plunk first, get outs later

Craig Biggio has been hit by a pitch 285 times in his major league career, and on 68 of those occasions, he was plunked by a pitcher who had not yet recorded an out in the game. 39 of those 68 were thrown by the opposing starter in the first inning while Biggio led off the game for the Astros, but he's been hit another 22 times by relief pitchers who hadn't recorded an out, and 7 more times by starters, in the first inning when Biggio was not the lead off batter, but came to bat with no outs anyway.

Another 60 of Biggio's plunks have come from pitchers who have recorded between 1 and 3 outs in the game, so a total of 128 plunks have come from pitchers who had worked one inning or less at the time of the plunk. 205 HBPs in Biggio's career were thrown by pitchers who had worked 3 innings or less.

Here's the full break down of Biggio's HBPs by number of outs recorded by the pitcher before plunking Biggio:

Outs	HBP:BGO
0	68
1 to 3	60
4 to 6	38
7 to 9	39
10 to 12	25
13 to 15	26
16 to 18	12
19 to 21	10
22 to 24	5
25	2

The record for most outs in a game before plunking Biggio is 25, and Joey Hamilton and Francisco Cordova both sat that many Astros down before plunking Biggio. Both plunked Biggio with one out in the 9th inning while they were on there way to a complete game shutout against Houston.

The longest a reliever has been in a game before plunking Biggio is 3 innings, or 9 outs, by Orel Hershiser, but he had already plunked Biggio once before in that game and was immediately replaced after throwing the 2nd one. Of the 5 pitchers who have plunked Biggio after 2 full innings of relief work, only 1 recorded another out after putting Biggio on base with the HBP. In all, 35 pitchers failed to record another out after plunking Biggio in a game - 20 starters and 15 relievers. 5 of those were relievers who didn't get anyone out. The quickest hook for a starter who failed to get an out after plunking Biggio was for Steve Cooke on July 23, 1994. Cooke plunked Biggio to lead off the 3rd inning, and then gave up 5 consecutive singles before being lifted.

But of those 68 pitchers who plunked Biggio before recording an out in the game, 5 never recorded any outs, but 10 pitched 7 or more full innings. 5 hit him a 2nd time in the game, including Mark Gardner on August 2, 1996 who plunked Biggio before recording his first out and after recording his last out, but pitcher 6 full innings in between.