Thursday, May 26, 2005

plunks around the majors

The Bluejays Shea Hillenbrand and Reed Johnson are currently tied for the league lead in HBPs with 8 each. If they keep up this pace, they would become the first pair of teammates to record 25 or more plunks each since the 1898 Baltimore Orioles, featuring Hughie Jennings and Dan McGann. That pair was hit 46 and 39 times respectively, but Hillenbrand and Johnson aren't likely to approach those totals.
No pair of teammates have broken 20 HBPs each in the same season since Kid Elberfeld and Doc Gessler got plunked 25 and 20 times for the Washington Senators in 1911*.
In 2003 the Bluejays became the second team since 1910 to have 3 players get plunked 15 or more times. Reed Johnson led the way with 20, while Carlos Delgado took 19 and Josh Phelps got 17. The other modern team to accomplish that feat was the 2000 Astros, and they weren't even led by Craig Biggio's 16 plunks (in only 101 games). Richard Hidalgo got hit 21 times that year, and Jeff Bagwell followed with 15.

*There have been only two teams since 1911 with teammates named Doc and Kid, and none since the 1914 Cincinnati Reds. 17 teams before 1911 had teammates named Doc and Kid, so we can identify the Golden Age of Doc & Kid duos as 1898-1914.

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