Recorded his 3,000th career strikeout by fanning Kole Calhoun of the Los Angeles Angels for his sixth strikeout of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning on September 28, during his final start of the regular season. He became the 18th player in history to reach this mark. Verlander would go on to finish the game with 12 strikeouts, with his final one, against Calhoun in the sixth inning, making him the 19th pitcher in Major League history to record at least 300 strikeouts in a single season. Verlander also became only the second pitcher in Major League history to reach 3,000 career strikeouts and 300 strikeouts in a season in the same game, joining Randy Johnson who accomplished the same feat on September 10, 2000. Hitters also obliterated the home run record, bashing 6,776 homers — 671 more than the previous record set in 2017. The Mets' Pete Alonso hit the most this season with 53, setting a major league record for rookies.
The Mets were one of 15 teams that either set or tied their single-season record for home runs. They tied the record set by the 1999 Seattle Mariners and the 2000 St. Louis Cardinals. I've made the table sortable so that you can futz around with it, but a few items are worth noting. The Indians tied for the majors' second-best 50-game stretch , yet missed the playoffs. The Cubs, Giants, and Mets all had stretches as good as the Wild Card-qualifying Brewers but all went into similarly deep funks as well.
Still, none of the other playoff teams had as awful a 50-game stretch as the Nationals' season opening one, which in fact stands as the worst for any World Series winner in the Wild Card era, outstinking the 2003 Marlins (21-29). With Jorge Polanco's 20th home run on August 31 against the Detroit Tigers, the Twins set the Major League record for most players with at least 20 home runs during the season. Polanco became the eighth Twin to reach this plateau, breaking the mark that was set held by seven teams, most recently by the 2018 Los Angeles Dodgers.
Still, what this exercise should underscore is just how shaky the playoff picture might be given a 50-game schedule. Yes, the best teams in terms of true talent will likely qualify, and here we're not even considering the way that roster management strategies could help ensure that. All told, regardless of those details, it's quite possible a 50-game slate would admit into the postseason interlopers who might not last the full 162 games. The results could still be entertaining from a #TeamEntropy standpoint, and a 50-game season would certainly better than no season at all, leaving aside the health and safety issues that admittedly, are rather hard to leave aside. Nonetheless, the validity of the wee season's results would always be in question, particularly if a weaker team goes on a Cinderella run in October. If it's what it is, we'll make do, but to these eyes, this is all the more reason for a longer schedule.
This version features seven of the actual 10 teams in playoff position, as did the 1-50 version, but arguably, it's a bit more of a shakeup. Three of the six division leads changed hands, including two in the AL, with the Indians, who missed the October dance altogether, "winning" the AL Central. Again, the Angels would make the cut, and likewise, retiring manager Bruce Bochy would have reached the playoffs one last time given the Giants' rebound from a showing over their first 50 games.
Recorded his 650th career home run on July 28 against the Baltimore Orioles. He became the sixth player to reach this mark. With this home run, Pujols also became the first player in Major League history to hit at least 650 home runs and 650 doubles in their career. •The Angels were shut out of the minor league playoffs for the second straight year, the only team to have all of their affiliates miss the postseason two years in a row.
The Blue Jays, White Sox and Tigers also went without playoff teams this year, the second year in a row four teams had none of their affiliates reach the postseason. The Rays posted their second straight 90-win season and reached the playoffs this year, all while also possessing the No. 1 farm system in baseball. To top it off, the Rays domestic minor league affiliates posted the best overall record of any organization for the second straight year. The Dodgersdecided not to overpay for relief pitching help at the trade deadline and to instead stick with the team they have moving forward. It's hard to blame them; Los Angeles has the best record in baseball, the best run differential (+171 runs this season), the fourth-best offense in the league (5.43 runs per game), and the best team ERA in the league (3.38).
A third straight trip to the World Series seems quite likely. The yellow cells show the segments in which the team matched its actual playoff position. Note that the Dodgers were the only team to do so in all five segments, and they, the Astros, and Yankees were the only playoff teams to run the table as playoff qualifiers via any of these 50-game slices. Three teams who wound up on the outside looking in claimed a total of five division "titles" , while five outsiders claimed a total of eight Wild Card "berths" .
That's an average of 2.6 party-crashers per segment. Roughly speaking, then, we can say that each of these slices represents only about three-quarters of the final playoff picture. The NL slate, on the other hand, saw significantly more turnover, with two of the three division leaders after 50 games ultimately missing the playoffs entirely, and one Wild Card leader rising up to win the division. In all, seven of the 10 teams in playoff positions ultimately made the cut. With the calendar turning to August, there are officially only two months left in the 2019 MLB regular season.
