Game Notes – 07/30/2025

The 1925 Athletics roster featured four future Hall of Famers, with three of them in their debut seasons – Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove and Mickey Cochrane.  The fourth, Al Simmons, was experiencing his second go-round and did he ever make a splash:  a league-leading 253 hits, a league-leading 392 total bases, a league-leading 79 extra-base hits.  With that last figure, Simmons became the first center fielder in the 20th century to be so young (he was in his age-23 season) and pace his circuit in extra-base hits.  Few have followed in Simmons’ positional/age wake.  

22-year-old Pete Reiser paced the NL as part of his astonishing breadth of leadership in 1941.  Mickey Mantle showed off his unsurpassed gifts in 1952 and 1955, leading the AL in both his age-20 and age-23 seasons.  Ken Griffey, Jr. supercharged his ascent and outdid the AL competition in 1993, his age-23 campaign.  Grady Sizemore (age-23 season in 2006) and Mike Trout (age-22 campaign in 2014) continued the American League leadership lineage in the 21st century.  

That’s the entire list, with, you may have noticed, most of the young center fielding extra-base hit leaders coming out of the Junior Circuit.  Pete Crow-Armstrong may have something to say about that in 2025.

Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled twice and now has 61 extra-base hits on the season, the best tally any NL’er can claim.  In the Expansion Era, a player as young or younger than the Cubs center fielder (who is in his age-23 campaign) has led the NL or AL in the category 12 times.  Going backward …

2019    Rafael Devers (age-22 season) leads the AL with 90

2014    Mike Trout (22) leads the AL with 84

2006    Grady Sizemore (23) leads the AL with 92

2003    Albert Pujols (23) leads the NL with 95

1993    Ken Griffey, Jr. (23) leads the AL with 86

1989    Rubén Sierra (23) leads the AL with 78

1988    José Canseco (23) leads the AL with 76

1983    Cal Ripken, Jr. (22) leads the AL with 76

1978    Jack Clark (22) leads the NL with 79

1970    Johnny Bench (22) leads the NL with 84

1969    Reggie Jackson (23) leads the AL with 86

1964    Dick Allen (22) leads the NL with 80

Shota Imanaga picked up the win in Wednesday’s tilt against the Brewers, giving the Cubs’ lefty his 23rd career victory in 44 career appearances.  Few Cubs in the Modern Era have recorded more wins at this early stage of a career.  There’s King Cole, who had 27 victories from 1909-1911.  There’s Larry Cheney, with 26 in 1911-1912.  There’s Jake Weimer, with 25 in 1903-1904.  And finally, before getting back to Imanaga, there’s Jack Pfiester, who had 23 through his first 44 in 1906-1907.  

Boston’s Trevor Story homered and doubled in a Red Sox win on Wednesday, the fourth time this season the shortstop has had a two-base hit and a four-base hit in the same game.  Story is nowhere near the franchise’s single-season top mark for this sort of thing, and the leader is probably not a quick-to-guess option, either – for it’s not Jimmie Foxx or Ted Williams or Carl Yastrzemski or Fred Lynn or Jim Rice or Mo Vaughn or Nomar Garciaparra or David Ortiz or Mookie Betts.  Instead, the answer lies with Carl Everett, who had 12 games with at least one double and one home run for the 2000 club.  Those 12 tie Everett for the seventh most for any player since 1901, a leaderboard that also claims a surprising name on the throne:  Baltimore’s Aubrey Huff, who posted 15 displays of this variegated pop in 2008.  Huff is ahead of Babe Ruth (14 in 1924) and this quartet with 13 – Álex Rodríguez (1996), Todd Helton (2001), Freddie Freeman (2023) and Aaron Judge (2024).  This season, the leaders come in the forms of Byron Buxton, Nick Kurtz and Riley Greene, each with seven.  

Salvador Perez singled in the game’s only run to lift the Royals to a 1-0 win in 10 innings over the Braves.  The walk-off single gave Perez his ninth career game-ending knock, tied for third most in franchise history.  George Brett (13) leads, followed by Amos Otis (10) then Frank White and Hal McRae, each with nine.  

Kansas City used nine pitchers to cover the 10-inning shutout, something that has happened only once before.  On September 17, 2016, the Indians used nine hurlers in a 10-inning victory.  This game marked the eighth in Royals history to see Kansas City take home an extra-inning, 1-0 victory.  The most innings for a 1-0 win for the team comes in at 15, a marathon event that concluded on May 23, 1981 when Willie Wilson singled in the game’s only run to defeat the Twins.  

