Barry Bonds’s controversial pursuit of Hank Aaron’s career home-run record is getting closer and closer to the finish line. He hit his 740th home run today, and is on pace to reach 755 sometime in July.
In other baseball news, the Red Sox are playing the Yankees at the Fenway Park right now, looking for their first series sweep over the Yanks since 1990. And they’re trying to finish it off with Japenese sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka, a.k.a. “Dice-K,” on the mound. The Yankees led 3-0, but now it’s tied 3-3 after three consecutive solo home runs by Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew and Mike Lowell.
UPDATE: Four in a row!! That’s the first time in Red Sox history that’s ever happened. 4-3!
P.S. It’s only the fifth time in Major League Baseball history that a team has hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs. The most recent time it happened was actually just last year, when the Dodgers hit four straight HRs on seven pitches in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the game — with the division title on the line, no less. (They won the game in the 10th inning, and went to the playoffs as the wild card team.) You can see video highlights of that amazing game here. Incredibly, J.D. Drew was one of the Dodgers to homer consecutively in that game, and he was one of the Red Sox to homer consecutively tonight.
Prior to last year, nobody had gone back-to-back-to-back in 42 years.
This time around, the four home runs happened in ten pitches. Jason Varitek got the last one. And all four were surrendered by Chase Wright — which is only the second time in MLB history that one pitcher has given up four straight homers. (The Angels’ Paul Foytack was the first to earn that dubious distinction, against the Indians in 1963. The third straight HR against Foytack was hit by Tito Francona, father of Red Sox manager Terry Francona — whose 48th birthday is today.)
The Yankees let Wright pitch out the inning; he struck out Wily Mo Pena to end the inning. That makes Wright the first pitcher in MLB history ever allowed to face another batter after giving up four straight home runs. (According to baseball-almanac.com, Jack Spring replaced Paul Foytack immediately after the fourth consecutive homer.) And, looking at it another way, it makes Wily Mo Pena the first player in MLB history ever to be struck out by a guy who just gave up four straight home runs. :) But the Yankees have now made a pitching change as the fourth inning gets underway.
UPDATE 2: The Yankees lead, 5-4, at seventh-inning stretch time. Would the Red Sox be the first team ever to hit four straight HRs in a losing effort? I’m not sure. I’m trying to figure it out now.
UPDATE 3: No, they wouldn’t — the Milwaukee Braves lost 10-8 to the Cincinnati Reds despite getting four straight homers in the seventh inning on June 8, 1961. (The Braves were the first team ever to go back-to-back-to-back-to-back.)
But anyway, the Red Sox have retaken the lead, 7-5, so for the moment, it’s a moot point. (Knock on wood.)
P.P.S. Here are the five back-to-back-to-back-to-back games in MLB history:
June 8, 1961: Reds 10, Braves 8 - Braves get 4 consecutive home runs in top 7th (Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas)
July 31, 1963: Indians 9, Angels 5 - Indians get 4 consecutive home runs in bottom 6th (Woodie Held, Pedro Ramos, Tito Francona, Larry Brown)
May 2, 1964: Twins 7, Athletics 3 - Twins get 4 consecutive home runs in top 11th (Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, Harmon Killebrew)
September 18, 2006: Dodgers 11, Padres 10 - Dodgers get 4 consecutive home runs in bottom 9th (Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson)
April 22, 2007: Red Sox vs. Yankees (in progress) - Red Sox get 4 consecutive home runs in bottom 3rd (Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek)
Weird how they’re all bunched together in the early 60’s and mid 00’s.
UPDATE 3: More detail about those previous games here.
It’s now 7-6 Boston midway through the eighth.
UPDATE 4: Red Sox win!
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Categories: Baseball
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April 22nd, 2007 at 10:19:42 pm
5-4 Yanks.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:20:43 am
GO SOX!!! they’ve been swinging the bat horribly so far this year… yet they’re still 12-5. and on a side note, papelbon had a bad 2nd half of the season last year before getting injured and wasn’t able to break dennis eckersly’s MLB ERA record. He’s absolutely untouchable so far this year, so don’t be surpised if he destroys the record in ‘07. oh, and btw, why was everyone so surprised when rivera blew the save friday night? all these so-called experts analysts need to go take a look at his stats against boston over the past several years. there really is a good reason for the cheering that my roommate had to put up with when i saw joe torre go to his “sure thing” lol. rivera comes in = good chance boston will win.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:47:29 am
Tip of the hat to the Crimson Hose. Anyone want to talk Yankees, or Yankees-Red Sox, come onna my house: here.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:58:08 am
Early 60’s was when four new teams were brought into MLB, thus inroducing 40 pitchers into baseball who otherwise would have been in the minors.
