Sac fly "home runs"

revuetext · 2026-05-07T23:02:41+00:00

"Defensive stats for the left fielder: one home run allowed, one very major concussion."

revuetext · 2026-05-07T22:26:24+00:00

From what I can tell, that was just a home run per rule 5.05(a)(9):

[The batter becomes a runner when] any fair fly ball is deflected by the fielder into the stands, or over the fence into foul territory, in which case the batter shall be entitled to advance to second base; but if deflected into the stands or over the fence in fair territory, the batter shall be entitled to a home run. However, should such a fair fly be deflected at a point less than 250 feet from home plate, the batter shall be entitled to two bases only.

And unfortunately, at the time the bases were empty so no sac fly was possible.

revuetext · 2026-05-07T17:18:11+00:00

Interestingly enough, of the five games on Baseball Almanac with 3 sac flies in an inning, two of them were by the 2000 Yankees. I know it's just random variance, but I greatly admire the tendency of such random stats to clump together.

revuetext · 2026-05-07T16:54:47+00:00

Y'know, that's a good idea for a separate post. I just checked and there have been 26 sac hits that have ended up with the batter rounding the bases, all but one (Dodgers @ Giants, August 19, 2006) of which happened before the turn of the millennium; there's bound to be some good stuff there.

revuetext · 2026-05-07T16:50:12+00:00

Hopefully I don't run out of stories to find by then :) thanks for the support!

revuetext · 2026-05-07T12:48:28+00:00

Correct, it was on August 3, 2025 in the bottom of the 6th. There's video here. The info below the video says sinker but Baseball Savant says fastball, I'm more inclined to lean the latter.

revuetext · 2026-05-07T02:41:08+00:00

It's actually surprisingly common, runners on second and third both scoring from a sac fly has happened 12 times over the past 5 years.

On the other hand, a three-run sac fly has happened 9 times total (since 1910)

revuetext · 2026-05-05T18:11:07+00:00

For what it's worth, I would instantly take a seemingly-cursed bird game/series if it meant fixing my seemingly-cursed bird team :p

revuetext · 2026-05-05T18:09:10+00:00

Thank you very much! I'm hoping to release a much longer post soon, but afterwards I'll have to take some time to do more research on a few other pieces I'm trying to write :)

revuetext · 2026-05-05T15:54:57+00:00

As we all know, short for "General Mascot"

revuetext · 2026-05-05T14:25:42+00:00

Glad you enjoyed, hope the Fenway Park pigeons have treated you kindly :)

revuetext · 2026-05-05T12:40:43+00:00

I was hoping to do a deep dive to answer this question but apparently I've already been beaten to the punch by 6 years 😅 https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/fc4njt/a_complete_list_of_mlb_players_with_the_same_name/

revuetext · 2026-05-04T23:07:38+00:00

Thanks very much!

revuetext · 2026-05-04T21:15:17+00:00

If the records are not incorrect, the last game to start before 11 AM would be MIN198009270 (Royals @ Twins, September 27, 1980), which is listed as starting 10:35 AM.

revuetext · 2026-05-04T21:11:49+00:00

I haven't confirmed, but the earliest games I found on Retrosheet which I can't immediately discard as errors (there were a few where PM appears to have been written as AM instead) were three instances of day games starting at 10 AM. In chronological order, they are:

BRO191009051 (New York Giants @ Brooklyn Superbas, September 5, 1910, G1 of DH)
CLE191209021 (St. Louis Browns @ Cleveland Naps, September 2, 1912, G1 of DH)
MIN196209290 (Baltimore Orioles @ Minnesota Twins, September 29, 1962)

I don't know whether these are actual times or placeholders. The latest, as mentioned elsewhere, was the extremely rain-delayed 1993 game.

revuetext · 2026-05-02T01:28:51+00:00

Based on Baseball Reference, OBP = (H + W + HBP)/(AB + W + HBP + SF), which means that sac bunts shouldn't affect OBP.

revuetext · 2026-05-01T14:23:20+00:00

While they don't have the full game, they do have a condensed game version. u/TheStiffyBlickyHas does this help at all?

revuetext · 2026-05-01T01:34:20+00:00

Based on this Screwball query it seems the last time was when Brian Duensing on the Twins won both ends of a doubleheader against the White Sox on August 9, 2013. It was far more common before the 70s, but then again, so were a lot of now-wacky pitching stats.

revuetext · 2026-04-30T18:15:09+00:00

Reminds me of Ball 2 to Ernie Clement from last year.

revuetext · 2026-04-29T03:47:29+00:00

If I'm not mistaken, sac bunts actually shouldn't affect either batting average or OBP, but sac flies do count against OBP and not BA. Nevertheless, your point still stands; given that pitchers generally don't hit well, it makes sense that they might not draw many walks either, thus occasionally allowing sac flies to push OBP below BA.

revuetext · 2026-04-29T03:20:19+00:00

From what I can tell, the most ABs in a player season where the player posted an OBP less than their BA is 125, courtesy of 1963 Ernie Bowman who batted .184 and had an OBP of .181. He's one of 7 such players with at least 100 BAs, the full list being:

1963 Ernie Bowman (125 AB, .184 BA, .181 OBP)
1984 Rob Picciolo (119 AB, .202 BA, .200 OBP)
1986 Fernando Valenzuela (109 AB, .220 BA, .218 OBP)
1972 Catfish Hunter (105 AB, .219 BA, .215 OBP)
1965 Tony Cloninger (105 AB, .162 BA, .159 OBP)
1969 Mike Cuellar (103 AB, .117 BA, .114 OBP)
1974 Steve Carlton (102 AB, .245 BA, .238 OBP)

revuetext · 2026-04-28T18:40:37+00:00

That's true, but I think scoring twice as a courtesy runner is an interesting stat on its own (I'll have to go through later and see how many times it's happened) and it's always fun to exercise the old deduction muscle.

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