Consecutive Games Without a Run Scored

Since I posted on Monday about players scoring runs in consecutive games, I though it'd be interesting to look at the opposite record. To count as a game played, I've required players to have at least one plate appearance in the game. I've also taken out pitchers because most of them are horrible with a bat. I guess I'm not all that interested in seeing a list with a bunch of pitchers on it. With pitchers taken away, players often used as pinch hitters have an advantage since it only takes one plate appearance to further the streak.

It turns out that twelve players have come up to bat in 50+ straight games without managing to score. They were all primarily pinch hitters during their streaks, though some guys started a few games here and there.

Most Consecutive Games Without a Run Scored, 1956-2008
(minimum 1 PA in each game)

• Smoky Burgess, 148 games, 6/30/1965 to 6/23/1967
  .283/.373/.346 in 127 AB
  
  
• Razor Shines, 64 games, 9/12/1983 to 5/14/1987
  .188/.241/.200 in 80 AB
  
  
• Jose Morales, 61 games, 8/18/1976 to 7/3/1977
  .194/.236/.239 in 67 AB
  
  
• Bob Hale, 60 games, 8/27/1960 to 8/24/1961
  .204/.233/.241 in 54 AB
  
  
• Rusty Staub, 60 games, 9/17/1983 to 7/31/1984
  .264/.317/.340 in 53 AB
  
  
• Boog Powell, 56 games, 9/21/1976 to 8/24/1977
  .219/.359/.250 in 64 AB
  
  
• Wally Moon, 55 games, 6/25/1964 to 5/31/1965
  .192/.267/.205 in 78 AB
  
  
• Ron Northey, 52 games, 9/11/1956 to 7/23/1957
  .256/.423/.282 in 39 AB
  
  
• Scott Livingstone, 52 games, 5/8/1998 to 9/26/1998
  .202/.227/.250 in 84 AB
  
  
• Bill Heath, 51 games, 9/30/1966 to 8/15/1969
  .139/.284/.167 in 72 AB
  
  
• Terry Puhl, 51 games, 4/25/1987 to 8/15/1987
  .186/.240/.200 in 70 AB
  
  
• Bob Molinaro, 50 games, 6/11/1982 to 4/5/1983
  .213/.260/.234 in 47 AB

It should be noted that when you take out his games on the mound, pitcher Don Newcombe appeared in 63 consecutive games from 1957 to 1960 as a pinch hitter without scoring a run. When you include his mound appearances, his streak is broken up into insignificant chunks.

The most recent streak on that list is Scott Livingstone's. Since the end of that streak, Orlando Palmeiro's 47 games in 2006 is the longest non-scoring streak. Mark Sweeney had the longest scoring drought in 2008 when he hit .089/.125/.111 in 45 AB over forty games between May 3 and July 27.

But who really cares about pinch hitters not scoring? I think it's more impressive for starters to be stranded on the bases for a long period of time. To try and find the longest streaks of starters not scoring, I've tweaked the criteria. Instead of needing only one plate appearance in a game to be counted for the streak, now players need at least two. Since most defensive replacements and pinch hitters don't come into the game early enough to bat twice, this should narrow the list down to guys who started a majority of games during their streaks. Note: much like how coming up to bat and walking doesn't end hitting streaks, coming in as a pinch hitter and batting only once (regardless of outcome) doesn't end this streak. It's not perfect, but it works for me.

It turns out twelve players (one twice!) had 30 straight games of 2+ plate appearances without scoring. This should be pretty apparent, but they all hit extremely poorly while they weren't coming around to touch home plate.

