Game Notes – 04/05/2025

On April 20, 1992, Giants starter Dave Burba threw a 2-1 pitch to his first adversary of the contest.  The offer was gladly received and instantly returned by that opponent in the form of a, as described within the Baseball Reference play-by-play account, “Fly Ball to Deep LF Line”:  Craig Biggio had his first career homer to lead off a game.  Since that moment, Astros batters in the top spot of the order have unleashed first inning home run pop unmatched by every other franchise.  

Jose Altuve hit his 41st career leadoff home run.  

~Altuve is currently 12th all-time in leadoff four-baggers, one behind Charlie Blackmon and three shy of matching Brady Anderson in 10th.   In ascending order, the nine ahead of Anderson go like this:

46    Kyle Schwarber, Jimmy Rollins

47    Curtis Granderson

48    Ian Kinsler

52    Mookie Betts

53    Craig Biggio

54    Alfonso Soriano

60    George Springer

81    Rickey Henderson

~Altuve’s 41 are the second most in Astros history, behind the 53 from Craig Biggio.  George Springer is third on the franchise’s list, with 39.  

~Since 1992, the year Biggio hit his first, Houston has more leadoff home runs (160) than any other club.  The Twins have 145, followed by the Orioles (144) and Blue Jays (140).

~Altuve now sits at 231 home runs and 315 stolen bases.  There are five franchises who can claim at least one player who produced at least 250 homers and 250 steals for it.  Those populating this franchise-specific 250-250 coterie:

Giants:     Willie Mays and Barry Bonds 

Astros:     Craig Biggio

Brewers:  Robin Yount

Cubs:        Ryne Sandberg

Yankees:  Derek Jeter

In the Rangers’ 6-4 win over the Rays, Marcus Semien charged the festivities with a leadoff homer, the 31st of his career and 19th with Texas.  On the franchise leaderboard, he’s third in the category, behind Ian Kinsler (29) and Shin-Soo Choo (25).  On the all-time market, he’s tied with Chuck Knoblauch for 20th. 

Ian Happ played in his 1,000th game with the Cubs, the 32nd player to reach that milestone for the franchise.  The 30-year-old is one of six active players to have reached the 1,000-game milestone while playing for only one franchise.  Jose Altuve (1,829 games with the Astros), Salvador Perez (1,560 for the Royals), Mike Trout (1,526 with the Angels), José Ramírez (1,458 with the Guardians) and Aaron Judge (1,001 for the Yankees) are the others.

Carson Kelly drove in four runs to push the Cubs to a 7-1 victory over the Padres.  The catcher has a pair of high run-production games this season, having amassed five RBI when he hit for the cycle on March 31.  Kelly is one of three Cubs in the modern era to have multiple games in a season with four-or-more RBI while hitting out of the ninth spot in the order, joining pitcher Charlie Root in 1929 and fellow catcher Miguel Amaya* in 2024 (Amaya did this in a span of five days).  Since 1901, the most four-plus RBI games out of the ninth spot came from Kevin Elster’s bat in 1996, when the Rangers’ shortstop had five.

*This season, Amaya has driven in seven runs.  Coupled with Kelly’s 10, Chicago’s backstops have the most RBI for the position in the Majors, ahead of St. Louis’ 14.  No other club can claim more than eight.  

Eduardo Rodríguez fanned 12 of the 20 batters he faced but also surrendered four runs on five hits and a walk and took the loss as Arizona dropped a decision to Washington.  There have been seven outings this season in which a starter reached double-digits in strikeouts despite going no more than five innings.  2022 produced the most such games, with 21.  That year, the seventh arrived on May 12. 

Trent Grisham homered twice for the Yankees in the team’s 10-4 victory over the Pirates.  New York has 25 home runs this season, more than any other club through eight team games, ever.  The 2000 Cardinals had 23 for the previous high.  Aside from Grisham’s two round-trippers, New York added six doubles in the game and now has 43 extra-base hits on the year.  That value through eight games is tied for the fifth highest mark since 1901, with the 1999 Indians having 51 for the most.  Finally, the Yankees have scored 72 runs, tied for the fourth most through eight games in the modern era.  Here, the 1932 Yankees and 1962 Cardinals are tied for the most, with 75.

Brice Turang went 1-for-4 to extend his hitting streak to nine games.  The second baseman is now tied for having the seventh longest streak to open a season in Brewers history and is now four games shy of matching Dickie Thon’s high mark set in 1993.

Giants center fielder Jung Hoo Lee doubled twice in the team’s 4-1 win and now is tied for the NL lead in two-base hits, with Chicago’s Kyle Tucker also at five.  No Giant has paced the NL in the category since Orlando Cepeda in 1958 (it’s been more recent for a Cub – Derrek Lee in 2005).

The Giants improved to 7-1, the team’s best eight-game start since the 2003 club also sprinted from the starting line with a 7-1 mark (that team would go on to win 13 of their first 14).  The top three teams in the NL West (the Dodgers and Padres along with the Giants) are a combined 23-4, with each team well beyond a 100-win pace.  Since the NL shifted to the East-Central-West organizational chart in 1994, there are three instances of a division claiming three teams with 90-plus victories:

2002 NL West (Diamondbacks, Giants, Dodgers)

2013 NL Central (Cardinals, Pirates, Reds)

2015 NL Central (Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs)

For the third straight game, Mike Trout homered (he also produced an extra-base hit in his fourth straight game).  The 11-time All-Star owns the Angels’ record for going deep in consecutive games, having authored a seven-game run in September of 2022.  Darin Erstad claims the top mark for extra-base hits, having generated at least one in nine straight contests in April, 1998.

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.