Game Notes – 08/12/2025

When Dave Kingman joined the Mets for the 1975 season, Cleon Jones possessed more home runs than any other player in the franchise’s history, with 93.  Over 664 games with New York, Kingman would clobber 154, ending his tenure with the Mets in 1983 as the club’s career home run champion.  That final season in Flushing, Kingman went yard 13 times, with one of those four-baggers coming on May 6, which also happened to be Darryl Strawberry’s debut game for the Metropolitans.  By the time Strawberry’s affair with the Mets came to a close after 1990, he had supplanted Kingman, his 252 almost 100 better than his predecessor’s stockpile.  In Mets lore, Strawberry had been the Baron of the Bomb, the Tycoon of the Tater ever since.  Now, the picture has revised itself again.  Cleon Jones now ranks 22nd … Kingman has dropped to sixth … and Strawberry now occupies the second slot, his 252 yielding to the newest king, Pete Alonso.



Pete Alonso homered twice to pass Darryl Strawberry as the Mets’ all-time leader in longballs, 254-to-252.  One of 14 single-franchise players to also hold their club’s all-time highest home run tally, Alonso also owns one of the highest totals for any player through his first seven big league seasons.  

 

Most HRs Through Seven Seasons

294    Ralph Kiner

282    Albert Pujols

254    Pete Alonso

253    Eddie Mathews

253    Ryan Howard



~This game marked the 25th time Alonso has powered out multiple homers, the most in team history (Strawberry is second, with 22).  Alonso’s 25 through 965 career games tie him with Hack Wilson and Kyle Schwarber for the 13th most.  Aaron Judge stands as king of this hill, with his 39 ahead of Ralph Kiner’s 34 and Gus Zernial’s 28.

 

~Alonso, who also doubled in New York’s win over Atlanta, was matched homer for homer and double for double by Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez.  The twin efforts marked the third time in Mets history a pair of teammates each had at least two homers and at least three extra-base hits, Alonso and Alvarez joining Mike Jacobs and David Wright in 2005 and Yoenis Céspedes and Lucas Duda in 2017.



José Ramírez homered twice and added a double in a milestone night for the 32-year-old.  

 

~The line gave Ramírez 27 games with two or more home runs to establish a new high mark for Cleveland.  At 26, Ramírez had been tied with Albert Belle and Jim Thome.  The 27 multi-homer games are the eighth most for any switch-hitter, slotting Ramírez one behind Chili Davis.  

 

~Ramírez’s three extra-base hits brought his career total up to 709, leaving him 15 shy of matching Earl Averill for Cleveland’s all-time lead.  The 709 also set Ramírez in a lofty space among all switch-hitters at this age-stage of a career.

 

Most XBH, Switch-Hitter Through an Age-32 Season

812    Mickey Mantle

711    Mark Teixeira

709    Eddie Murray

709    José Ramírez

677    Carlos Beltrán

662    Chipper Jones



In the Yankees’ win on Tuesday, Aaron Judge connected on the 353rd homer of his career and Giancarlo Stanton cracked the 441st of his.  The two have top-line placements in terms of their home runs at this exact stage of their respective careers.  

 

Most HRs Through 1,691 Games

523    Mark McGwire

479    Babe Ruth

451    Álex Rodríguez

445    Harmon Killebrew

443    Albert Pujols

441    Giancarlo Stanton

 

Most HRs Through 1,103 Games

353    Aaron Judge

305    Ralph Kiner

301    Juan González

300    Ryan Howard



~The Judge/Stanton duo has gone yard in the same game 54 times, including the postseason – according to New York’s press notes, the figure places this active pairing third among all the 1-2 punches in franchise history.  The Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig two-man show did this 75 times, while Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle homered in the same game 56 times.  



Carlos Rodón surrendered a single hit (a single) in seven innings of work to lower his hits/9 on the season to 6.01 (the best in the Majors).  Three Yankees hurlers have qualified for an ERA title and generated a lower mark at season’s end:  Tommy Byrne with a 5.74 in 1949; Russ Ford with a 5.83 in 1910; and Al Downing with a 5.84 in 1963.



George Kirby (7.0 IP, 3 H) improved to 4-0 in his last four starts as Seattle edged Baltimore, 1-0.  The team record for most consecutive wins in starts comes in at seven, shared by Scott Bankhead (1989), Jamie Moyer (2003) and James Paxton (2017).  This win gave the Mariners their eighth straight victory – the club’s longest winning streak since claiming eight in a row twice in 2023.



