Game Notes – 06/24/2025

Among the more robust RBI men in the game this year, there are four who belong to a family of sorts:  let’s call it  the Al Simmons Club (you’ll see why later on).  Among other notables both hidden inside and blaring out of his Hall of Fame statistical record, Simmons was a big run producer and a low walk taker.  A lot like Eugenio Suárez, who currently has 67 RBI and 21 walks in 78 games.  Or Pete Crow-Armstrong, who also has played 78 games and has amassed 61 RBI and 14 walks.  And then there’s Teoscar Hernández, sitting at 53 RBI and 12 walks in 64 games.  The fourth member of this 2025 clan is an offensive headliner on baseball’s best team, leading his club in runs, hits, doubles, homers, RBI, total bases and extra-base hits:  Tigers outfielder Riley Greene.

Detroit’s Riley Greene drove in two runs during a 4-for-5 night, raising his RBI tally to 61 (tied for seventh in the Majors).  With 24 walks also on his line, Greene carries on a tradition of those with a knack for driving in a lot of runs while mostly eschewing walks:  he is currently at .78 RBI and .31 walks per game.  There are 152 players in the AL or NL since 1893 who finished a year qualifying for the batting title and per game RBI and walk numbers that match or exceed Greene’s.  Most of the most common visitors played a long time ago, but there are a few  modern names.  Here’s the entire list of players who had at least three seasons conforming to these numerical conditions.

8    Al Simmons (1925, 1927-1930, 1932-1933, 1937)

5    Joe Medwick (1935-1939)

5    Juan González (1993-1994, 1997-1998, 2001)

4    Lave Cross (1893-1895, 1902)

4    Nap Lajoie (1897-1898, 1900-1901)

4    Dante Bichette (1994-1997)

3    Hughie Jennings (1894-1896)

3    Bob Meusel (1921, 1924, 1928)

3    Irish Meusel (1922-1923, 1925)

3    Cecil Cooper (1980, 1982-1983)

3    Andrés Galarraga (1993-1994, 1996)

He didn’t post his most impressive line of the year (6.0 IP, 4 R), but Detroit’s Tarik Skubal pocketed a win to run his record to 9-2.  The lefty hasn’t dropped a decision since his second start of the year, on April 2, giving him an undefeated streak of 14 starts.  Few Tigers pitchers have produced a streak this long in a season.

Most Consecutive Starts Without a Loss in a Season – Tigers Since 1901

18    Bobo Newsom (1940), Max Scherzer (2013)

15    Schoolboy Rowe (1934)

14    Phil Regan (1963), Joe Sparma (1967), Tarik Skubal (2025)

Using a lineup that, by game’s end, featured five players sporting a .500 or better slugging percentage,  the Dodgers outslugged the Rockies for a 9-7 win.  It’s rare to see a club finish a season with five qualifiers at or above the .500 mark … this is what the entire collection among AL or NL teams since 1893 looks like (including the current/potential Dodgers submission).  We’ll start with the only team to have six and then move on to those with five.

2003 Red Sox         Nomar Garciaparra, Bill Mueller, Trot Nixon, David Ortiz, Manny Ramírez, Jason Varitek

1894 Phillies           Lave Cross, Ed Delahanty, Billy Hamilton, Sam Thompson, Tuck Turner

1930 Giants            Shanty Hogan, Travis Jackson, Freddie Lindstrom, Mel Ott, Bill Terry

1953 Dodgers         Roy Campanella, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider

1996 Mariners        Jay Buhner, Ken Griffey, Jr., Edgar Martínez, Álex Rodríguez, Paul Sorrento

2007 Phillies           Pat Burrell, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Aaron Rowand, Chase Utley

2019 Astros            Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel, George Springer

2023 Braves            Ronald Acuña, Jr., Ozzie Albies, Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna, Austin Riley

2025 Dodgers         Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Shohei Ohtani, Andy Pages, Will Smith

Ronald Acuña, Jr. drew a pair of walks.  In each of his last 14 games, the Braves outfielder has reached safely at least twice.  The 27-year-old is now tied with Eddie Mathews (1963) for the third longest streak of this kind by a Brave in the modern era.  Rogers Hornsby authored a 17-game run in 1928 and in 1994, Deion Sanders had a 16-game streak.   

Ketel Marte homered and singled to shift his slash line to .320/.424/.608 in 229 plate appearances (he’s just shy of qualifying for the rate stat leaderboards).  It doesn’t take long to list all the Diamondbacks ever to enter an All-Star break with a .300/.400/.600 slash line (min. 250 plate appearances):  Luis Gonzalez did it in 2001 and Paul Goldschmidt followed in 2015.

Cal Raleigh had his four-game home run streak come to an end but did extend his extra-base hit streak to seven games with a first-inning double.   Raleigh is one of 15 Mariners to have a streak of this kind go this long, with Ken Griffey, Jr.’s 10-game run in 1993 standing as the longest.  

Cooper Hummel’s eighth inning solo shot provided the only scoring in an Astros 1-0 win against the Phillies.  The outfielder, who was playing in only his 15th game for Houston, is the 19th different player for the franchise to homer in a 1-0 win, an event that’s played out a total of 23 times.  Jim Wynn did this four times and Glenn Davis twice – the only two players to have multiple entries on this ledger.

Christian Moore – playing in his 12th career game – hit a game-tying solo homer in the bottom of the eighth and then walked things off with a two-run shot in the 10th:  game over, Angels 3-2.

~Before Moore, the last Angel to have game-tying and game-ending homers in the eighth inning or later of the same contest was Vladimir Guerrero on June 18, 2005.  Like this current drama, Guerrero’s first came in the eighth and made it a 1-1 game; unlike Moore’s second blast, Guerrero’s walk-off came with the score tied.  

~At 22 years and 246 days old, Moore is the second youngest Angel with an extra-inning walk-off homer, after Mike Miley (22, 142) on August 19, 1975.

~Moore is the 10th different Angel to have a multi-homer game at so young an age.  Carney Lansford and Jo Adell each had two by this point.

Garrett Crochet struck out 10 over seven scoreless frames.  The Red Sox southpaw leads the Majors with 135 K’s and owns the big league’s fourth lowest ERA, at 2.06.  Boston is at exactly the halfway point of its season, offering a nice ruler to measure Crochet’s performance.  His company is also pretty nice:

1961-2025:  LH’ers with 135+ K’s and an ERA at or Below 2.06, Through 81 Team Games