More on Double Plays
Posted: April 22nd, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 41 Comments »
Here’s a quick look at one of the weirdest games in baseball history, May 4, 1969 — San Francisco Giants vs. the Houston Astros.
The Giants started Juan Marichal, the Astros started Denny Lemaster. And in the first inning, the Giants jumped all over LeMaster … Ron Hunt singled, Willie Mays singled, Jack Hiatt walked and then Dick Dietz walked to score the first run. Astros manager Harry the Hat Walker had seen enough: He yanked LeMaster and put in the irrepressible Dooley Womack.
And Womack induced Jim Ray Hart to hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning. Induce is a great double-play word.
Nothing of consequence happened in the second inning, though Houston tied the game.
In the third, Mays and Hiatt singled to put runners on first and second with one out. This time Dick Dietz hit into the double play, third-to-second-to-first. The Astros took the lead in the bottom of the inning on a Joe Morgan homer.
In the fourth, Hart led off with a single. Bobby Etheridge promptly hit into the 6-4-3 double play.
In the fifth, it was Juan Marichal who led off with a single. Frank Johnson hit into the 4-3 double play.
Nothing in the sixth, but in the seventh the Giants got runners on first and second and Houston put in a new pitcher, Fred Gladding. Marichal hit a grounder to short, Denis Menke fielded it, stepped on second, fired to first. That’s the fifth double play.
In the eighth, Bob Burda led off with a single. Ron Hunt grounded to first baseman Curt Blefary, stepped on the bag, and threw out Burda at second. That’s six double plays.
And then in the ninth, with the Giants down 3-1, with runners on first and third, with one out, Bobby Etheridge hit the tailor-made double play … 4-6-3. That’s seven. And that is the record.
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“Tailor-made” is another great double play word…
I’m amazed that in the history of baseball that 7 is the record.
Agreed. A man has back-to-back no hitters. A man hit in 56 straight games. A team has won 20+ straight games. And so on. In the hundreds of thousands of games played you’re telling me that never once has a team hit into 8 or 9 double plays? Hard to believe.
Thanks Joe!
Another amazing reason baseball is the greatest team game.
I seem to remember the Red Sox hitting into 6 once. Any help finding this game? (They also hit into 2 triple plays in the same year, I believe.)
Since these weren’t in consecutive innings, I have to infer that the Indians at least tied the mark for most consecutive innings in which they turned a double play.
(And Crisp’s groundout to short that ended the second came with 2 outs and Willie the Q on first …)
Is 7 the record for a 9 inning game or any game at all? It’d blow me away if there hadn’t even been a 15 inning game without more than 7 double plays. Especially since extra inning affairs tend to have rally killing plays all over them.
“In the hundreds of thousands of games played you’re telling me that never once has a team hit into 8 or 9 double plays?”
That’s a double play almost every single innning. 9 is the max without extra innings…hitting into 8 double plays is hugely improbable.
The Nats will ground into 8 in a game this year.
Maybe not “ground”, there will be a baserunning error or two and at least one instance of just plain bad luck.
Interesting…I just did a BR-PI search, and yesterday’s game (not surprisingly enough) set a new team record for double plays. The previous record was five, which the team accomplished four times. Three of the four were in the Royals’ first two years of existence.
Josh in DC #7 – the Red Sox hit into six double plays a grand total of four times. In fact, their six double play performance from 1990 came a day after hitting into two triple plays, on July 18, 1990. The funniest thing is that despite erasing ten baserunners in two days, the Red Sox won both games.
The only other team to ground into double play in six consecutive innings were the Tigers, on April 16, 1996. They grounded into a double play between the 3rd and the 8th, and they still won the game…one of only 53 games the team won.
“Induce” is a verb of limited use; as far as I know, one can only induce three things:
1. A batter to hit into a double play
2. Labor
3. Vomiting
[...] Joe Posnanski placed an observative post today on More on Double PlaysHere’s a quick excerptHere’s a quick look at one of the weirdest games in baseball history, May 4, 1969 — San Francisco Giants vs. the Houston Astros. The Giants started Juan Marichal, the Astros started Denny Lemaster. And in the first inning, the Giants jumped all over LeMaster … Ron Hunt singled, Willie Mays singled, Jack Hiatt walked and then Dick Dietz walked to score the first run. Astros manager Harry the Hat Walker had seen enough: He yanked LeMaster and put in the irrepressible Dooley Womack. And Wom [...]
