The Strange Debut Of Juan Soto
ALSO: PERFECT GAMES ARE A DYING BREED
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Aaron Civale, acquired from Tampa Bay this week, is likely to help the Brewers much more than over-the-hill southpaw Dallas Keuchel, a one-time Cy Young Award winner also obtained by Milwaukee . . .
If Orlando Arcia isn’t the worst-hitting regular in the majors, he’s thisclose . . .
Atlanta’s inability to acquire a replacement shortstop (Bo Bichette? Willy Adames?) may prompt them to recall good-hit, no-field Nacho Alvarez from AAA Gwinnett . . .
Former postseason stud Ian Anderson is likely to bolster the Braves’ rotation right after the All-Star break . . .
The next great find for the Baltimore infield may be Coby Mayo, one of the best bats in the minors . . .
The 44 minor leagues that existed before the Second World War fell to nine during the conflict . . .
Two years after nine Spokane players perished in a crash of their team bus, the Duluth, MN team lost five in another accident . . .
Speakers at SABR 52 in Minneapolis next month include Hall of Famers Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, and Bert Blyleven, all Hall of Famers.
Leading Off
Soto’s Official First Game Came Five Days Before His Real Debut
By Andrew C. Sharp
Juan Soto made his major-league debut with the Nationals on May 20, 2018, but the official record for that season has him hitting a pinch-hit home run in a game listed as being played on May 15.
How could that be? Because of rain, the May 15 game in Washington was suspended after five innings with score tied. When it was completed on June 18, Soto already had hit five homers. His two-run shot that night, deep to right field, ending up as the game winner for the Nats, 5-3.
Although the home run remains listed for the game on May 15, Soto’s official debut was less auspicious. He struck out as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning of that May 20 game, a Nationals’ 7-2 loss to the Dodgers in Washington.
Coincidentally, Barry Bonds had a similar official, if delayed, major-league debut. Baseball Reference lists it as May 30, 1986, but Retrosheet has it as April 20 of that season.
The April 20 game in Chicago was suspended by darkness (no lights in Wrigley until 1988) after 14 innings, with the Pirates and Cubs tied. The game wasn't concluded until August 11, when Bonds drove in the winning run with a pinch-single in the 17th inning. Bonds went 0-for-5 in his actual MLB debut.
Soto ended up finishing second in 2018 Rookie-of-the-Year voting to Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna, Jr. The two budding superstars had amazingly similar stats: Acuna hit .293 in 111 games; Soto .292 in 116 games. Acuna had 487 plate appearances to Soto’s 494. Acuna had 26 homers and 64 RBIs; Soto 22 and 70.
Acuna’s slugging percentage was .552 to Soto’s .517. The speedy Acuna stole 16 bases to Soto’s five, but Soto walked 79 times to Acuna’s 45. Thus, Soto’s on-base-percentage of .406 topped Acuna’s .366. Soto has yet to finish a season with an OBP under .400.
Soto became the great player that he is with the Nationals. As a 20-year-old, he was a key part of the 2019 World Series-winning team. Unlike Bryce Harper, who left as a free agent for Philadelphia, Soto brought Washington a crop of exciting young players when he was traded to San Diego.
Soto’s performance in a Nationals uniform left many fond memories for Washington fans. Famously, his hit off Josh Hader brought in the runs that gave Washington its come-from-behind win over Milwaukee in the 2019 N.L. wild-card game.
In the World Series against the favored Astros, Soto’s double off Gerrit Cole turned the momentum to the Nats in Game One. He was 4-for-6 in the series off the future Cy Young winner, but as Chris Kirschner wrote in The Athletic last month, it was the two-out, two-run, double on a 3-2 pitch that still bothers Cole the most. It put Washington ahead, 5-2, in the fifth.
“That put it over the edge,” Cole, now Soto’s Yankees teammate, told Kirschner. “I threw a backdoor slider…. He just drilled it off the wall.”
With Washington facing elimination in Game 6, Soto hit a Justin Verlander fastball for a 413-foot homer. The Nationals won that night and again in Game Seven for the Montreal/Washington franchise’s first World Series championship.
A case can be made, by the way, that Soto deserved the 2021 MVP as much as Harper, to whom he finished second despite better advanced metrics in most categories. The final result should have been closer. The baseball writers’ Washington chapter votes were cast by two national sports commentators who put Soto in third place.
Astoundingly, a writer from San Francisco picked five players ahead of Soto. Two St. Louis voters placed Soto fifth. Yet Soto got the first-place votes of both New York and Los Angeles writers.
Earlier this season, Soto made it clear he enjoyed his time in D.C. and had hoped to spend his entire career there.
“I never wanted to leave Washington,” he told Kirschner in early March. “I knew everybody there, from the bottom all the way to the top. I was really comfortable and it felt like home for me. I was happy. I had a house in Washington.”
