Plunk Everyone

Shin-Soo Choo – you may remember him from such plunkings as the other 11 times he’s been hit by pitches this year – he got another one yesterday, in the 2nd inning from Ricky Nolasco.  This is the 2nd of Choo’s 12 HBPs that have resulted in him scoring a run after reaching on a plunk.  The Reds single season record for a left handed batter is just 15, last achieved in 1969 by Bobby Tolan and before that in 1938 by Ival Goodman.  Choo has 3 plunks against the Marlins this year.

Prince Fielder moved one plunk closer to 100, getting his 99th career plunk on a pitch from Wesley Wright. Wright also threw Fielder’s 97th plunk, 12 days before.  Fielder is tied for 77th on the all time list with Eddie Yost, Bucky Harris and Elmer Flick.

Martin Prado broke a streak of 719 plate appearances without an HBP yesterday, and Jacoby Ellsbury broke a plunkless streak of 512 plate appearances.  Ellsbury had been the 2013 leader in plate appearances among the unplunked this year, but that title now falls to Manny Machado.

Tanner Scheppers of the Rangers hit Oakland’s Brandon Moss bringing the total number of plunks ever recorded in A’s-Rangers games to 400.

Only four batters were hit by pitches yesterday, including BJ Upton. Wade Miley hit Upton in the 6th inning of the Braves-Diamondbacks game, bringing Upton’s career total to 20 HBPs.

Starlin Castro, Ronny Cedeno and Daric Barton were the other three batters hit by pitches yesterday, and it was the 13th career plunk for all three of them.

Ronny Cedeno became the 279th batter to have at least one career HBP for the Astros, getting hit by Jose Ortega. That was Ortega’s first as a major leaguer. Justin Grimm also threw his first major league plunk, hitting Daric Barton.

Bronson Arroyo hit Brewers first baseman Logan Schafer with a 74.8 mile per hour pitch yesterday, giving Arroyo a career total of 94 plunks thrown, and Schafer a career total of 2 HBPs. That plunk was the 100th ever delivered to a Brewers batter by a Reds pitcher. Bronson Arroyo has now hit the Brewers 7 times as a Red (and once as a Pirate), and that makes Arroyo the Reds all time leader in plunking Brewers. Scott Sullivan hit 6 Brewers for the Reds, but Arroyo has now passed him. Among active pitchers, only Paul Maholm (10) has hit the Brewers more than Bronson Arroyo.
If you wanted to see the list of all 100 times the Reds have hit the Brewers you could see it here.

Jonny Gomes became the 600th Red Sox player to get hit by at least one pitch, taking his first plunk since joining Boston yesterday. Esmil Rogers threw that one.

Ben Zobrist got hit by Dale Thayer, making that the 2nd consecutive day on which Zobrist was hit by a pitch.

Jamey Wright had already hit 54 more batters than any other pitcher born in Oklahoma, and 7 more than any other pitcher born after 1970, but he’d never hit Will Venable before yesterday, and he’d only hit the Padres 13 times. Randy Johnson also hit the Padres 13 times, but nobody had ever hit 14 Padres in their career. Until yesterday, when Wright hit Will Venable, giving him 14 career hit batters against the Padres. Congratulations Jamey Wright, for your outstanding achievement in the field of hitting Padres batters with pitches. The full list of Wright’s plunkings of Padres is here.

Prince Fielder got his 98th career HBP in the 8th inning against Joe Smith yesterday. Fielder has 39 more HBPs than any other player under 30 years old. Fielder is tied for 80th place all time, with Paul Konerko and Rickey Henderson.

Starling Marte picked up his 8th HBP of the season last night, on a 83.5mph 5th inning pitch from Shaun Marcum. That leaves Marte only 3 plunks behind Shin-Soo Choo for the 2013 plunk chase lead.

Josh Willingham got hit by Jason Hammels again, making that twice this season for that particular plunk matchup. Hammels hit Willingham on April 7th as well as yesterday.

Kendry Morals took an otherwise routine HBP from Chris Resop yesterday, but that was the 300th plunk ever thrown in a Mariners-A’s game. It was also the 666th plunk in Safeco Field history.

Jayson Nix plunk for the Yankees last night was the Yankees 14th of the season, and 7 of those have been in Friday games.