hit pirates
Last July this space noted that among the 30 current Major League franchises, there were only 2 whose top 2 players had as many HBPs as Craig Biggio. Since then, Biggio passed the top 2 plunked batters for the Chicago White Sox. Minnie Minoso (145) and Nellie Fox (125) combined for 270 HBPs while playing for the White Sox. Now, only the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Astros next opponents, have a top 2 who have more plunks than Biggio. Jason Kendall was hit 177 times for the Pirates, and Honus Wagner collected 107. So, even before Craig Biggio breaks Hughie Jennings' all time record, he will have been hit more times for the Astros than any 2 players for any other current franchise. Jennings recorded 205 of his 287 plunks for the defunct National League Baltimore Orioles, which was not the same franchise as the current Orioles. Jennings and John McGraw were hit a combined 293 times for that franchise - a reachable goal in the likely event that Biggio plays the 2007 season for the Astros in pursuit of 3000 hits.
Pirates' batters have been hit 4,483 times in franchise history through yesterday. That ranks their franchise 2nd all time, behind the Giants 4711, but the Cardinals are only 4 plunks behind at 4,479. Through 2005, the Pirates had 648 different batters who had been hit by at least one pitch, 3rd all time behind the Cubs (674) and Cardinals (660).
2 Comments:
Craig Biggio recently set the record for most career leadoff HRs in the national league.
Just curious, but does he also hold the record for the most leadoff plunks?
the leadoff plunks record would be tough to establish - for reasons I don't understand, people have kept track of home runs much more carefully than HBPs. I know for sure that there have been 21 times Biggio has been plunked to lead off the 1st inning, but there are another 90 plunks where I just know he was hit by the starting pitcher with no information on what inning he was hit. Inning by inning game logs aren't currently available online for the 1993-1999 seasons (although if anyone sees them, please let me know). But even if we could establish Biggio's leadoff plunk total, the 19th century guys like Hughie Jennings don't even have game by game records, much less inning by inning.
Post a Comment
<< Home