Slams vs. No-Hitters

Thanks to baseball-reference.com and Boston.com for this info regarding rare feats in baseball history.

On Thursday in ’08 Game #50, against the Royals, J.D. Drew and Mike Lowell hit grand slam homers. Here are the facts:

• The two grand slams in a game was the 72d time that’s happened in the big leagues.
• The Red Sox have done it 10 times, more than any other team.

On Monday, we all know Jon Lester tossed the 18th no-hitter in Red Sox history, also against the Royals.

• Since 1956, there have been 136 no-hitters.

So one team hitting 2 slams in one game is more rare than a no-hitter. By a lot. Just thought that was interesting.

Also interesting – Oracle of Baseball finds the link between any two major league players by a shortest possible list of teammates. I thought it would be fun to find the link between Lester and Nolan Ryan – the only 2 pitchers to toss no-hitters against the KC Royals. Hey, why not right.

The first link that come up was:

Lester –> Jason Varitek –> Darren Oliver –> Nolan Ryan.

There are a lot of different connections – what a fun tool.

’08 Game 47: I think this is a quality start!

Nine Innings Pitched. No runs. Two walks. Nine Strikeouts. AND No HITS!

JL#31 pitches a no-no at the Fens. And the rumor is true, I did get offered a ticket to the game. No, I was not there. Long story.

Lester threw first strikes to 20 of 29 hitters. He fanned eight batters overall, including seven over the last five innings. He threw a career-high 130 pitches. It was his first career complete game.

To date, I thought JL31′s best performance was in an eight inning, one-hitter in Game 28 of this season in a duel with Doc Halladay. Obviously, this moves to the top of the chart. Including that start on April 29th, Jon’s last five outings have been very good. He is 2-0, with 34 1/3 innings pitched, with a 1.57 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP, and only 1 home run. Four of the five outings have been quality starts and during the span, he has lowered his ERA two whole runs (from 5.40 to 3.41). The no-hitter is the high point of what has been a very good stretch by the lefty.

Here’s the QS Bottom-Line:

Game 47	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
JL #31	9.0	0	0	0	2	9	0	130-86	3.41

from multimedia.boston.co posted with vodpod

The End Result:
No-no for Lester! Anyone who knows me knows that JL is my guy – he and Lowell are the only two Sox jerseys I own. We have the cancer-survivor connection going. I cried the day he was diagnosis, I cried again the day he came back, I cried when he won the 4th game of the World Series. And I cried last night. To top it off, I cried this morning watch the replay of the game. That is about all I can say about how I feel about the guy.

Red Sox Record:	28-19
Total Quality Starts:	24
Record in QS games:	16-8

A Look Ahead:

Justin Masterson takes the Fenway mound for the second time tonight against the Royals. Masterson, in his MLB debut in April, faced the Halos and was impressive over 5 innings, allowing only 2 hits. Tomorrow night, with me in attendance, Bartolo Colon, he who is rotund, will take the bump in his season and Sox debut.