Tim Hudson faced the Phillies last night, and Chase Utley is back from injury, which means Hudson got the chance last night to plunk Chase Utley for the 5th time in his career. That was Utley’s 140th plunk and the 103rd of Hudson’s career. Utley is now up to 27th place on the all time list, tied with Bill Dahlen, and he’s just the 8th player ever to get hit 140 times for one team.
Utley needs 9 more plunks this year to continue his streak of seasons with double digit HBPs. The last time Utley didn’t have at least 10 HBPs in a season was 2005, and that’s the longest active streak in the majors. Carlos Quentin and Kevin Youkilis have been in double digits every season after 2006, so they have the 2nd longest active streaks.
Also last night, Alex Rodriguez got his 164th HBP, and his 2nd from Josh Beckett. Rodriguez is one plunk behind Kid Elberfeld for 15th place on the all time list. That plunk was the 450th time since 1920 that the Red Sox have plunked the Yankees. The Yankees have hit the Red Sox 335 times in that span, including Daniel Nava‘s plunk from Hiroki Kuroda last night.
Yesterday was Friday, so that means the Brewers got plunked. Ryan Braun picked up his 9th of the season, and number 49 on the season for the Brewers. They’ve been hit by 17 pitches on Fridays this year. The live ball era single season record for plunks is 20.
Dan Uggla also got hit in the Phillies-Braves game, which means that was the first game in which two second basemen whose last name starts with U got hit by pitches since September 23, 2009, when Utley and Uggla also both got plunked.
Shawn Tolleson became the 499th pitcher in Dodgers history to hit a batter, and Ben Revere collected the 4,400th plunk in Twins franchise history.
Plunk Signal