The Brewers rolled the Pirates 14-0 to put a few exclamation points on their 11th straight win.  Some notes.

 

~With the 11th victory in a row, Milwaukee tied its season best.  The franchise now has four winning streaks of at least 11 games, with these two in 2025 sharing space with the 13-gamer in 1987 and an 11-game run in 2021.  The last team to have multiple winning streaks of at least 11 games in the same season – the 2015 Blue Jays; the last club before them – the 1954 Indians. 

 

~The 14 runs scored in this blanking ties for the fourth most ever for a Milwaukee shutout, with a 20-0 win (also over Pittsburgh) in 2010 the top production.  

 

~The Brewers have outscored their opponents by 152 runs this season.  There have been 22 teams in the 21st century to own a run differential at least this wide through 119 games, with the 2025 Brewers matched with the 2004 Cardinals, 2007 Yankees and 2013 Tigers.  There are six teams that rose to the 200-level:

 

2000-2025:  Best Run Differential Through 119 Games 

257    2022 Dodgers

214    2017 Dodgers

210    2018 Red Sox

206    2016 Cubs

206    2023 Braves

205    2001 Mariners



~Brice Turang homered in the win and is now slugging .919 for August.  This is a better mark than the ones held by Pete Alonso (.900), Shea Langeliers (.896), Shohei Ohtani (.878), Junior Caminero (.762) and every other player in the Majors with at least 40 plate appearances in the month.  

 

~Freddy Peralta (6.0 IP, 3 H) recorded his Major League-leading 14th win.  The right-hander is the ninth Brewers pitcher to have at least 14 wins through 119 team games, and the second this century to get there, after Wily Peralta (14) in 2014.  Teddy Higuera’s 16 in 1986 is the high mark in this arrangement.



Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. was 3-for-4 in the Blue Jays’ win against the Cubs.  Over his last 56 games, the first baseman is slashing .329/.420/.565 and now sits at .300/.399/.490 for the year.  Guerrero already owns one of the eight .300/.400/.500 seasons in Toronto history (his 2021 campaign); a second in 2025 would link him with Paul Molitor and Carlos Delgado as the only Blue Jays to have two.  Fred McGriff, John Olerud and José Bautista each had one.



Hunter Goodman was on the receiving end of a team shutout and powered the offense with a two-run home run as the Rockies defeated the Cardinals in St. Louis, 3-0.  The catcher/DH, who has gone deep in five of his past 12 games, has 23 longballs on the season, with 14 (60.9%) of them coming on the road.  Among the nearly 100 Rockies to ever hit at least 20 homers in a year, three have completed the campaign with a greater percentage of their longballs coming on the road.  

 

2006   Brad Hawpe posted a percentage of 72.7 (16 of 22)

2024   Michael Toglia posted a percentage of 68.0 (17 of 25)

2018   Ian Desmond posted a percentage of 63.6 (14 of 22)



Alex Bregman went yard in Boston’s 14-1 rout over Houston, giving the third baseman 38 extra-base hits in 75 games.  Bregman, who is below the threshold for qualifying for rate-state leadership, has produced an extra-base hit in 11.8% of his plate appearances.  There are 36 Red Sox who’ve authored an XBH% at least that high in a qualifying season, with the most recent being Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers in 2019.  David Ortiz had the most such seasons for Boston, with seven.  



The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani scored a pair of runs (one via a home run) and has now scored at least one run in seven straight games. The three best marks for the franchise in the Modern Era all come out of the Brooklyn days, with Willie Keeler having a streak of 14 straight with a run scored in 1901 and Sammy Strang (1903) and Zack Wheat (1925) tied for second, at 13 in a row.  



On Tuesday, the Athletics’ Jacob Lopez was nearly as effective as he had been in his previous start, working seven scoreless innings with nine strikeouts and no walks.  This effort, coupled with the one in which he threw seven-and-two-thirds scoreless with 10 K’s and no walks, makes for some rare stuff (although mostly of a more recent swirl).

 

Consecutive Games With 9+ K’s, No Walks, No Runs (since 1901)

1905    Cy Young had two in a row

2015    Clayton Kershaw had three in a row

2017    Robbie Ray had two in a row

2021    Corbin Burnes had three in a row

2023    Zac Gallen had two in a row

2024    Chris Sale had two in a row

2025    Jacob Lopez has two in a row

 

 

 

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

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Roger Schlueter

As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.