Carl Yastrzemski's Amazing Sept/Oct of 1967

Carl Yastrzemski had one of the greatest seasons ever in 1967. He won the triple crown. His WAR of 12.4 is the 4th highest for position players with only Babe Ruth ever having a higher one. See Single-Season Leaders & Records for WAR Position Players from Baseball Reference.

He also had the highest Championship Win Probability Added ever for a single season. More about that later. It means he hit very well later in the season in close games in a close pennant race. His Red Sox had to beat the Twins in each of the last two games of the season or the Twins would have come in first place and the Red Sox would have tied for 2nd place or come in 3rd. Boston won by 1 game.

The table below shows how Yaz did during certain spans. The game numbers refer to game number for Yaz, not the Red Sox but they are close since he played 161 games that year. He played in his 134th game on Aug. 31.

Games	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1-134	0.308	0.401	0.594	0.995
135-147	0.356	0.442	0.644	1.087
148-161	0.471	0.557	0.863	1.420
148-154	0.385	0.484	0.731	1.215
155-161	0.560	0.633	1.000	1.633

So he had a great year up thru Aug. 31. But then in the first 13 games of Sept. (games 135-147) he was even better. That performance was eclipsed by the next 14 games (also the last 14 of the season). A 1.420 OPS in the last two weeks of one of the tightest pennant races ever.

Breaking down those last 14 games shows that his OPS jumped from 1.215 in the first 7 of them to 1.633 in the last 7.

In his last 27games from Sept. 1-Oct. 1 he had

AVG .417

OBP. .504

SLG .760

OPS 1.265

 

That is amazing considering the context of the season. Below is the league OPS by months for the AL. Sept. was the lowest. Generally the rest of the league was hitting worse that month but Yaz hit much better.

 

April  0.680
May  0.662
June  0.664
July  0.652
August  0.650
Sept  0.630

 

It did not stop there. In the 7 game World Series, Yaz went 10 for 25 with 3 HRs & 5 RBIs. His percentages were

 

AVG. .400

OBP .500

SLG .840

OPS 1.340 

 

Now back to Championship Win Probability Added (cWPA) that was mentioned earlier. What is it?

 

"Given average teams, this is the change in probability, displayed in percentage points. A change of +/- 100% would indicate one world series win added or lost." 

 

See Single-Season Leaders & Records for Championship WPA (cWPA) from Baseball Reference.

 

Here are the top 10 seasons in the BB Ref database since 1912:

 

Player	(cWPA)	Year	Last 14 Games
Carl Yastrzemski	52.14	1967	41.79
Bobby Thomson	50.19	1951	43.42
Willie Mays	45.64	1962	25.72
Babe Ruth	44.9	1921	11.47
Al Wickland	38.87	1915	40.58
Tommy Davis	34.57	1962	15.46
Babe Ruth	31.07	1924	-1.6
Jackie Robinson	30.51	1951	16.21
Ken Keltner	30.08	1948	19.99
Harmon Killebrew	29.42	1967	16.94

 

I included how much their cWPA was in the last 14 games because of how well Yaz did in his last 14 games. It is not surprising that a huge portion for him came then.

 

Thomson has more in his last 14 games but he had 3 games in an unscheduled, tie breaking playoff between the Giants and Dodgers to decide the pennant. His famous "shot heard 'round the world" HR that ended it has 35.56 all by itself. It helps to have such crucial games.

 

Yaz does have the highest cWPA event ever in a scheduled regular season game. It was a single with the bases loaded off of Twins pitcher Dean Chance in the 6th inning of the last game. It drove in 2 runs to tie the score at 2-2. The cWPA was 10.49.

 

Click here to see all regular season cWPA events of 10 or higher. Yaz is only 5th out of 6. But all the others were in an unscheduled tie breaking playoff game.

 

Click here to see the box score for that game. Yaz went 4 for 4 with a double and those 2 RBIs. Red Sox won 5-3 to clinch the pennant.

Guys who hit 3 HRs in 1 game off of a Hall of Fame pitcher (or pitchers)

 I looked at the HR logs of all Hall of Fame pitchers

Guys who hit 3 HRs in 1 game off of a Hall of Fame pitcher(or pitchers). Headings are Batter-Pitcher(s)-Year. If you think I missed any cases let me know

Jack Manning Clarkson 1884
Foxx  Gomez 1933
Jim Lemon Ford  1956
TWilliams Wynn-Lemon 1957
Bench  Carlton  1970
Bench  Carlton  1973
Mayberry  Jenkins  1975

Jim Presley  Morris  1986

I knew of the Williams case because BB Ref recently posted a list of all the cases of a guy hitting a HR off of 2 different Hall of Fame pitchers in one game and Ted hit 1 off Lemon and 2 off Wynn

 

You might already know this but Manning hit his 3 HRs in Lake Park where the Chicago White Stockings played. It was probably only about 230 feet to RF (all or most of it, not just down the line). Before this year any ball hit over the RF fence was just a 2B. But for this year alone they were HRs. Manning was on the visiting team, Philadelphia.

 

See "Clarifying an Early Home Run Record" by John C. Tattersall. 

