Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 11, 2007
Do You Think He's Velma's Favorite Player?

Bobby Jenks tied David Wells' AL record for conseutive batters retired Friday night:

The Chicago closer retired the side in the ninth Friday night in the White Sox 5-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners, his 33rd save in 38 chances. He's set down 38 straight batters, tying David Wells' American League record set in 1998 with the New York Yankees. It's the fourth-longest streak in major league history.

"That's unbelievable," said White Sox starter Javier Vazquez. "That's tough to do, especially in (that) situation."

Jenks did not make himself available to the media afterward because he did not want to discuss the streak, a team spokesman said. He's three batters away from tying the record Jim Barr set for San Francisco in 1972.

I'm wondering what people think of this streak compared to Wells? Wells pitched a perfect game, Jenks just needs to get a few outs at a time. Bobby has had some tough competition to face. On 7/24 the three batters he retired were Polanco, Sheffield and Ordonez. He also had a Matsui, Molina, Cano inning on 8/2 and a Wells, Thomas, Hill inning on 7/28. Yes, he's had a couple of inning where he was facing the bottom of the order, but all in all it looks like a pretty good lineup against him. Here's the list of everyone he retired:

BatterGame DateOuts
Mike Rouse07/17/20070
Grady Sizemore07/17/20071
Casey Blake07/17/20072
Julio Lugo07/19/20070
Coco Crisp07/19/20071
Dustin Pedroia07/19/20072
Placido Polanco07/24/20070
Gary Sheffield07/24/20071
Magglio Ordonez07/24/20072
Mike Hessman07/24/20070
Mike Rabelo07/24/20071
Ivan Rodriguez07/26/20070
Craig Monroe07/26/20071
Brandon Inge07/26/20072
Matt Stairs07/27/20070
Royce Clayton07/27/20071
Reed Johnson07/27/20072
Vernon Wells07/28/20070
Frank Thomas07/28/20071
Aaron Hill07/28/20072
Andy Phillips08/01/20070
Shelly Duncan08/01/20071
Melky Cabrera08/01/20072
Hideki Matsui08/02/20070
Jose Molina08/02/20071
Robinson Cano08/02/20072
Mike Hessman08/04/20070
Craig Monroe08/04/20071
Brandon Inge08/04/20072
Ryan Raburn08/05/20070
Mike Rabelo08/05/20071
Mike Hessman08/05/20072
Casey Blake08/08/20070
Franklin Gutierrez08/08/20071
Ryan Garko08/08/20072
Jose Lopez08/10/20070
Yuniesky Betancourt08/10/20071
Ichiro Suzuki08/10/20072

Posted by David Pinto at 09:42 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Starter or reliever, it's an amazing streak. My instinct tells me it would be somewhat harder as a reliever, simply because you would have to be "on," at least with respect to your control, on many different nights (in this case 13) as opposed to two. Anyone know what Jenks's longest previous streak without walking anyone is?

If this is the fourth longest perfect streak, anyone know what #2 and #3 are? I have not seen this mentioned anywhere.

Posted by: Tor at August 11, 2007 11:09 AM

Good point about being "on" so many different times. I would point out, on the flip side, that as a reliever you don't really have to deal with fatigue as a starter would.

Posted by: Phil at August 11, 2007 12:40 PM

From an article at
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070811&content_id=2142535&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
"Jim Barr's Major League mark of 41 (1972 with the Giants), Tom Browning at 40 (1988 with the Reds) and Randy Johnson at 39 (2004 with the Diamondbacks)"

Posted by: Miq at August 11, 2007 04:03 PM

Thanks, Miq. I guess it should come as no surprise that the performances of four of the five other pitchers who reached 38 consecutive -- Browning, Johnson, Wells, and Haddix -- all included perfect games (OK, Haddix's doesn't count anymore). Only Barr and now Jenks reached this mark without doing it, and obviously Jenks is the only reliever in the group.

Posted by: Tor at August 11, 2007 06:53 PM
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