Nowadays the new parks are built for power (the left field Crawford Boxes in Houston are 314 feet, little more than a football field, away from home plate). But the last two are freaks, especially tonite. The Yanks had 60 percent of their rotation on the rack. The Yankee pitcher belonged in the minors or the bullpen, whichever.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:21:38 am
For some reason, my first thought was whether all of the home runs were solos. Obviously the last three each time were solos and the first home run of the 1964, 2006 and 2007 events were solos from the description at the linked page. But I couldn’t find anything on the 1961 and 1963 homers that started the back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Anyone?
Oh, and Frank Thomas in 1961? I had no idea he was that old. I guess that’s why he’s just a DH now. :-)
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:40:04 am
The Bonds record will never be seen as credible.
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:41:44 pm
Big deal. You beat up on our rookie pitchers and we beat up on your $100M dollar man.
Keep up the talk in late September when you finish second, as usual.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:42:59 pm
first of all, if (or should i say “when,” the way he’s going so far this year) bonds breaks the record, there’s no reason for it not to be considered credible. i’m not a big fan of the guy’s attitude (though i can’t say i wouldn’t be the same way if the media treated me the way they treat him), but he’s broken no rules. even under the assumption that he took steroids, he’s really only accused of taking them when they were LEGAL! so he has an advantage over aaron… WHO CARES?!?! aaron had an advantage over ruth with much more/better information regarding working out, nutrition, medicine, didn’t spend part of his career pitching, etc etc. so do u want to say that aaron’s record isn’t credible? of course not! is aaron’s record “better” than ruth’s? i’d say no. would bonds’s record be better than aaron’s? i’d say no again. but it would be the record none the less, and a legitimate one at that. one could even argue that aaron didn’t have to deal with being walked as much as bonds has, so he had more opportunities than bonds. is it unfair? possibly, but that’s the way the game is… and bonds just had to deal with it. u didn’t hear him complaining about how everyone was walking him. he was playing for his team, and he knew that he was helping his team when he stepped up to the plate and had a better chance of getting on base than not… only player in history to ever have a true “advantage” over the pitcher. anyway, the point is that i won’t disagree if anyone wants to argue that bonds’s record wouldn’t be as good as aaron’s or ruth’s… i’d agree with you. however, people need to stop making fools of themselves by creating a baseless argument for putting some unnecessary asterisk next to barry’s record.
(deep breath…)
ok, and second… u can talk all u want about boston’s $100M man having an off day (yet he still won, which is all i care about)… but then you have to agree not to throw a hissy fit when your $200M man fails to come through in the clutch YET AGAIN later this year. When ARod shows that he can actually perform in a big situation in a big game, come talk to me. until then, you have no right to talk about big money players having trouble in games, especially when they still WIN!
GO DEVIL RAYS!!!
April 24th, 2007 at 2:22:04 am
Shaun, The bottom line is that some people will see even legal steroid use as having an unnatural advantage in the game. The better information Aaron had allowed him to naturally make himself better. Right or wrong, they are entitled to their opinion.
The real question is what MLB should or should not do. It’s hard for me to side with anyone who wants to punish Bonds for doing something that was legal at the time he did it. To me, they have to prove he has continued to use them after the ban was put in place.
April 24th, 2007 at 8:56:38 am
I don’t think there’s any difference in our views Scott. I agree that they’re entitled to their opinion about whether he had an advantage, whether natural or unnatural. As long as it’s not illegal, he’s free to take advantage of anything available, just as hundreds of other professional ballplayers most likely took steriods. What they don’t have a right to do is treat this guy like he’s a disgrace to the game and claim that the stuff he’s accomplished doesn’t count. MLB has done what they aught to have done… make steroid use illegal. now they just need to enforce the rules as they currently stand and forget about the LEGAL activity of the past.