck out 10 or more batters in a game 76 times, eclipsing last year’s total of 65 at the equivalent time and the 2001 all-time high of 69 times.
However, while hitters generally are striking out more than ever, one player in particular has dramatically reduced his strikeout frequency. A few years ago, Mark Reynold’s name was synonymous with strikeouts. In three successive seasons, 2008 through 2010, he struck out more than 200 times and in the process twice set the major league record for strikeouts.
He played for the Arizona Diamondbacks in those years. But after he was traded to Baltimore, he began making contact more often. He went from averaging 1.34, 1.44 and 1.40 strikeouts per game to 1.26 and 1.17 with the Orioles. Having joined Cleveland as a free agent, he is averaging 1.17 this season.
In all candor, though, I should point out that Reynolds had his most productive season (44 homers, 102 runs batted in) the year he struck out a record 223 times.
SUSPEND STEWART’S SUSPENSION
Did Ian Stewart do anything that warrants a 10-game suspension? I would say yes if the Chicago Cubs had suspended Stewart for stupidity. But that wasn’t the reason the Cubs gave for their disciplinary action. They said they suspended the minor league infielder – without pay yet – for violating the loyalty clause in his contract.
“There is a loyalty clause in his contract that requires a certain standard of personal conduct,” said Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations. Stewart, Epstein added, didn’t abide by that standard.
Yes, there is a loyalty clause in the uniform player’s contract. It is paragraph 3 (a) and it states:
“The Player agrees to perform his services hereunder diligently and faithfully, to keep himself in first-class physical condition and to obey the Club’s training rules, and pledge himself to the American public and to the Club to conform to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship.”
Epstein chose to offer his own interpretation of that clause, fitting it to Stewart’s remarks about the manager and the organization. “I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s not appropriate to criticize your manager and organization,” he told reporters.
Nothing I have read about the Stewart case supports a suspension for violating the loyalty clause. Expressing his frustration with the Cubs and their manager, Dale Sveum, Stewart used Twitter to vent his frustration. He said the sort of things that might get a player kicked out of a game by an umpire but not suspended by his major league organization.
He did nothing that kept him from performing his services diligently and faithfully. He did nothing that undermined his first-class physical condition. He did not disobey the training rules. He did nothing that demonstrated failure “to conform to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship.”
If the Cubs were a government entity, Stewart could rightfully accuse them of violating his free speech, but they are not so he cannot. However, the 28-year-old third baseman was playing for the Cubs’ Class AAA minor league Iowa team under a $2 million major league contract and can challenge the suspension in the grievance procedure.
An arbitrator would then decide if Stewart’s tweeted comments violated the loyalty clause. If Stewart were to win, he would have already missed the 10 games, but he could regain the pay for the missed time.
Stewart, who has played for Colorado in the majors, was answering questions from fans and was asked if he would soon get back to the Cubs, with whom he spent all of last season.
“Probably never,” he replied in his online session, then added, “I said that because the cubs are done With me….there (sic) going to let me Rott (sic) in AAA all season and then non tender me after.”
“I meant they might as Well release since I have no shot of a call up….let me Sign elsewhere,” he later wrote.
Stewart also tweeted that he didn’t expect to return to Chicago because he believes Sveum doesn’t like him and “he makes the calls.”
Stewart subsequently tweeted apologies for his remarks, but by then the Cubs had decided to suspend him.
Stewart’s agent, Larry Reynolds, issued a statement saying it would be best if the Cubs released Stewart, but if the Cubs did that, they would still owe Stewart the remainder of his salary and he isn’t going to give up any of that.
One might ask why on earth did the Cubs sign Stewart for $2 million, considering that he hit .201 in 55 games for them last season and .156 in 48 games for the Rockies the year before. Maybe we could find a clause in the Major League Rules about dumb signings.