Houston's trade to acquire Zack Greinke was the most significant move made before the MLB trade deadline, but most of the league's top teams also made moves to help prepare them for a playoff push. • What will Shohei Ohtani's final stat line look like? But will he get any closer to the 30–30 club? (At 26 stolen bases, he would need a wild weekend to gain admission, but it feels wrong to say anything is truly impossible for Ohtani.) Will he grab the major league lead in triples outright? (He's currently tied at 8 with David Peralta.) Will he somehow find another new way to dazzle us?
And even if the answer to all of the above is "no," it's worth taking a moment to watch him for one last time this year and reflect on an unprecedented, marvelous gift of a season. This was the sixth year of the current eight-year deals with Fox Sports, ESPN, and TBS. Fox aired eight weeks of baseball on Saturday Nights which led up to the 2019 Major League Baseball All-Star Game which also aired on Fox. Fox then televised Saturday afternoon games for the final four weeks of the season. FS1 televised games on Tuesday and on Saturday both during the afternoon and night. ESPN televised games on its flagship telecast Sunday Night Baseball as well as Monday and Wednesday nights.
TBS televised Sunday afternoon games for the last 13 weeks of the regular season. Fox and ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecasts were exclusive; all other national telecasts were subject to local blackout. Became the first team in Major League history with nine 5-plus-home-run games in single season on July 25 against the Chicago White Sox. The following night, the Twins became the fastest team in Major League history to reach their 200th home run, doing so in 103 games, 19 games less than the 2005 Texas Rangers. With most of the divisional titles seemingly locked up, there will still be plenty of fantastic action down the stretch in to see which teams will qualify for the playoffs via the Wild Card. The AL Wild Card race is currently being led by Tampa Bay and Oakland, but the Indians are still right in the thick of things at just a game and a half behind the Athletics.
The NL Wild Card spots are currently held by Washington and Chicago, but the Diamondbacks, Brewers, and Phillies are all within two games of the final spot. Another thing worth noting about this season is the Boston Red Sox fall from grace, as they're almost certainly going to miss the playoffs just one year removed from a team-record 108-win season and World Series Championship. The Red Sox are 17.5 games back of the Yankees in the American League East and 8 games out of the second Wild Card spot with just 19 games left to play. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, and play-by-play data provided by Sports Info Solutions. Any Nationals fan, for example, can tell you that the team started last season before righting the ship and marching to the franchise's first World Series win. So let's start by considering what a 2019 season based on games 1-50 would have looked like.
Here it's worth remembering that teams reach the 50-game mark at slightly different dates , so this doesn't correspond to a single day on the calendar. WGN-TV broadcasts of Chicago Cubs and White Sox games concluded at the end of the season. WGN held the local broadcast television rights of both teams since 1948.
The network's final telecasts took place on September 28 and September 29 . Effective with the 2020 season, Cubs games will move exclusively to the new Marquee Sports Network, while White Sox games will air full-time on NBC Sports Chicago. The Pirates are continuing to wear 1979 "bumblebee" throwbacks on Sundays this season. The team wore mono-black uniforms July 20 as the 40th anniversary of the 1979 World Series-winning team was honored. Recorded his 200th career win with a victory against the Oakland Athletics on August 18.
He became the 115th player to reach this mark. Recorded his 250th career win with a victory against the Tampa Bay Rays on June 19. He became the 48th player to reach this mark. Recorded his 650th career double in the third inning on July 7 against the Houston Astros.
He became the eighth player to reach this mark. Recorded his 550th career double in the eighth inning against the Chicago Cubs on June 21. He became the 31st player to reach this mark. Jake Cave, left, hit one of the Twins' three home runs on Sunday that gave them the record for most team home runs in a season.
The simultaneous rebuilding programs of so many teams turned the 2019 season into a low point as far as competitive balance was concerned. As Craig Edwards found, the season produced the largest standard deviation in winning percentage since 1954, even larger than any expansion season. The volume of tanking made the season a rather unremarkable one for playoff races, particularly in the AL, and so I have little doubt that a similar analysis on a different season might yield results even more wild than the above.
•The Dodgers and Giants tied for most domestic affiliates to make the minor league playoffs with five each. It's an especially stark turnaround for the Giants, who didn't have any affiliates reach the postseason last year. RetroSeasons recaps past sports seasons through stories, photos, videos, and stats from every team, league, and stadium in history. Coverage includes the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL, as well as vintage media from defunct teams and leagues.