 

 

What happened in 2014? The rise of the 10 strikeout & 2 or fewer walks per 9 IP pitcher

I noticed that Tarik Skubal, Zach Wheeler and Joe Ryan this year so far all have both 10+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP. Then I wondered how often this has been done for a full season.

So I had Stathead call up all the seasons of 162+ IP with both 10+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP in the AL/NL since 1900. Click here to see those results. The results were the same if I used 154 IP since no one from before 1965 did it with that IP total.

Sandy Koufax in 1965 was the 1st pitcher with 162+ IP, 10+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP. The next guy to do it was Curt Schilling in 1998. Then it was done 9 times from 1998-2004 but not again until 2014 and since then it has been done 28 times.

The 1998-2004 period might not be a real trend or turning point since 7 of the 9 cases belong to just two pitchers: Curt Schilling (4) and Pedro Martinez (3). 

But whether that was a trend or not, there were no cases from 2005-2013. Then in 2014 it was done by 4 different pitchers. In 2019 it was done by 6. And again, a total of 28 times from 2014-24. What changed in 2014? I don't think I have any good guesses. Maybe as pitchers innings have been going down they have been throwing harder so rate stats like this have gone up. But I don't know how to figure out if that is the case.

I also wondered if maybe things were trending upwards from 2005-13 that is not seen here if alot of guys were getting closer than before but not quite making it.

So I had Stathead call up all the seasons of 162+ IP with just 9+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP from 1998-2013. I thought maybe the lower SO standard might capture a trend. Click here to see those results.

There were 11 of these cases from 1998-2004 and 10 from 2005-13. That does not look like an increasing trend. And in the latter period, 5 of the 10 cases were guys with 9.0 to 9.4 SO/9IP. So there were not alot of near misses on the 10/2 criteria. There were no 9.9s & just one 9.8. The next highest was 9.6.  

So that still leaves me with the question: What changed in 2014 to give us 4 of these guys that year and 28 in total since then? The most ever before 2014 in one year was 2 yet since 2014 there have 8 seasons of 3+.

Players who hit a HR off multiple Hall of Famers in the same game

This was posted by BB Ref. The link itself then has links to the box scores of each game (I also supply the links below with the pitcher involved)

https://bsky.app/profile/baseball-reference.com/post/3lswfm3rrp224

Dave Parker, Ruth, Mantle, Ted Williams, Billy Williams, Jackie Jensen, Rickey Henderson, Eduardo Perez, B.J. Surhoff.

 

Pitchers that appear twice on this list are Dennis Eckersley, Bob Feller and Bob Lemon. 

 

Eduardo Pérez in 2005 — the pitchers were Randy Johnson & Mariano Rivera. (The HR off of Rivera tied the game in the bottom of the 9th giving Rivera a blown save-All 3 of the Rays runs in the first 9 innings were driven in on the Perez HRs and they won 4-3 in 11 innings)

 

B.J. Surhoff in 1998 — the pitchers were Pedro Martínez & Dennis Eckersley. (Two days later Surhoff would hit the last HR that Eckersley would give up in his career-the last 2 were by Surhoff).

 

Rickey Henderson in 1987 — the pitchers were Phil Niekro & Steve Carlton. (The HR off of Carlton was a 2 out 2 run HR and it gave the Yankees a 1 run lead in the top of the 9th but they lost in the bottom of the inning).

 

Dave Parker in 1985 — the pitchers were Dennis Eckersley and Lee Smith. (The HR off of Smith was a grand slam)

 

Billy Williams in 1967 — the pitchers were Juan Marichal & Gaylord Perry. (The HR off of Perry tied the game in the bottom of the 9th)

 

Ted Williams in 1957 — the pitchers were Early Wynn & Bob Lemon. (Williams hit 3 HRs in this game, 2 off of Wynn)

 

Mickey Mantle in 1956 — the pitchers were Bob Lemon & Bob Feller. (The HR off of Lemon was a grand slam)

 

Jackie Jensen in 1954 — the pitchers were Bob Feller & Hal Newhouser. (this was the last career HR allowed by Newhouser)

 

Babe Ruth in 1928 — the pitchers were Red Faber & Ted Lyons. 

Today is the anniversary of the "Grich game" when he almost single handedly defeated the Yankees and Ron Guidry in 1979

Click here to go the box score and play by play at Baseball Reference.

Bobby Grich went 4 for 5 (all against Guidry). That included a HR and a 2B with 5 RBIs in a 5-4 come from behind win for the Angels. Grich had a win probability added (WPA) of 1.211, the 10th highest that we know of (and 3rd highest in 9 inning games). Guidry won the Cy Young award the year before while leading the league in ERA. He would lead the AL again in ERA in 1979. This was a home game for the Angels.

Here are Grich's ABs:

1st: Lineout with one out and none on trailing 2-0.

3rd: Single with runners on 1st and 2nd and one out to drive in a run to make the score 4-1.

5th: Single with a man on first and two outs. But next batter makes an out.

7th: Double with runners on 1st and 2nd and one out. Both runners score to make it 4-3.

9th: HR with man on 1st and two outs. Gives the Angels a 5-4 victory in front of 40,739 fans (also in 2 hours 19 minutes).

