May ends, plunk free.

Craig Biggio's streak of consecutive Mays with an HBP ended at 14 last night. He did not get hit by a pitch, but he did get 3 hits closer to 3000, and helped the Astros snap their 10 game losing streak with a 10-2 win.

The unplunked May takes away the last linear projection that showed 6 plunks, and a total of 288, by the end of the season - that being the plunks per month projection. He only need 1 plunk per month this year, but at this point, he has only 1 plunk in 2 months. On the positive side though, Craig Biggio's plunk collection has never been linear, and he can easily get back on the record setting pace, particularly after he gets another 23 hits, reaches 3000, and gets back to his policy of getting on base however possible. His fastest 23 hits ever were recorded in just 12 games, and his slowest 23 hits took 52 games. He's gotten hit 5 times in as few as 5 games, but he also has 9 different 5 plunk spans in his career that took longer than the 109 games the Astros have left this year. He hasn't been plunked that infrequently since 1992, but 1992 was also the last year in which he didn't get hit in May. It took him 134 games to get plunks from plunk 10 to 15 in '92, but 16 and 17 showed up later in that same month.

Tonight, the Cardinals come to town, with pitcher Adam Wainwright expected to take the mound for the visitors. Wainwright has never plunked Biggio but he has hit 4 batters this season (Don Kelly, Xavier Nady, Russel Martin and Chris Iannetta), bringing his career total to 8 in only 133.2 career innings. But, Wainwright has never thrown a major league pitch on June 1st that didn't hit someone (which is to say... he's never pitched on June 1st).

Craig Biggio has been plunked twice on June 1st. Glendon Rusch threw plunk number 250 on June 1, 2004 and Andy Benes of Cardinals plunked Biggio on June 1, 1996. Biggio scored on a Jeff Bagwell hit after both of those plunks, but the 2004 game was the only win for the Astros.