When did the Firsties start trolling these waters? I swear it didn’t used to be like this…
Joe, if you’re reading this, you should start deleting Firsts! and Circle Me, Berts! It makes your otherwise excellent blog low rent.
Is that too cranky? Am I alone on this?
We’re all in agreement that you can only induce double plays, not triple plays, right?
What looks like even more fun (for somebody else) is the largest number of double plays without repeating any (as far as scoring is concerned).
For the Nationals to ground in to 8 double plays, they have to be able to get 8 baserunners to first…highly doubtful
I remember watching this game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN200608120.shtml
There is just something funny about the “Twins” grounding into 5 double plays. . .
Agree with mkd. Nobody cares if you’re “first.” Get a life.
@Pope: “That’s a double play almost every single innning. 9 is the max without extra innings…hitting into 8 double plays is hugely improbable.”
But 7 GiDPs is the record EVEN in extra innings! In fact the record for most GiDPs in an extra inning game is 6, set by the Yankees in this game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN200408210.shtml
Of course, records “only” go back about 50 years. The ‘99 Spiders probably had this record beat.
It’s not all that surprising that 7 is the record. No team has ever scored in all nine innings, either, and scoring innings are more common than double plays.
I tend to agree that it isn’t all that surprising that there hasn’t been an inning with 8 or 9 DP’s. It’s probably more surprising that the record is even 7. I would tend to think that the OPPORTUNITY to hit into a double play every inning is pretty rate, let alone actually do so. How often does a team get runners on in every inning (rhetorical question)?
Sorry, pretty rare I mean.
Oh, no, “induce” is a great and versatile word.
You can induce a call in poker by making the other guy believe you’re weak.
You can induce current by running your car over those loops of wire embedded in the pavement, making the light turn green.
If you bitch about balls and strikes often enough, you think you’re inducing the umpire to think twice before ruling against you again, but you’re really probably inducing him to send you to the showers early.
“No team has ever scored in all nine innings, either, and scoring innings are more common than double plays.”
Wait, seriously?? I’ve never heard that stat before…I feel like that can’t possibly be true…
Okay, according to this it’s happened a few times; no dates, teams, or links to box scores, though: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Baseball-Trivia-General-2552/Teams-Scoring-Inning-9.htm
Yeah, it’s hard to record a double play if it’s a 1-2-3 inning. And by “hard” I of course mean “completely impossible.”
So that there’s never been an 8- or 9-DP game doesn’t surprise me in the least.
@Alex:
I believe the info from that post. Most likely someone up-the-chain of me misinterpreted never-in-the-AL trivia for never-in-baseball. Apologies.
But it’s still telling that it’s only happened three times in the modern era. And the phrase the responder uses to describe it, “It’s a pretty rare occurrence,” is obviously a vast understatement. It’s three times rarer than perfect games.
Come to think of it, though, I do recall seeing it happen once. My custom lineup of 8 different Mark McGwire’s and a 1992 Juan Gonzalez scored at least twice in every inning one time in RBI ‘93 on the Genesis. Final score: 43-0 (Dennis Eckersley on the mound).
Hmm… I could have sworn Jim Rice grounded into 8 double plays one afternoon in 1979.
(I’m joking, I’m just joking!)
To those who remain in mild disbelief:
Let us say that the odds of a team hitting into a double play in any given inning are .1 (1 out of 10) — which is actually higher than the true odds.
The odds, then, of a team hitting into double plays in each of any 8 given innings would be .1^(8) = .00000001 (1 out of 100 million). Given that there are 9 different ways to hit into 8 double plays in a nine-inning game, we can estimate that a team is going to ground into 8 double plays in a nine-inning game roughly once out of every 10 million games — and there have only been, say, 500,000 MLB team-games in history.*
Meanwhile, the odds of a team grounding into double plays in each of any 7 given innings would be .0000001 (1 out of 10 million). There are 36 different ways to hit into 7 DP in nine innings, so we can estimate that a team would get 7 GIDP in a nine-inning game one time out of 280,000.
