Game Notes, 10/5/2024 – LDS Day 1

Joe Niekro’s postseason ledger has a lot of zeroes:  20.0 innings, 0 runs allowed (0.00 ERA) and most remarkable, considering that ERA, 0 wins.  Poor Joe Niekro.  This incongruity got rolling in Game 3 of the 1980 NLCS, when the Astros’ right-hander stymied Phillies batters to the tune of 10 innings and six hits but ended up no-decisioned in an 11-inning victory.  The very next year, Niekro silenced the Dodgers for eight innings in what was, ultimately, an 11-inning, 1-0 win for Houston.  Just to add a little extra pathos to this tale, Niekro then contributed two scoreless innings in relief for the Twins during a Game 4 loss to the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.  

Postseason baseball has seen its share of shutdown starting efforts footnoted by events out of the hurler’s control, from George Earnshaw’s fling in Game 5 of the 1930 World Series to Zack Wheeler’s superb and wiped away labor on Saturday night.  But no one quite absorbed this particular punishment like Joe Niekro.

Zack Wheeler’s seven innings of one-hit, no-run ball got lost in the wash as the Mets rallied against the Phillies’ bullpen and secured a 6-2 victory.  

~The postseason has produced 268 starting lines that featured at least seven frames and no runs allowed.  252 of those occurrences saw the team boasting the dominating starting effort come out on top in the contest.  The Phillies have been a part of two of the 16 losses, with the other happening in Game 2 of the 2009 NLCS against the Dodgers.  That day, Pedro Martinez gave Philadelphia seven innings of two-hit ball but the Dodgers rallied for a 2-1 victory.  Of the 16 times a team has lost after its starter has produced at least seven scoreless frames, this 6-2 defeat marks the largest run differential.

~Wheeler is the 27th starter to produce a line featuring at least seven innings of no-run ball and to have that line fail to produce a win in his column.  Joe Niekro and Brandon Backe are the only two pitchers with multiple efforts that fit the criteria.

In the losing effort, the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber launched a leadoff home run – the fifth time in his postseason career he’s opened the first inning with a round-tripper and the 21st time he’s gone yard at any point in any playoff tussle.

~Schwarber’s five postseason leadoff home runs are the most ever, with this latest distancing him from Derek Jeter and Jimmy Rollins (tied for second, with three apiece).  With Schwarber and Rollins having such gaudy contributions, the Phillies are tied with the Yankees for the most postseason leadoff homers, with seven each.

~Schwarber’s 21st postseason dinger broke him out of a tie with Jeter for the fourth most ever.  Manny Ramirez (29), Jose Altuve (27) and Bernie Williams (22) hold the top three spots.

~Among his 21 postseason four-baggers, 15 of Schwarber’s have come while occupying the top spot in the batting order.  Only George Springer, with 17, has more.  

The Mets’ come-from-behind, 6-2 victory featured eight hits – all of them singles.  Only seven other clubs have produced a postseason line that boasted of so many runs and no knocks for extra bases.  From the oldest occurrence to the most recent, before the Mets on Saturday:

~1907 WS G4:  Cubs defeat the Tigers 6-1

~1917 WS G2:  White Sox beat the Giants 7-2

~1971 WS G2:  Orioles defeat the Pirates, 11-3

~1976 NLCS G2:  Reds beat the Phillies, 6-2

~1986 WS G6:   Mets defeat the Red Sox, 6-5

~1997 NLCS G6:  Marlins beat the Braves, 7-4

~2010 NLDS G2:  Phillies defeat the Reds, 7-4

Tanner Bibee’s four-and-two-thirds scoreless innings started the day for the Guardians, who blanked the Tigers 7-0 to take the opener of their ALDS clash.

~With the effort, Cleveland produced the 16th team shutout in its postseason history.  That figure represents the sixth most for any franchise in the postseason, and the second highest tally for any AL club.  The Yankees lead all, with 32, followed by the Giants (27), Braves (26), Dodgers and Cardinals (21 apiece).

~Cleveland has produced five of its 16 postseason shutouts in a Game 1, with three of them opening an ALDS:  against the Mariners in 2001, versus the Yankees in 2017, and now this opener against the Tigers.  In 2001 and 2017, the Game 1 victory had only so much effect, as Cleveland dropped each series in five games.

~The run differential in this win tied for the highest in a Cleveland postseason shutout, matching the 7-0 win they had over the Mariners in Game 4 of the 1995 ALCS.  For all postseason shutouts, this margin of victory is fairly dull, tying for the 28th highest.  The 1996 Braves own the top two marks, having defeated the Cardinals 14-0 in Game 5 of the NLCS and then 15-0 in Game 7 of that series.

Shohei Ohtani and Lane Thomas added their signatures to a list now 156 names long – those to go yard in their postseason debut.  For Thomas, he became the 10th representative of Cleveland to do it, while Ohtani joined five other Dodgers.

The eight starting leadoff batters on Saturday – Luis Arráez, Shohei Ohtani, Steven Kwan, Parker Meadows, Michael Massey, Gleyber Torres, Kyle Schwarber and Francisco Lindor – combined to go 10-for-32 with nine runs scored, six walks, three homers and six RBI.  The octet’s efforts produced a .313/.421/.625 line.  

In the Yankees’ 6-5 win over the Royals, Gleyber Torres homered and walked twice, drove in a pair and scored two runs.  The postseason effort marked the ninth time a Yankees leadoff hitter had at least two runs and two RBI while reaching base multiple times.  Earle Combs and Derek Jeter each did it twice for New York, while Chick Fewster, Wade Boggs, Chuck Knoblauch and DJ LeMahieu each did this once.  

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