Obviously the big story last night was Reds left fielder Scooter Gennett hitting four homers and driving in ten runs as the Reds romped over the Cardinals. 13-1. That was pretty random, eh? Gennett, coming in to last night only had 38 homers in his entire four year career, and then he uncorks that crazy night. I love how random baseball can be sometimes.
My personal preference is to just let weirdness be weirdness when it comes to baseball oddities like that. You can’t predict them so you probably should just let it all pleasantly wash over you rather than StatCast it and analyze it to death. We’re all gonna remember Scooter Freakin’ Gennett as a guy who hit four homers in a game, much like the way we remember Mark Whiten and a couple of others for that. Barring an MVP Award or something, this will be his legacy and it’s a damn fine one to have, so who cares what the launch angle was, you know?
Of course, we are in the baseball content business here, so we’ll take some extra looks at the feat. Here is Bill’s look at the significance of it all, statistically speaking, from last night. You can see all four of the homers here:
[mlbvideo id=”1471130283″ width=”600″ height=”336″ /]
My final take on it: last night, just after Gennett hit his fourth homer, I was goofing around on Twitter with a couple of friends, imagining how such a rare and spectacular feat might be described by the player after the game. We joked that they’d still use the same cliches. Like this:
Here’s what Gennett actually said:
Baseball: it’s always there for us, never changing in an increasingly chaotic and ever-changing world. God bless ballplayers, everywhere. God bless their executed pitches, good pitches to hit and their lack of a desire to press and do too much out there, even when they do superhuman things.
Here are the scores, here are the highlights:
Reds 13, Cardinals 1: Lost in Gennett’s night is the fact that Reds starter Tim Adleman shut the Cards down, allowing only one run over seven innings and that Adam Wainwright, who gave up only one homer, the grand slam, to Gennett, got shelled for nine runs overall in less than four innings. Certainly not a night the Cardinals are gonna want to think about for long.
Red Sox 5, Yankees 4: The Red Sox and Yankees play a game that can go right up there with their classic rivalry games from 15 years ago. Not because the game was fantastic, but because it took over three and a half hours for them to play it despite there being only 15 hits between the two teams. Mitch Moreland, Hanley Ramirez and Andrew Benintendi all hit homers off of Masahiro Tanaka, who continues to struggle mightily and is probably due for a DL stint with one of those phantom injuries like the one Bartolo Colon was given yesterday. Craig Kimbrel closed the game out by striking out five batters in an inning and a third thanks to one of them reaching on a wild pitch. Kimbrel has been mind-bogglingly good lately. He’s retired 80 batters on the year. Fifty-three of those 80 were retired via strikeout. He’s on a pace to strike out 151 guys. Last year that would’ve put him in 25th place in the American League in strikeouts. This from a guy who pitches one inning a night. Mercy.
Orioles 6, Pirates 5: The Pirates led late but Jonathan Schoop tied it in the ninth with his second homer of the game — we call that a half-Scooter in the biz — and Mark Trumbo singled home a run in the 10th to complete the comeback.
Angels 5, Tigers 3: The Angels had a 4-0 lead mid-game, the Tigers crept back in and tried to rally in the ninth but Bud Norris stopped the bleeding. But just barely. The Tigers loaded the bases with two outs and Norris fell behind 3-0 to Alex Avila. He managed to strike Avila out though, with Avila getting caught looking at strike three. Phew. Kole Calhoun and C.J. Cron homered for the Angels.
White Sox 4, Rays 2: Avisail Garcia, Yolmer Sanchez and Todd Frazier homered for the White Sox (a collective .75Gennett, per StatCast or whatever) as they snap a five-game losing streak. Jose Quintana was solid after tossing complete stink bombs in his previous two outings.
Phillies 3, Braves 1: Aaron Nola allowed one run on five hits over eight innings. Odubel Herrera doubled in the go-ahead run in the sixth and then came around to score on a balk later in the inning. Someone in the Spanish-speaking press should ask Mike Schmidt for his opinions on that and then disparage him if he answers in English.
Brewers 5, Giants 2: Chase Anderson pitched seven and two-thirds shutout innings and [all together now] helped is own cause by doubling in a run in the third. Matt Cain gave up five runs on ten hits in five innings. After a solid April that had a lot of people talking about his comeback, Cain has seen his ERA climb over two and a half runs in seven starts.
Rangers 10, Mets 8: Rangers pitchers gave up five homers — and Jay Bruce almost hit another one, only to have it robbed by Jared Hoying — to the Mets but their hitters bailed ’em out by rattling off ten runs on 16 hits. Joey Gallo‘s 17th homer on the year came in the third inning, making it 5-4 Texas. There was a lot more scoring to come, but that put the Rangers up for good in this one.
Cubs 10, Marlins 2: Jake Arrieta pitched two-hit ball into the seventh and Anthony Rizzo drove in four as the Cubs win their fifth in a row. That comes on the heels of six straight losses. Streaky.
Royals 9, Astros 7: Speaking of streaks, the Astros’ 11-game run is now over thanks to Mike Moustakas‘ two-run shot with two outs in the ninth to help Kansas City rally back from a six-run deficit. On any other morning we slap Moustakas’ face up at the top of this post.
Rockies 11, Indians 3: Rockies starter Antonio Senzatela hit a three-run double in the second inning and was steady into the seventh inning as the Rockies romped. Mark Reynolds hit two homers and drove in five.
Diamondbacks 10, Padres 2: Robbie Ray continues his torrid run, striking out 11 Padres batters and allowing just one run while pitching into the seventh. Jake Lamb drove in four and Chris Owings knocked in three.
Athletics 4, Blue Jays 1: Jesse Hahn was activated from the DL and came in to allow only an unearned run in six innings. Khris Davis knocked in two and Ryon Healy hit an RBI.
Mariners 12, Twins 3: Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager each hit three-run homers as the M’s stay hot, winning their eighth game in nine tries. All that offense made up for a mediocre James Paxton start.
Nationals 2, Dodgers 1: Death taxes and Max Scherzer striking out a bunch of dudes. Here he allowed only an unearned run in seven innings and struck out 14 Dodgers batters. His K-totals in his last three starts: 14, 11 and 13. He’s started 12 games this year. He’s struck out ten or more guys in half of them.
