Plunk Everyone

HBPs of note: September 4, 2009

Chase Utley has been hit by a lot of pitches, especially for a left handed batter. He's up to 103 for his career, and as of last night he's up to 20 this season, leading the majors. That makes him the first left handed batter ever to get hit 20 times in 3 consecutive seasons. Tim Byrdak contributed last nights plunking, but it was only the 7th of his career, and the first time he hit Chase Utley.

Manny Ramirez got the 102nd plunk of his career last night, andAaron Rowand got his 107th. Rowand's 107th was thrown by Jeff Suppan, and was the 90th hit batter of his career, as well as the 1400th hit batter thrown by a pitcher born in 1975.

Jamie Moyer threw the 137th plunk of his career, plunking Michael Bourn, who has only been hit 4 times, and is only 4 years older than Jamie Moyers career. Pitchers born since the beginning of Moyers career have hit 39 batters, and batters younger than Moyers career have been hit 53 times.

One of those pitchers younger than Moyer's career hit a batter younger than Moyer's career last night. Daniel Hudson hit Josh Reddick, and to make it more interesting he did it in his first major league appearance, and hit the first batter he ever faced, and made it the first plunk of the batter's career (though it wasn't Reddick's first plate appearance). He's the first pitcher this season to hit the first major league batter he ever faced. It took Hudson 5 pitches to hit his first Major League Batter, but on August 13th, Cesar Cerillo of the Padres hit a batter on his 3rd pitch (but it was the 2nd batter he faced).

Also, and perhaps most impressively, Aaron Boone got his 80th career HBP, and his first since coming back from open heart surgery. He might be the first major leaguer ever plunked after open heart surgery.

Labels: Chase Utley, HBPs of note, Houston Astros

On July 27, 1994, Craig Biggio got hit by a pitch thrown by Tim Fortugno of the Cincinnati Reds. That was just one of 285 times Craig Biggio got plunked - actually it was his 34th - but it was also the 1000th plunk in Astros franchis history. The Astros got from 0 to 1000 HBPs from 1962 to 1994 but it only took from 1994 to 2008 to get from 1000 to 2000. Humberto Quintero got hit last night for number 2000.

In their past 1000 plunks, the Astros have been hit by 28 major league teams, and 470 different pitchers. But, only 87 Astros batters have been hit by pitches between 1001 and 2000. 251 of those landed on the body of Craig Biggio, which didn't leave a lot of work for everyone else. 97 more were Jeff Bagwell's and Lance Berkman had 60 of them. The Cardinals were the only team to throw over 100 plunks in the span of 1000, with 108, and Pittsburgh came in second with 94, and the Colorado Rockies threw 87 of them... including numbers 1,999 and 2,000. The only team not to hit the Astros with a pitch in that span is the Toronto Bluejays. Kerry Wood threw 13 of the 2nd 1000 plunks in astros history, and Pedro Astacio and Jamey Wright threw 11 each. Also, 100 of those 1000 plunks all came in 1997, when the Astros became the only 20th century team to get hit 100 times.

Here's all the guys who have been plunked among the 2nd 1000 plunks in Astros franchise history:

Craig Biggio - 251 Jeff Bagwell - 97 Lance Berkman - 60 Richard Hidalgo - 58 Brad Ausmus - 37 Derek Bell - 36 Adam Everett - 32 Chris Burke - 28 Morgan Ensberg - 21 Sean Berry - 21 Willy Taveras - 18 Ricky Gutierrez - 15 Tony Eusebio - 15 Orlando Miller - 15 Carl Everett - 14 Jason Lane - 13 Tim Bogar - 12 Jeff Kent - 11 Julio Lugo - 11 Ty Wigginton - 11 Moises Alou - 10

Luis Gonzalez - 9 Bill Spiers - 9 John Cangelosi - 9 Orlando Palmeiro - 9 Brian Hunter - 7 Aubrey Huff - 7 Carlos Lee - 7 J.R. Towles - 7 Chris Truby - 6 James Mouton - 6 Luke Scott - 6 Scott Elarton - 5 Carlos Beltran - 5 Geoff Blum - 5 Mark Loretta - 5 Humberto Quintero - 5 Miguel Tejada - 5 Mike Lamb - 4 Jose Vizcaino - 4 Mike Hampton - 4 Mike Simms - 4 Mitch Meluskey - 4

