surprising facts about Tuesday

(okay, maybe it's just surprising that someone bothered to write them down)

Craig Biggio has only been hit by one pitch this season, but that plunk was on a Tuesday. It was the 47th plunk on a Tuesday of his career, and if he'd only been plunked on Tuesdays, that would rank him tied for 85th on the active HBPs list. But, of course, he's been hit by pitches on other days of the week. Tuesday is only his 2nd most plunked day of the week, behind Saturday.

He is the only Astro so far to be plunked on Tuesday in the 2007 season, but he's never gone a full season collecting all of the Astros plunks on a particular day of the week. The closest he's come was 2003 when he got hit 5 times on Thursdays, while the rest of his team was hit twice. He accounted for 71.4% of the Astros Thurday HBPs that year, and also 60% of there Wednesday plunks in '03. His best Tuesday compare to the team was in 1993 when he collected 4 of the teams 6 Tuesday HBPs.

For his career (through yesterday) Biggio has absorbed 26.9% of the Astros HBPs recorded on Tuesdays. That's second only to Saturdays, on which he's accounted for 28% of all Astros HBPs. Through '06, he'd only record 10.9% of the Astros Tuesday hits, 10.6% of doubles and 12.7% of runs scored on Tuesdays.

Craig Biggio recorded 1 out of every 87.1 major league plunks on Tuesdays from 1988-2006, although he was a bit better on Mondays and Saturdays against the league. He recorded one of every 82.8 Monday plunks, and 1 of every 80.6 plunks on Saturdays. In 1997, Craig Biggio absorbed 3.8% of the Major League plunks thrown on Thursdays. His best Tuesday versus the entire league was in 1996, when he collected 2.3% of Tuesday HBPs.

From 1988 to today, the Astros have led the Major Leagues in being hit by pitches on Tuesdays with 175, but the Red Sox are just one behind with 174 Tuesday plunk - they've been hit once each on Tuesday's this year. From 1988 to the end of 2006, the Astros lead Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays in total HBPs, and were tied with Toronto for the lead on Saturdays. Toronto was plunked most of Fridays in that span, Baltimore led Thursdays, and the Minnesota Twins were the most plunked team on Wednesdays. Houston was the National League leader on Wednesdays, but Milwaukee got hit more than them on Thursdays, if you want to count all their plunks from when they were an AL team. Pittsburgh was the NL leader for Friday plunks in that span.