Jesus Aguilar's epic at-bat leading off the bottom of the ninth inning on Saturday was so long, Brewers manager Craig Counsell almost forgot it began with two strikes.I can see that the most pitches for a single at bat is 20:
And it was so good, with Aguilar flicking seven two-strike fouls before crushing the 13th pitch from Marlins reliever Junichi Tazawa for a walk-off home run and a 6-5 Brewers win at Miller Park, that Aguilar could proudly say he'd never had a better at-bat.
[Ricky] Gutiérrez holds the modern-day MLB record for seeing the most pitches (20) in a single at bat. On June 26, 1998 at Jacobs Field, Gutiérrez, then a member of the Astros, squared off against Cleveland Indians pitcher Bartolo Colón to open the top of the eighth inning. Colón's first two pitches were strikes, but over the next 17, Gutiérrez took three balls and hit 14 fouls. With the 20th pitch of the at bat, Gutiérrez struck out. This single match up accounted for 18% of the pitches that Colón threw in the game.But Gutiérrez struck out. Is 13 the record for an at bat that ends in a home run?
In my so-far futile search, I did find this (at Athlon), answering the question "What is the record for most foul balls hit in a single at-bat?"
There are no records kept for foul balls during particular at-bats, but there is one unusual record in this category that is likely to never be broken. Philadelphia outfielder Richie Ashburn, who played from 1948-62, was known for his ability to prolong at-bats by fouling off pitches. During one such at-bat in Philadelphia, he fouled off 14 pitches. One of them struck a woman who was sitting in the stands, breaking her nose. While she was being carried off on a stretcher, she was hit by a second foul ball from Ashburn during the same at-bat.Now, that is amazing. And I remember Richie Ashburn (because my father and grandfather — in Delaware — watched the Phillies in those days). But it doesn't answer my question other than to suggest that there is no way of knowing.
IN THE COMMENTS: Curious George was able to find an 18-pitch at bat that ended in a home run, here. It's Alex Cora (a Dodger) against Cubs pitcher Matt Clement in 2004. But it's not a walk-off home run, so maybe Aguilar has the record for most pitches in a single at bat that ends in a walk-off home run.
UPDATE: Just today — in an amazing coincidence — the 20-year old Gutiérrez record was broken:
With an epic 21-pitch at-bat in the top half of the first inning against Angels rookie Jaime Barria, [Giants first baseman Brandon] Belt broke the Major League record for the most pitches seen in an at-bat.The pitcher won that battle. Belt hit a fly ball caught by right fielder Kole Calhoun.
Maybe Aguilar's amazing at bat last night gave Belt the idea to specialize in hitting a lot of foul balls.
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IIRC, Ashburn went to visit her in the hospital and became friendly with the woman and her family. They stayed in touch with each other for years.
Richie Ashburn was from Tilden, Nebraska.
Baseball. The only reason to watch the game is to collect the statistics!!
A simple google search turns up an 18 pitch at bat. You can watch the whole thing Vhere called by the best announcer ever, Vin Sculley.
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So 13 isn't the longest. Still great at bat.
Luke Appling, the Chicago White Sox short stop was famous for hitting lots of fouls until he got the pitch he wanted.
After he retired as a player he was a successful manager in minor leagues.
The only thing amazing about it was that Jesus did it.
"Protecting the plate" is how you get up to that many pitches.
How 'bout that No-Hitter by the Oakland A's!
I remember Richie Ashburn too. Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn, I can remember both of them in an after game interview which is probably when I first became aware of them. Robin Roberts tried in his later years to win enough games to become a 300 game winner but fell short while Richie Ashburn retired early. I remember a few years ago hearing that he had died of a heart attack at 70 or maybe 69.
Well, Bay Area Guy, it would be noteworthy if Jesus had pitched it.
"How 'bout that No-Hitter by the Oakland A's!"
