Welcome to the episode of our September History Watch in which we turn our attention to the guys who make knee surgeons everywhere drool by coiling into a catcher’s squat about 100,000 times a year.
But in between squatting, putting those fingers down, blocking sliders in the dirt, and learning to talk while covering their mouth with a mask and a mitt, catchers also have to hit for a living. And that’s where the History Watch fun begins, in the cases of two of our favorites -- the Brewers’ Jonathan Lucroy and the Rays’ Jose Molina.
We’ll be turning our attention to the same column on their stat sheets -- the old extra-base-hit column. But not only do the numbers in those columns look shockingly different, they look historically different. Here’s how:
The Doubles Machine That Made Milwaukee Famous
Unfortunately, Lucroy won’t be heading for the postseason next week. But fortunately, he still has an excellent chance to find himself heading for a place very few of his peers have ever landed: the extra-base-hit history books.
With two games left in the season, Lucroy has these two statistical pearls to call his own -- an incredible 52 doubles and a nearly as remarkable 67 extra-base hits. Now let’s put that in the sort of historical perspective we’re noted for.
He is going to lead the league in doubles, seeing as how nobody else in the NL is within nine of him. And you know how many catchers have ever led their league in doubles? That would be none. So, how cool is that?
But since “only” 45 of those doubles came in games when he was catching, Lucroy needs one more this weekend to break the record for most doubles as a catcher in one season. He and Pudge Rodriguez are tied for that one.
But hold on, This gets even more illustrious. Lucroy is only two back of the league leaders in extra-base hits, Andrew McCutchen and Giancarlo Stanton. As you know, Stanton’s total (69) is frozen because he won’t be playing any more baseball this season. So, if Lucroy can catch or pass those two, that would make him just the second catcher in history to lead his league in extra-base hits. The other? Oh, only Johnny Bench (who did it twice, in 1970 and ’74).
Finally, if Lucroy can somehow thump three more extra-base hits, that would put him in another fabulous group, of catchers who got 70 or more in a season (not necessarily all while catching). He’d be only the ninth catcher in that club. The others: Bench, Mike Piazza, Roy Campanella, Gabby Hartnett, Todd Hundley, Javier Lopez, Lance Parrish and, of course, Stan Lopata.
It feels as if we’ve almost taken Lucroy’s sensational season for granted. So, here at History Watch Central, we’re here to rectify that. And if you still don’t think all those doubles and all those extra-base hits are special, perhaps you just need to regain perspective, by comparing them to what’s happening on …
The Molina Watch
It wouldn’t be an official season if we didn’t have some spectacular feat to monitor from the Flying Molina Brothers. Well, this year’s history-maker is Jose, down in Tampa Bay. But we’re afraid we can’t give him any “extra” credit for this quest.
That’s because our man Jose Molina has amassed precisely two extra-base hits all season. Yes, two. In 244 trips to the plate. And that’s going to tie the modern record for fewest extra-base hits in a season with this many plate appearances. Take a look:
At one point, we thought Molina might make it all the way to the All-Star break without an extra-base hit, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished by a player with at least 150 plate appearances since Larry Lintz did it in 1975. Alas, Molina sneaked in a double, off the Pirates’ Jeff Locke, on June 24, in his 43rd game of the year.
Molina then doubled again, on July 23, off Lance Lynn, of his brother’s ever-cooperative Cardinals team. And that’s been it. All season.
But here comes the part of this where everything gets wacky: Molina somehow has more stolen bases (three) this year than extra-base hits (two). And you’d think that would never happen, right? Especially when it’s a catcher doing the Rickey Henderson imitation?
Nope. Wrong. Amazingly, there have been four other catchers since 1900 who got at least 240 plate appearances in a season and pulled that off, according to Lee Sinins’ Complete Baseball Encyclopedia, including one of them twice.
Ah, but those guys weren’t 39 years old, either, as Jose Molina is. So anybody want to guess the only other player this old, at any position, who has had more stolen bases than extra-base hits in a season in the 2000s?
Ha. It’s Rickey Henderson his very own self, in 2000, when he had 36 steals and 20 extra-base hits for the Mariners and Mets -- at age 41.
So we bet you never thought you’d ever live to see the day when Rickey Henderson and any Molina brother would have their base-stealing talents compared in an actual truthful, historical note.
Well, now you have -- thanks to the September History Watch.
