15,000 days ago, on June 12, 1970, the baseball world saw one of its most memorable and unlikely achievements when Pittsburgh’s Dock Ellis tossed a no-hitter. Ellis was a talented pitcher, certainly better than many others who have thrown no-hitters over the years, but it’s hard to find anyone who was so unlikely to toss […]

Last year, Max Marchi rolled out something called Hardball Times Bullpen Usage Reports, which lay out the recent pitching usage of each major league team’s bullpen. It took us a little while to get the charts back up for 2011, but I’m happy to report that 2011 Bullpen Usage Reports are now live and updated […]

Cardinals 8, Reds 1: Albert Pujols was activated, but did not play. Makes me think this was a whole “Westley bluffing his way to victory over Humperdink even though he was still partly paralyzed from the ‘mostly dead’ thing” from “The Princess Bride.”  His mere presence and threat carried the day, at least psychologically speaking. […]

Nats 5, Cubs 4: Jayson Werth was getting booed like crazy — especially when he struck out with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh — but then he unexpectedly steals third base in the 10th inning and subsequently scores on a wild pitch, winning the ballgame, and the cheers rained down. His postgame […]

Interleague is in the rearview mirror once again, millions of cookouts were conducted Monday and a gazillion firewords lit up the night skies. What a great country. One of the freedoms we hold in America is the right to vote. This applies much more significantly to our elected offices, but that doesn’t mean sharing our […]

Holiday weekends weird me out. Sunday night doesn’t feel like Sunday night so doing the recaps of Sunday games doesn’t feel natural. That’s especially true when Monday is a big honkin’ hardly-anyone-goes-to-work-holiday like today.  Which means it’s a big honkin’ hardly-anyone-reads-the-blog day too. But there are a few of you out there, I’m sure, who […]

The five most exciting games from June 26 to July 2: date game stars 06-30 Giants @ Cubs *** box score 06-26 Angels @ Dodgers ** box score 07-01 Giants @ Tigers ** box score 06-29 Giants @ Cubs ** box score 06-28 Indians @ Diamondbacks ** box score The best of the month of […]

Cubs 5, Giants 2: Just your standard hit-a-tying-homer-off-the-World-Champs’-closer-in-the-ninth/hit-a-three-run-walkoff-homer-in-the-13th-inning kind of game for the Cubbies. Aramis Ramirez and Geovany Soto did the honors on those homers, respectively. Another in a long series of wasted Matt Cain starts for the Giants. Tigers 5, Mets 2: Justin Verlander watched the Mets’ blitzkrieg from the dugout on the previous […]

Twenty-five years ago today, baseball witnessed one of its stranger and most unlikely on-field fights. It was an odd one because (1) it pitted a manager against a player, and (2) it involved martial arts. Either one would make it a memorable fight, but combined—okay, this is worth looking into. It came in a game […]

Mets 16, Tigers 9: The Mets blast the Tigers’ pitching for the second night in a row (though the Tigers blasted back a bit themselves). Everyone in the Mets’ starting lineup hit, including Scott Hairston, whose bases loaded triple in the first broke it open, after which he did some lame antlers thing or whatever […]