I was watching the last two innings of that game except I dosed off and missed the ninth inning and woke up just in time to see him being interviewed about his no hitter.
"Why is a baseball park the so cool during the game?"
The old answer had been, "Because there's a fan in every seat"
But the new answer is, "Because the wind is so strong and the temperature so low that no fans are needed"
https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2018-04-07/AP/Blue_Jays_Rangers_Baseball_13434.jpg-4c7f6.jpg?uuid=KFhx-DrSEeivPCEjcV943w
There are NO baseball stats that are not compiled somewhere.
We watched the game last night. That was an amazing at bat. The Brewers almost never scored in the late innings last year. This year, they've had some very dramatic walk-off wins.
Almost as amazing was the fact that the game was tied because a Marlins outfielder missed what should have been a routine catch of a pop up fly. Marlins fans must be quite depressed. The Marlins look awful right now.
Also noteworthy: the Oakland A's pitcher threw a no-hitter against the very formidable Red Sox - a game caught by one of my favorite former Brewers, Jonathan Lucroy.
Hitting the same woman twice like that is just too unlikely to be an accident, and she was a moving target! It was on purpose and very mean, but such skill, even in the service of evil, is impressive.
"A simple google search turns up an 18 pitch at bat. You can watch the whole thing Vhere called by the best announcer ever, Vin Sculley...."
Thanks, but of course I did Google searches. What words did you put in your search? I used the words I was able to think of.
mockturtle, Baseball Reference.com is my go-to place for baseball stats.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/
To me, the single most amazing baseball stat is that since 1871, the year major league baseball was established, there have been 19, 228 major league players. That includes the guys who pitched just one inning or had one at bat before they were sent back to the minors and were never seen again. So over a span of almost 150 years there have been fewer than 20,000 MLB players. Yankee Stadium holds 52,325.
A player has to be immensely talented to attain even scrub status in the majors.
Alex Cora now manages the Red Sox, started this year. Doing well, by all accounts. More information on his 18-pitch at-bat (and other "epic" at-bats) here.
If those epic at bats happened all the time people would get bored. It could become much more common if batters could perfect the game of making contact all the time and knew how to do it to keep the ball foul. It's a strategy for wearing out the pitcher. It's also interesting because you can send in a reliever in the middle of an at bat, so it might be considered unfair or damaging to pitchers if it became very common. Would pitchers feign injury to extract themselves from the ordeal? I wonder if at some point they'd change the rules to keep this from happening.
Would pitchers feign injury to extract themselves from the ordeal?
No pitcher ever wants to leave a game even if he has just loaded the bases for the third time and is behind 12-0.
"A player has to be immensely talented to attain even scrub status in the majors."
I assume you've seen "Bull Durham."
"Ann Althouse said...
Thanks, but of course I did Google searches. What words did you put in your search? I used the words I was able to think of."
I think I just typed in your question..."most pitches in an at bat ending in a home run?"
Just redid it. It's there.
"During one such at-bat in Philadelphia, he fouled off 14 pitches. One of them struck a woman who was sitting in the stands, breaking her nose. While she was being carried off on a stretcher, she was hit by a second foul ball from Ashburn during the same at-bat."
Confession: this made me laugh. I do hope she was not injured, beyond the broken nose.
-sw
@exiledonmainstreet:
The greatest hitter ever? You can forget Mays, Mantle, etc., it is, in fact, John Paciorek, who went 3 for 3 in the only game he ever played in the Bigs in 1963. John was the older brother Tom Paciorek, who would go on to have a very good big league career.
Most pitches thrown in a single at-bat.
Most pitches thrown in a single at-bat that ended in a home run.
Most pitches thrown in a single at-bat that ended in a walk-off home run.
Most pitches thrown in a single at-bat that ended in a walk-off home run in April.
"Yes, yes, but what I want to know is: "Most pitches thrown by a lefty....
" John Paciorek, who went 3 for 3 in the only game he ever played in the Bigs in 1963."
