Rookie Walk-Off

The Royals won in happy fashion Friday night, in a season without very many happy moments:

Royals catcher Salvador Perez (El Nino) summed up the Royals’ 5-4 walk-off victory over the Indians on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium this way: “That was crazy. I think it was one of the best games of the season to me.”

And most inside a happy clubhouse felt the same after rookies Ryan O’Hearn (Brohearn) and Hunter Dozier (Doz) — who are close friends and work out in the offseason together — hit back-to-back opposite-field home runs off closer Cody Allen to launch this season’s Players’ Weekend.

It’s the first time in Major League Baseball history that two rookies hit back-to-back home runs in the ninth inning or later to win a game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

O’Hearn collected 13 hits so far in his MLB career, and six of them are home runs. He slugged .423 at AAA with 29 home runs in 869 PA. Dozier slugged .467 at AAA, but with more doubles power than home run power. Doubles power fits well in KC. Both are older rookies, so while they are off to nice starts, don’t expect them to be stars.

Long time reader Devon Young wrote me recently about the Royals and Orioles finishing the season with less than 50 wins, or under a .308 winning percentage.

Another way to look at it, is that there’ve been 16 teams under .308 from 1917-2017, with a dramatic drop-off after WW2 —

2003 Tigers
1962 Mets
1961 Phillies
1952 Pirates
1945 Phillies
1942 Phillies
1941 Phillies
1939 Phillies
1939 Browns/Orioles
1938 Phillies
1937 Browns/Orioles
1935 Braves
1932 Red Sox
1928 Phillies
1926 Red Sox
1919 A’s

& while looking all this up, I noticed the Phillies suddenly got good in 1949 , and it lasted several years. If they didn’t, then we might still have the Philadelphia Athletics, and the Phillies might’ve moved to KC or somewhere.

My reply was:

The history of baseball has been about:

Fewer innings for starting pitchers
Devaluing triples
Better competitive balance.

The Orioles and Royals are assaulting the latter.

I should have added higher fielding percentages as well.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2wcAz5n