Darryl Kile - 4 Ken Caminiti - 4 Glen Barker - 4 Roy Oswalt - 4 Eric Bruntlett - 3 Vinny Castilla - 3 Thomas Howard - 3 Eric Munson - 3 Derrick May - 3 Gregg Zaun - 3 Hunter Pence - 3 Daryle Ward - 2 Cody Ransom - 2 Craig Shipley - 2 Shane Reynolds - 2 Preston Wilson - 2 Raul Chavez - 2 Orlando Merced - 2 Kirt Manwaring - 2 Roger Clemens - 2 Chuck Carr - 2 Josh Anderson - 2 Brandon Backe - 2 Darin Erstad - 2 Michael Bourn - 2

Chris Holt - 1 Andujar Cedeno - 1 Dave Clark - 1 Ramon Garcia - 1 Pat Listach - 1 Mendy Lopez - 1 Randy Knorr - 1 Russ Johnson - 1 Matt Mieske - 1 Phil Plantier - 1 Phil Nevin - 1 Bobby Abreu - 1 Scott Servais - 1 Rick Wilkins - 1 Milt Thompson - 1 Keith Ginter - 1 Ron Villone - 1 Reggie Abercrombie - 1

Labels: Houston Astros

well, not all 2000 were in the same game - that would be a record... and a really long game.

In Denver last night, in the top of the 6th inning, Rockies pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez plunked Miguel Tejada, making that the 1000th plunk thrown by the Rockies in franchise history. One inning later, Jimenez plunked Humberto Quintero, and making him the 2000th batter plunked in Astros history.

Labels: Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros

Any day now, the Colorado Rockies are going to throw their 1000th plunk in franchise history. However, now that they're so close to the historic milestone, they've suddenly decided on a unilateral cease fire, and they're stuck at 998. The Rockies are in the midst of their 7th slowest month ever, in terms of handing on HBPs per batter faced. They've hit just 5 batters this August. They've only had 3 full months in franchise history in which they hit fewer than 5 batters - two were in 1993, their first year in existence, and one was September of 2001 when they might have been feeling particularly pacifistic. They haven't hit anyone since August 15th, and only the White Sox have gone longer without hitting an opposing batter.

If the Rockies can hold out another 7 years without hitting two more batters, they can avoid becoming the quickest expansion franchise to hit 1,000 batters, and probably the quickest ever. Previously, the quickest 1000 plunks among the post-1960 expansion teams was thrown by the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners hit their 1000th opponents on July 22, 1999 (John Jaha), in their 23rd season in existence, but the Rockies will make it in just 16 seasons - again, assuming they can't make it the rest of the year without hitting 2 batters. Even without Craig Biggio's help (34 hbps vs the Rockies), they would have probably done it in 17 seasons. Of the senior citizen franchises, the quickest was the Detroit Tigers, who reached 1000 plunks thrown in 1919 - their 19th season. It's probably no coincidence that all-time HBP king Hughie Jennings managed the Tigers from 1907 to 1920. HBP stats for pitchers weren't kept very accurately back then, but they're probably close enough to go with 1919 as the season the Tigers reached 1000. It's a little more difficult with the NL teams that existed prior to HBPs being tracked at all, but particularly given the shorter schedules of the 19th century seasons, we can be pretty sure that the Rockies will be the first franchise to hit 1000 batters in their first 16 seasons.


The Rockies aren't the only ones having trouble getting over an HBP hump though. The Astros are creeping slowly toward 2,000 HBPs collected by it's batters in franchise history - but they've only been hit 39 times this year, and they're stuck at 1,994 at the moment. They've actually picked up the pace a little, getting hit 13 times so far this month, after only 10 in June and July combined.
Kevin Kouzmanoff is one plunk away from tying the Padres single season HBP record, but he's been one plunk away from tying the Padres single season record since July 8th. He has the longest active plunk drought of any player with 10 or more HBPs this season by 15 days. Jason Kendall, who's supposed to be chasing the all time HBP record, has the second longest drought among those with double digit plunks, having been left un-plunked since July 23rd. He's stuck at 229 HBPs, which is one short of tying Dan McGann for 6th place on the all time list.

Maybe they've all been waiting for the right time though. Starting Friday, the Rockies will be playing the Padres, so maybe the Rockies could cross the 1000 plunk mark by hitting Kouzmanoff twice, for the Padres record. Or, if the Rockies can hold out another week, and the Astros can make up some ground by September 5th, they could coordinate the Astros 2000th batter hit with the Rockies 1000th plunk thrown.

Labels: Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Jason Kendall, Kevin Kouzmanoff