That's interesting. I wonder why, after such a great start, he only played in 1 game.
Willie Mays went 1-26 when he was called up to the bigs. He told his manager, Leo Durocher, that he wasn't ready to face major league pitching. Durocher reassured him. Mays was off and running the next day. Durocher said later of Mays, "If he could cook, I'd marry him."
"And it was so good, with Aguilar flicking seven two-strike fouls before crushing the 13th pitch from Marlins reliever Junichi Tazawa for a walk-off home run and a 6-5 Brewers win at Miller Park, that Aguilar could proudly say heed never had a better at-bat."
We have:
..a superfluous conjunction;
..a four word simple sentence (subject, verb, adverb, adjective);
..a 29 word prepositional phrase;
..an eleven word prepositional phrase.
Hammond recommends the 29 word phrase be re-worked into two or more separate sentences. The phrase "that Aguilar..." should immediately follow "...so good." The 45 word sentence cannot comfortably be read aloud without re-aspiration.
Good reporting gives facts precedence over conjecture. When unscrambled, the sentence reads: "[I]t was so good that Aguilar could say...." Several important facts are obscured in the intervening 29 word phrase ancillary phrase. Good reporting would give precedence to the facts, and tell us what Aguilar actually did say.
Bad writing. Good baseball.
Unknown quotes "...a woman who was sitting in the stands, breaking her nose."
Why would she do that?
There was no systematic collection of game pitch counts until the 1970s, and no data broken down batter-by-batter until about 30 years ago. So for any pitch data, "ever" is limited to fairly recent times. Anything older than that would be anecdotal, e.g., Ashburn's fouls might be counted in the press box because he had a reputation for fouling off pitches and creating long at-bats.
Bartolo Colon... in 1998..
Dudes still pitching, talk about "long at bats"
When I was but a young'un, I read a book titled, "The Kid Who Batted 1.000.
Yes, I see here it was published in 1951....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kid_Who_Batted_1.000
I remember thinking that the ending was perfect. But then, I was just a kid. Who still believed....
Bartolo Colon... in 1998..
Dudes still pitching, talk about "long at bats"
Yes. I recently watch him pitch an very impressive game. And you can't exactly say he 'stays in shape'.
In June 1984, Dave Bergman of the Tigers also had a 13-pitch at bat resulting in a walk-off homer in the 10th inning against Toronto. Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn44Rsn9WlY
Hi Ann,
Brandon Belt just broke the record for longest at-bat.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/22/brandon-belt-sets-major-league-record-with-epic-21-pitch-at-bat/
Elmer Fike
"I think I just typed in your question..."most pitches in an at bat ending in a home run?""
That's about what I wrote.
Whoa! Using that search, I bumbled into the amazing fact that the Gutiérrez record was broken today, with a 21-pitch at bat. Check the post update.
I am not sure that every stat has been compiled. Years ago I was half-listening to a baseball broadcast, while making supper, and I thought I heard that one of the better Mariners hitters from the 90s had a 70 game hitting streak in Saturday afternoon games in the Pacific time zone, or something like that. The announcers were riffing on Joe Dimaggio's relatively paltry streak of 56. I have tried to google that stat a few times but maybe I heard wrong or maybe that 70 game "streak" has not, in fact, been statistically compiled on any web location within google's reach
New record for most fouled off pitches. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23288953/brandon-belt-san-francisco-giants-sets-mlb-record-21-pitch-ab
Graphic of Brandon Belt's 19 contacts out of 21 pitches (2 balls). 18 fouls before lining out.
“It's also interesting because you can send in a reliever in the middle of an at ba...”
I hope it was obvious that I meant to write “can’t.”
"so maybe Aguilar has the record for most pitches in a single at bat that ends in a walk-off home run."
Probably so.
"Maybe Aguilar's amazing at bat last night gave Belt the idea to specialize in hitting a lot of foul balls."
No.
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