Last Sunday we brought you a week's worth of strange pitching lines. We forgot it was a three-day weekend. So this week's roundup of baseball's interesting and unusual starts with a couple leftover pitching nuggets from Monday.
• Jeremy Guthrie brought us one of the most bizarre lines in recent memory when he surrendered 11 runs while recording just three outs. The Yankees sent 13 batters to the plate in the first inning, hit three homers (their first time doing that since Aug. 6, 1999), and scored eight times, the most allowed by the Royals in an opening frame since September 2006. Guthrie then went back out for the second inning and allowed a walk, a single and a fourth homer before being pulled.
The only other starter in Royals history to give up 11 earned runs was Zack Greinke in 2005. Vin Mazzaro memorably allowed 14 in relief in 2011. Guthrie is the first pitcher to allow at least nine hits and 11 runs while getting three or fewer outs since reliever Hal Kelleher gave up the last 12 runs of a 21-2 Phillies loss to the Cubs on May 5, 1938. ... And according to Elias Sports Bureau research, he's the only starter ever to do it.
• Phil Klein and Shaun Marcum both left Monday's game in the third inning after allowing two homers and seven runs. Because they were facing each other, though, the game was tied and left up to the bullpens. They are the first pair of starters in the live-ball era to each give up seven-plus runs and two-plus homers in less than three innings without either one getting a decision.
"Ends" (the week in walk-offs)
• Josh Donaldson's second homer of the game ended Toronto's 10-9 win on Tuesday. He's the first player with four hits and two homers, one of which was a walk-off, since Joey Votto hit a walk-off grand slam for the Reds in 2012. The only other Blue Jays hitter ever to do it was Lloyd Moseby against the Indians on April 19, 1983. Donaldson is also the only player so far this year to score five times in a game, and the fourth in Jays history (Orlando Hudson, Shannon Stewart, Carlos Delgado).
• Skip Schumaker had a pinch-hit double to give the Reds a win against the Rockies on Tuesday. The Reds have two pinch-hit walk-offs so far in 2015, and both are doubles (Devin Mesoraco has the other). The last team with two in a season was the Atlanta Braves in 1986 (by Billy Sample and Terry Harper).
• Martin Maldonado exactly tied for the latest walk-off homer in Brewers history on Sunday. Dave May gave them a 2-1 win over Cleveland on May 15, 1973. (The team's latest walk-off hit was by Willie Randolph in 1991, in the 19th inning.) It was, by three innings, the latest homer ever allowed by Diamondbacks pitching (walk-off or not).
• Derek Norris struck out four times in the first eight innings of Friday's game against the Pirates. With the bases loaded in the ninth, his quest for five strikeouts turned into a walk-off grand slam instead. It was the first one in the majors this season; Adrian Gonzalez (2010) was the last Padres batter to hit one. Norris, however, is only the eighth player since 1900 to have four strikeouts and a grand slam anywhere in the same game (Mark Teixeira in 2003 was the last), and the first to have that grand slam be a walk-off.
"Odds." As in, things we just found odd. Plus more good "lines" from the week.
• Alex Wilson made a spot start for the Tigers on Wednesday when Alfredo Simon left the team to be with his ailing father. Wilson pitched three innings and allowed only a walk. Oakland's Scott Kazmir also threw three hitless innings before leaving with shoulder tightness. So both starters left the game without allowing a hit. If you think that's rare, you'd be right. It's only happened five times in the last 100 years, and three were due to lengthy rain delays. The other was on May 9, 1943, between the Indians and St. Louis Browns. Both starters faced just four batters; Cleveland's Al Milnar walked all of his, while Browns starter Bob Muncrief walked three and saw one reach on an error.
• Reds manager Bryan Price finally got in on the trend of batting the pitcher eighth on Monday, putting Jason Marquis there and bumping Billy Hamilton to ninth. Marquis became the first Cincinnati starter since at least 1913 to bat in the 8-hole, though they did have a starting pitcher bat seventh in 1933. Charles "Red" Lucas was slotted there for two late-season games against the Dodgers, going 3-for-8 with a double and two RBIs.
• Rockies starter Chad Bettis took a no-hit bid into the eighth inning Friday before giving up two singles. Those would be the Phillies' only hits, though they would score a run thanks to a strikeout/wild pitch and a subsequent error. It was the first time in 95 years that the Phillies had a maximum of two total bases in a game, no walks, and still scratched out a run. At Forbes Field on Sept. 13, 1919, they combined two singles and a sacrifice for their run in the first inning, after which Pirates starter Hal Carlson retired 24 in a row.
• Mark Buehrle got a complete-game victory on Friday despite allowing four runs in the first inning. After that he retired 22 of the last 24 batters and nabbed the other two on the basepaths. Only one other pitcher this year has registered a complete-game victory while allowing four runs, and it's his teammate R.A. Dickey, who did it last week. The last teammates to do it in a season were Greg Maddux and Carlos Zambrano for the Cubs in 2005. The last Blue Jays were Jimmy Key and Doyle Alexander in 1986.
• Jason Kipnis: Single-double-triple on Wednesday; his five such games for the Indians are the team's most since Kenny Lofton had six between 1993 and 2001.
• Jose Abreu: First White Sox hitter to lead off an extra inning with a triple and score go-ahead run since Ozzie Guillen on August 7, 1994.
• Lucas Duda: Third player in Mets history to hit two homers in a game where his pitcher (Noah Syndergaard) hit one. The others are Xavier Nady (Steve Trachsel) in 2006 and Hubie Brooks (Dwight Gooden) in 1991.
• Adam Eaton: Hit eighth career homer on Thursday; they have come in eight different innings (all except the eighth).
• Manny Machado: First triple to lead off game for Orioles since Brian Roberts in September 2005; Baltimore had longest such drought in majors by nearly seven years (Astros, July 2012).
• * Corey Kluber: First Indians pitcher with 13 strikeouts and two home runs allowed in game since Dave Burba in July 1999.
• Cardinals: First time with 15-plus hits and no more than three runs scored since 20-inning loss to Mets in 2010. First time doing it in a win since April 1992 (17-inning game against Montreal, won on pitcher Bob Tewksbury's walk-off single).
• John Danks: First 10-hit shutout in majors since Carlos Silva of the Twins in 2004. First for White Sox since Stan Bahnsen gave up 12 hits to Oakland in June 1973.
• Khris Davis: Two triples but zero runs scored on Wednesday; first for Brewers since Tom Brunansky on May 15, 1993.
• Kyle Seager, Tuesday: First batter in Mariners history with two go-ahead homers in the eighth inning or later of the same game.
• Shane Greene: Allowed five home runs Saturday, the first Tigers pitcher to do that since Nate Robertson in 2008, and (according to Elias research) the first in the majors in the modern era (since 1900) to do it in an outing of less than two innings.
• Dustin Pedroia / Mookie Betts: Each had three hits Thursday but neither scored a run. First one-two hitters to do that for Red Sox since Billy Goodman and Billy Klaus versus Cleveland, July 28, 1955.
• Nick Masset: First Braves reliever to allow three homers in an outing of 1 IP or less since Julio Navarro watched Bob Robertson, Willie Stargell, and Jose Pagan of the Pirates go back-to-back-to-back on August 1, 1970.
• Minor-league minute: Outfield prospect Derek Fisher of the Astros got promoted to high-A Lancaster (California) on Saturday. He proceeded to hit three home runs, including two grand slams, and a bases-loaded double for a league-record 12 RBIs. That is also the major-league record, done by Jim Bottomley in 1924 and matched by Mark Whiten in his four-homer game in 1993. (Click here for Saturday's boxscore.)