As mentioned earlier, Grich had a win probability added (WPA) of 1.211, the 10th highest that we know of (using the Baseball Reference Play Index-for games of at least 1.1, the earliest is 1925). Click here to see all those games. Art Shamsky had a game of 1.503 in 1966, which is the best. WPA uses historical data to estimate how much every change in the base-out-score situation changes a team's probability of winning. The later and closer the game, the more a hit increases WPA.

That famous "Sandberg game" when Ryne hit two clutch HRs off of Bruce Sutter is 42nd with 1.063. I have written about that game. It was impressive, but Sutter was no longer in is prime like Guidry was in 1979. Grich's game is far better. See my post from a few years ago Where Does "The Sandberg Game" Rank In WPA? I explain how hitting a HR off of Sutter was not especially hard at that point in his career.

Guidry as well rested coming into the game. He went 6 innings on July 10th, so he was not over worked. He did face 38 batters in this game, including 10 Ks and 2 BBs. So he could have easily thrown over 100 pitches.

He faced Grich for the 5th time that game in the 9th inning. Guidry's OPS allowed that year when facing batters for the 4th time or more in a game was .863. Pretty high. But the year before it was just .334 and the year after it was .627. So Guidry was not necessarily going to have problems in this situation. In 1977 it was .739

Here is what all AL pitchers allowed facing batters for the 4th time or more in a game in from 1977-80 with the league average OPS for all PAs after it in parentheses.

1977: .746 (.735)
1978: .719 (.711)
1979: .765 (.743)
1980: .766 (.731)

So batters did somewhat better facing a pitcher for the 4th time or more, but in the two previous years, not by much. Yes, Guidry faced Grich for the 5th time in the 9th. But he was the Cy Young award winner the previous year (with a 1.74 ERA). So it is not surprising a manager would stick with him.

Rich Gossage, one of the Yankees' best relievers, worked 3.2 innings the day before and another good righty reliever, Ron Davis had pitched 2.1. Davis also pitched on July 13th. Looking at the Yankee roster, those guys seem to have been the best possible options.

Grich was a righty and Guidry was a lefty. But Guidry did not get hit that hard by righties. Here are his HRs allowed divided by PAs for the years 1977-80:

1977: 9/606
1978: 11/757
1979: 17/776
1980: 12/729

So a manager would not have worried too much about Guidry having to face a righty.

Here is the OPS Guidry allowed vs. righties:

1977: .629
1978: .561
1979: .667
1980: .724

Here is the OPS Guidry allowed during innings 7-9:

1977: .677
1978: .428
1979: .755
1980: .659

Again, no big indicators that it would be a problem to leave Guidry in. Grich did hit 30 HRs that year but before that he had never hit 19. He did have 18 HRs in 358 PAs thru July 14, which is a pretty good total.

Here are his OPS vs. lefties:

1976: .794
1977: .807 (in only 50 PAs, he was hurt)
1978: .796
1979: .909 (but it was .900 vs. righties)
1980: .547

So it looks like there would have been no reason for a manager to especially fear Grich when facing a lefty. Good, but not devastating numbers.

Update 7-16-18: Grich had only faced Guidry 7 times before this game in his career and only once before that season. Grich was 2 for 7 with a single, a double and 3 strikeouts. Sandberg had faced Sutter 12 times including 4 times that season.

Update 7-17-25: It looks like only 2 guys ever had 4+ hits & 8+ TBs in a game vs. Guidry. I checked all such games vs. Yankees from 1975-88. The link below shows all of those games and these were the only 2 I found among them when a batter had had 4+ hits & 8+ TBs in a game vs. Guidry. 

Grich 7-15-1979 
George Bell 8-3-1983

For single games, from 1975 to 1988, Against NYY, in the regular season, requiring Hits >= 4 and Total Bases >= 8, sorted by descending Home Runs.

Update 7-17-25: Grich's teammates went 7 for 31 in the game against Guidry, just a .226 AVG with 1 2B and 2 BBs. So Grich had half of the Angels 16 TBs in the game. 

Aaron Judge had a 1.259 OPS in a 200 game span from 4-26-24 to 6-13-25. Where does that rank since 2005?

First and it is .093 higher than anyone else's best 200 game span. I am starting with 2005 to be in the post Barry Bonds era (2004 was his last great season).

Here are the top 200 game spans since 2005 that I found using Stathead.

Judge 1.259   (4/26/24 to 6/13/25)
Pujols 1.166  (2008-9)
Yelich 1.134  (2018-20) 
Cabrera 1.127  (2012-13)
Judge 1.123   (4/20/22 to 8/2/23)

Trout 1.115  (2018-9)

Chipper Jones 1.104  (2006-8)

Jose Bautista 1.103  (2010-11)

Pujols 1.102  (2005-6) 

Click here to see the search results.

Many of these players have more than one span of 200 games with a 1.100+ OPS. They mostly overlap and the ones listed above are the highest for each guy, accept for Judge and Pujols who each have two completely separate 200 game spans. 

The cases listed above are the only ones since 2005 of 1.100 or higher. Pujols had an additional span of 1.108 during 2003-4.