Aren’t statistics fun?
*(~250,000 baseball games) x (2 teams in each game)
The 7 double-play game story regarding the ‘69 Giants vs. Astros was good history to learn but seeing DOOLEY WOMACK’s name again made it all the better! And, Fred Gladding too…
Question that I’ve never asked but was always puzzled…Did the Menke family not have enough time or any extra money to afford another “n” for poor Denis?
I’m amazed that the Royals hit into 6 and lost by a single run. I really think this team is going to produce more offense than we thought they were capable of.
#15- I completely agree. I don’t understand what kind of personal pleasure can be derived from digitally shouting, “FIRST!” or “Draw a circle around me Bert…. whoever you are.” Maybe I’m just cranky too, though.
Had to laugh at the Jim Rice comment, but it wasn’t a stretch of any imagination. Rice holds the record for the two highest number of double plays in any season, 36 and 35. Cal Ripken holds the all time record with 350. That’s just one reason the two are among the weakest Hall of Fame entries of all time.
Of course, we all know that playing in the eighth most games of all time and therefore grounding into 350 DPs negates good to great hitting from a premium defensive position for well over a decade.
/Cal Ripken is my favorite player.
DTRO, with all due respect and with a fan’s appreciation of what favorite players mean, of the 41 players with more than 400 career homers, Ripken ranked 40th in OPS, just ahead of Dave Kingman. His .276 career batting average and .340 career OBP are average at best.
He was a good fielder for a long time with a slightly better than league average range factor and impressive total zone fielding runs above average (as a shortstop, not at third).
Given his fielding and position, and throw in his post season record (which was excellent) and throw out the streak (which at times was more of a team detriment than aid) and you add up to a Hall of Famer. But this writer still thinks on the whole, he was overrated and one of the more marginal Hall of Famers.
But like you, I bristle at the mention of Derek Jeter’s defense, so I understand perfectly where you are coming from.
This post brought up something about bullpen usage that I also noticed when reading Clemente – namely, that while starters pitched a whole lot more complete games, managers in the 60s and 70s (and maybe earlier?) seemed to also be a whole lot quicker on the hook early in a game, pulling a starter in the first or second inning. How many pitchers today would be yanked in the first inning with the bases loaded, no out, and one run in?
Someone needs to research this…
I’m not as surprised that its never happened as I first was when considering that you can only do it once an inning. And you need a lot of base-runners, and they have to be on with less than two outs. And it has to happen repeatedly. But in the thousands upon thousands of games played, there’s never been eight? Strikeouts didn’t used to be as big a part of the as they are now, so there were more balls in play before. I suppose that could be counter balanced though by the way the game was played through much of history. Many more steal attempts, more sac bunts, more hit and runs, etc, all of which would tend to prevent double plays. And I guess a manager would, if his team had just hit into three in the first three innings, start using all those methods to avoid getting into another one. Yeah, I can’t imagine a leadoff man on in the fourth after three double plays, and not putting on a sac or a hit and run. I sort of talked myself out of my surprise here.
Oh, and down with firsties.
I think the “more complete games” and “quicker hook” kind of went together. You had one less starting pitcher on each staff (they mostly had 4 man rotations then) and they pitched far more innings….the bullpen got way less day to day use, so you didn’t worry so much about bringing in relievers really early. And also there weren’t all these ROLE type relievers….middle setup/long setup/short setup/closer etc. To a great degree you had a bunch of guys who weren’t quite good enough to be starters so they were mostly in the pen unless somebody got hurt. If somebody stunk it up right off you just brought in another quasi-starter and let him pitch until he stunk too. It wasn’t until later in the game that the righty/lefty platooning stuff became important.
Has any team ever hit into 2 double plays in the same inning? With a dropped 3rd strike, it is possible.
@Jim in Jax: No, it’s not possible — even with a dropped third strike.
Lead off hitter gets on base. Second batter hits into a 6-4-3 DP. Third batter reaches on a dropped third strike. Cleanup hitter hits a grounder to short; shortstop flips to second for the force, and the inning is over without a chance (or need) to turn the double play.
6 double plays for the blue jays today, against, ironically enough, the royals.