Sergio Romo has performed well in the setup role | Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesThe Twins acquired Sergio Romobefore the trade deadline to help shore up their bullpen. Romo has appeared in two games for the Twins so far and has retired all three batters that he's faced in both outings. Minnesota is 5-2 over its last seven games, holding off Cleveland for the top spot in the AL Central for the time being. Set the record for most home runs allowed in a season by giving up their 259th on August 22 against the Tampa Bay Rays. Austin Meadows hit the home run in the third inning, breaking the mark that was set by the Cincinnati Reds during the 2016 season.
The Orioles gave up 305 home runs to establish the new record. Became the first team in Major League history to have five players to hit at least 30 home runs in a season. Became the first team in Major League history to hit six home runs in the first two innings of a game on September 9 against the Oakland Athletics. For the first time in Major League Baseball history, at least four teams recorded 100 or more wins in the same season. Became the fastest player to reach 15 career home runs with his home run on September 2 against the Philadelphia Phillies. Aquino accomplished this in 122 plate appearances, breaking the record by Rhys Hoskins who did it in 135 plate appearances last season.
As has been the case since 2013, teams were scheduled to play 19 games against each division opponent for a total of 76 games, and six or seven games against each team from the other two divisions for a total of 66 games. The primary inter-league match-ups were AL East vs NL West, AL Central vs NL East and AL West vs NL Central. After looking at the standings, it's obvious to see which teams are likely to win their divisions. The Yankees, Astros, Braves and Dodgers all hold leads of eight games or more in their divisions, with the Dodgers maintaining a mind-melting 17 game lead over the Diamondbacks. Verlander and Cole were the first teammates to each record 300 strikeouts since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling did it for Arizona in 2002.
Cole, who earned his 20th victory on Sunday, finished with 326 strikeouts, the most by an A.L. Strikeouts have risen across the league each season since 2008, with an increase of more than 1,300 this year, to 42,823. There's no longer any hope of an unprecedented five-way tie for two wild-card spots. (Turn your disappointment toward the A's for getting eliminated Wednesday.) But there's a lot of potential for drama, with the Yankees, Red Sox, Mariners and Blue Jays all within three games of one another.
There could be a tie that results in a Game 163. There could be a three-way tie that results in an arcane system of drafts and conditional statements. There could be a situation that ends in none of the above but nonetheless involves a whole lot of turmoil! This is where the teams stand with three games apiece left to play. The Twins and Royals wore Negro leagues throwbacks June 23.
The Twins wore 1908 uniforms of the St. Paul Colored Gophers, and the Royals wore 1942 uniforms of the Kansas City Monarchs. The San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies scored 92 runs during their four-game series from June 13 to June 16 to set a Major League record. They broke the record of 88 runs that was set in May 1929 by the Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Robins. Set the Major League record for most consecutive games with a home run on June 25 against the Toronto Blue Jays.
They broke the record that was set in 2002 by the Texas Rangers. The streak came to an end at 31 games after not hitting a home run against the New York Mets on July 2. Became the first team in Major League history to win two consecutive games on a walk-off home run by a rookie on June 22 against the Colorado Rockies. The following day, they would go on to win the game on another rookie walk-off homer to make it three in a row.
The World Series was the first best-of-seven postseason series in the history of the major North American sports where all seven games were won by the road team. The home run was the 6,106th home run league-wide of the season, breaking the previous record of 6,105 home runs that was set two years earlier during the 2017 season. Major League Baseball finished with a total of 6,776 home runs. Became the second pitcher in Major League history to record two immaculate innings in the same season by accomplishing this in the eighth inning on June 5 against the Kansas City Royals.
Sale also did this on May 8 against the Baltimore Orioles. He joins Lefty Grove who did this during the 1928 season. By knocking in two runs against the Oakland Athletics on July 22, Álvarez became the first player in Major League history to have 35 RBIs in his first 30 career games since runs batted in became an official statistic in 1920. With his 14th home run of the season on April 27 against the New York Mets, Yelich tied a Major League record for the most home runs in a single season before May 1. He tied the record that was set by Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez . The 2019 Major League Baseball season began on March 20, while the regular season ended on September 29.
It was the 150th anniversary of professional baseball, dating back to the 1869 foundation of the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The World Series began October 22 and ended October 30 with the Washington Nationals defeating the Houston Astros in seven games to win their first World Series championship. The entire schedule was released on August 22, 2018. Even though there's still a few weeks of regular-season action left, we have a pretty good idea of which teams will be playing come mid-October. Below are the current standings for each of the divisions in Major League Baseball. After a grueling regular season that started back in mid-March, we're less than a month away from the beginning of postseason baseball.
In the National League, the Dodgers will try to become the first team since the 1923 Yankees to return to the World Series after losing two in a row. The Dodgers' division series opponent will be the Nationals or the Milwaukee Brewers, who meet in Washington on Tuesday in the N.L. The St. Louis Cardinals — who clinched the N.L.