Jose Altuve put together his 41st career four-hit game, enlarging and strengthening his hold on his placement as the Astros’ all-time leader in this feat (Craig Biggio can claim the second most in the franchise’s history, with 34).  39 of his 41 (including this one) have come with Altuve at second base, which ties him with Nap Lajoie for the fifth most since 1901.  The top-four arrangement looks like this:

57    Charlie Gehringer

41    Eddie Collins

41    Billy Herman

41    Nellie Fox

~As part of the four-hit day, Altuve homered for the 727th extra-base hit of his career.  That number puts him on equal ground with Lance Berkman, tied for the third most in Astros history behind the twin peaks of Craig Biggio (1,014) and Jeff Bagwell (969).

Ryan McMahon’s single in the bottom of the 11th capped a dramatic series of late-game events to hand the Yankees a 5-4 win.  In the victory, New York produced five go-ahead/game-tying hits from the eighth inning on:  game-tying home runs from Trent Grisham and Anthony Volpe in the eighth and ninth innings, respectively; a game-tying triple from Cody Bellinger in the 10th; and a go-ahead single from Giancarlo Stanton in the eighth to pair with McMahon’s walk-off single.  Dating back to 1969, the Yankees had never before experienced a game in which they had five game-tying/go-ahead hits from the eighth inning and on, with the previous high coming in at three.   

~Dating back to 1969, Graig Nettles owns the most game-tying/go-ahead hits in the eighth inning or later for the Yankees, with 51.  Bernie Williams’ 49 comes in second, followed by Don Mattingly’s 41.  

~Grisham’s eighth-inning solo homer marked the third time this season he’s produced a longball in the eighth inning or later that either tied the game or gave the Yankees a lead.  This season, he’s tied with Aaron Judge for the most on the team; no Yankee has had more than three in a season since Judge had five in 2022.  

Logan Webb had a line that included 11 strikeouts, four walks, a hit batter and five hits – a lot of non-zero numbers for a start that lasted only five-and-two-thirds innings and yielded only one run.

~On the normal side of things, Webb posted his 12th career double-digit strikeout effort, the ninth most for a Giants pitcher since 1901.  Two more would match him with John Montefusco and a 15th would even him up with Gaylord Perry.

~On the more uncommon side, the components of Webb’s effort have occurred in a pitcher’s line less than a handful of times in the Modern Era.  

11+ K’s, 10+ Baserunners, 1 or 0 Runs Allowed, 6.0 or Fewer IP 

Andy Benes on June 4, 1997               6.0 IP, 11 K’s, 11 Baserunners, 0 Runs

Zack Greinke on Sept. 25, 2012          5.0 IP, 13 K’s, 10 Baserunners, 1 Run

Matt Moore on June 25, 2013              6.0 IP, 11 K’s, 10 Baserunners, 1 Run

Logan Webb on July 30, 2025             5.2 IP, 11 K’s, 10 Baserunners, 1 Run

Yu Darvish (7.0 IP, 2 H) and two relievers combined for a three-hitter as the Padres blanked the Mets, 5-0.  The effort gave San Diego its MLB-best 15th shutout of this season and 31st since the start of last year.  

~Padres history prior to 2025 had seen eight incarnations produce at least 15 shutouts in a season, with the 2007 team and 2010 club sharing the title for the most, 20.  There’s been quite a run of high-shutout seasons lately, with the 2022 Padres having 15 and the 2023 and 2024 clubs producing 16 apiece.   The others near the top:  1985 (19), 1972 (17), 1984 (17).

~San Diego’s 31 team shutouts since the start of the 2024 season are the most in the Majors, ahead of the Pirates’ 25 and the 24 from the Brewers and Yankees.

Nathan Eovaldi allowed a run over seven innings and picked up the win as the Rangers defeated the Angels.  The righty is still shy of having enough innings to qualify for the ERA title (he’s six innings short) but his numbers right now are worth a second (and deeper) look.  Below, a few of Eovaldi’s more staggering numbers are identified and contextualized for where they would stack up against the best marks for a qualifying AL pitcher in the DH-era (excluding the 60-game 2020 season). 

~Eovaldi owns a 1.49 ERA.  That would be the best, with Ron Guidry (1978) and Pedro Martínez (2000) sharing the lowest mark for a qualifier at season’s end, 1.74.

~Eovaldi’s ERA+ stands at 249.  That would be the second best, behind Martínez’s 291 in 2000.

~Eovaldi’s WHIP sits at 0.893.  That would be the seventh lowest, between Logan Gilbert’s 0.887 in 2024 and Gerrit Cole’s 0.895 in 2019 (Tarik Skubal’s 0.838 in 2025 is another that improves upon Eovaldi’s mark).  The lowest season-ending mark in the AL since 1973 comes from Martínez, who posted a 0.737 in 2000.

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