Baseball has been around for a long time. When the National League was founded in 1876, Ulysses S. Grant was president. Grant is, of course, famous for his role as the commander of the Union army in the Civil War. Now it’s 2011 and Barack Obama is president and the National League is still playing baseball.
This is my roundabout way of saying that there have been a huge, huge, huge number of baseball games played. And because baseball fans are insane and have always been insane, we have stats from all of them and can look them up. The enormous number of baseball games that have been played and the fact that they’ve all been recorded, we know that pretty much anything that can happen in a baseball game has already happened.
But somehow, no one had hit three grandslams in one game until the Yankees did it to the A’s yesterday. Think of all of the teams in baseball history full of great hitters. Think of all of the teams in baseball history filled with terrible pitchers. Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in one inning once, which seems way crazier and harder to do than a team hitting three in one game. I mean, I understand the mechanics of a grand slam (the bases have to be loaded, which doesn’t often happen three times in one game, then someone has to hit a home run while those bases are loaded, which is far from a given) and why three in one game is improbable, but zero times before 2011? Really?
Robinson Cano starting the grand slamming in the fifth by taking Rich Harden deep. Russell Martin (who also hit a lamesauce solo homer off of Harden in the fourth) hit his slam off of Fautino de los Santos in the sixth inning to put the Yankees into the lead for the first time in the game. After the Yankees scored a grand slamless six runs in the seventh, the aptly named Curtis Granderson added a fitting cap to the flurry of grand slams in the eight, going yard off of Bruce Billings.
And, that’s it. If it was weird that there had never been three grand slams by one team in one game before yesterday, it’s not weird anymore because now someone’s done it.
Also last night: The Red Sox stayed a game up on the Yankees by beating the Rangers, and with that loss the Rangers dropped to just two games in front of the idle Angels. Detroit beat Tampa to stretch their lead over the Indians to 6 1/2 games. A full list of yesterday’s results is here.
Today’s games: The Angels go to Arlington in what is certainly this weekend’s biggest series. Dan Haren and Derek Holland start the first game of the three game set. In the only other real pennant race (the NL West), the Giants play the Astros at home while the Diamondbacks play the Padres at home. The D’backs start the weekend three games up. Tonight’s full schedule is here.