Given his performance so far in New York, however, he clearly has adjusted well to his new home. Just ask any of his Yankees’ teammates.
Andrew C. Sharp is a Nationals fan who lives in New Jersey. He is a retired newspaper journalist and a SABR member who has written and edited essays for the Bio Project, Games Project and Baseball Research Journal. He blogs about D.C. baseball at washingtonbaseballhistory.com
Cleaning Up
Perfect Game Pitcher Is Impossible These Days
By Dan Schlossberg
Complete games are rare. No-hitters are scarce. And perfect games may be tucked into a cozy corner of Cooperstown forever.
Baseball history shows only two-dozen — two of them in the 19th century — and no repeaters. In fact, such luminaries as Nolan Ryan (seven no-hitters) and Warren Spahn (363 wins, 382 complete games) never pitched one.
The New York Yankees had the most perfect games, with Don Larsen the first and most famous because it occurred during the 1956 World Series. David Wells, David Cone, and the illustrious Domingo German just last year also turned the trick in pinstripes.
Oddly, the powerful Los Angeles Dodgers, along with the Tampa Bay Rays, finished on the wrong end of perfectos three times each, a dubious major-league record.
Not to be overlooked is the “feat” of the 2012 Seattle Mariners, the only team to win a perfect game (Felix Hernandez) and lose one (vs. Philip Humber) in the same season.
Perfect games are more difficult to predict than an earthquake. They’ve been thrown by Hall of Famers, from Cy Young and Catfish Hunter to Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson, and by journeymen, including German, Humber, and Dallas Braden.
Braden, joining Hunter as the only Athletics to enjoy a day of perfection, threw his gem on Mother’s Day 46 years after Jim Bunning, father of nine, blanked the Mets at the just-opened Shea Stadium on Father’s Day.
Nostalgia may be nice but it doesn’t have longevity.
By any measure, perfect games are a dying breed. Only eight have been thrown in the 21st century, with German’s gem the only one since the fluke year of 2012, when three were recorded (Humber, Fernandez, and Matt Cain).
Why is perfect game frequency a victim of shrinkage?
Beyond umpire malfeasance (see Armando Galarraga, deprived of a perfect game in the ninth inning when umpire Jim Joyce missed an obvious out call at first base), there’s a myriad of reasons.
The main factor is that pitchers seldom complete what they start, thanks to managers and coaches convinced that pitch counts (usually 100 pitches or so) rather than actual eye-tests tell them when to remove starters.
In 2023, for example, the two pitchers whose three complete games tied for the most in the majors (Sandy Alcantara and Jordan Lyles) posted a combined record of 13-29, indicating they played for bad teams whose managers saw no need to lift them early.
With just a handful of complete games, no-hitters are more likely to be combined efforts than solo accomplishments. Just ask the Houston Astros, who once needed six pitchers to no-hit the mighty Yankees.
There has never been a combined perfect game and probably won’t be.
Just as The 300 Club has 24 members, Club Perfecto does too. Here they are, in chronological order:
Lee Richmond and John Ward (both 1980); Cy Young (1904); Addie Joss (1908); Charlie Robertson (1922); Don Larsen (1956 World Series); Jim Bunning (1964); Sandy Koufax (1965); Catfish Hunter (1968); Len Barker (1981); Mike Witt (1984); Tom Browning (1988); Dennis Martinez (1991); Kenny Rogers (1994); David Wells (1998); David Cone (1999); Randy Johnson (2004); Mark Buehrle (2009); Dallas Braden (2010); Roy Halladay (2010); Philip Humber, Matt Cain, and Felix Hernandez (2012); and Domingo German (2023).
Here’s The Pitch weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers baseball for forbes.com, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, Memories & Dreams, and other outlets. He’s also the author of Home Run King: the Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron, published by Skyhorse in May. Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Cooperstown, Trades Coming Up
Although admission to the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies July 21 is free, there’s a $10 fee for Monday morning’s Legends of the Game Roundtable, which is invariably more intimate and more interesting . . .
Some 50 incumbent Hall of Famers will come to Cooperstown for the festivities and many will sign for a fee as street vendors the day before . . .
Main Street will be closed to cars, making it easy for Induction Weekend throngs to dart back and forth . . .
MLB Network will again provide complete coverage of the July 30 trade deadline — including deals completed but unannounced before the deadline of 4p EDT.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.
Spot-on that perfect games are impossible to predict (which is one of the fun things about them, isn't it?!), but the fact that there have been eight in the 21st century is actually remarkable. From 1880-1999, there were 16 perfect games, or one every 7.5 years. But having eight of them from 2000-23 is one every 3 years. If you compress that to 2004-23 (from the first this century to the last), that's one every 2.5 years. But just one in the last 12 seasons? That may be the sign of a dying feat ... or it could just be another one of the slow stretches that we've seen before. We'll see!