Most Consecutive Games Without a Run Scored, 1956-2008
(minimum 2 PA in each game)

• Mario Guerrero, 42 games, 8/11/1978 to 4/30/1979
  .227/.250/.253 in 150 AB
  
  
• Tommy Helms, 36 games, 5/5/1970 to 6/21/1970
  .207/.221/.237 in 135 AB
  
  
• Doug Camilli, 34 games, 5/16/1964 to 8/28/1964
  .176/.225/.206 in 102 AB
  
  
• Norm Sherry, 33 games, 5/25/1963 to 9/18/1963
  .151/.221/.163 in 86 AB
  
  
• Dan Graham, 33 games, 5/10/1981 to 10/3/1981
  .151/.200/.172 in 93 AB
  
  
• Leo Cardenas, 32 games, 7/1/1963 to 8/8/1963
  .093/.157/.121 in 107 AB
  
  
• Al Pedrique, 32 games, 5/31/1988 to 6/18/1989
  .194/.240/.224 in 98 AB
  
  
• Enzo Hernandez, 31 games, 5/22/1972 to 6/28/1972
  .211/.277/.237 in 76 AB
  
  
• Bob Barton, 31 games, 9/19/1971 to 5/29/1972
  .228/.262/.238 in 101 AB
  
  
• Ed Brinkman, 31 games, 8/12/1968 to 9/15/1968
  .220/.289/.244 in 82 AB
  
  
• Bob Barton, 30 games, 7/24/1968 to 7/19/1969
  .227/.296/.227 in 88 AB
  
  
• Dave Skaggs, 30 games, 5/27/1979 to 8/31/1979
  .212/.264/.224 in 85 AB
  
  
• Bruce Benedict, 30 games, 7/28/1986 to 4/18/1987
  .151/.223/.172 in 93 AB
  

I guess Bob Barton wasn't paid for his run-scoring ability. No one on the list had an OPS over .533 in their small samples, but Leo Cardenas was at the bottom of the pack with a horrible .278 OPS. The most recent streak on the list belonged to Al Pedrique, almost twenty years ago. In the time since, the longest streak was 27 games, done first by Brent Mayne in 1995 and equaled by Mark Parent in 1997-1998. The longest scoring drought by a regular player in 2008 was achieved by Brewers catcher Jason Kendall. Between May 17 and June 10, a span of 20 games, he hit .179/.243/.239 in 67 AB without coming around to score.

Consecutive Games With a Run Scored Since 1956

Unless a player is a home run hitter or speed demon, moving along the basepaths and scoring requires some luck. It all starts out with getting on base, something the batter can control himself. After that, barring stolen bases, he needs his teammates to come through and bring him around to score. This means the following list is a combination of players who got on base often and were lucky in terms of teammates driving them in. Even if it's mostly luck, it's still fun to look at.

Since 1956, twenty players have scored a run in thirteen or more consecutive games. Unfortunately, data from before then isn't readily available but the all-time record is 24 games, set by Phillies outfielder Billy Hamilton in 1894. The all-time American League record is 18 games by Yankees' third baseman Red Rolfe in 1939 and tied by the first guy on the list below.

Consecutive Games With a Run Scored
1956-2008

• 18 games
  Kenny Lofton, CLE, 8/15/2000 to 9/3/2000
  
  
• 17 games
  Jim Thome, CHW, 4/2/2006 to 4/22/2006
  Rickie Weeks, MIL, 9/18/2007 to 4/4/2008
  
  
• 16 games
  Curt Flood, STL, 9/24/1967 to 4/23/1968
  Paul Molitor, MIL, 9/9/1987 to 9/25/1987
  
  
• 15 games
  Bob Horner, ATL, 4/23/1982 to 5/13/1982
  Lenny Dykstra, PHI, 6/6/1993 to 6/20/1993
  Dante Bichette, COL, 9/10/1993 to 4/14/1994
  Steve Finley, SDP, 6/26/1996 to 7/13/1996
  Carlos Beltran, HOU, 8/23/2004 to 9/7/2004
  Lance Berkman, HOU, 4/26/2008 to 5/12/2008
  Matt Holliday, COL, 7/27/2008 to 8/10/2008
  
  
• 14 games
  Willie Mays, SFG, 5/7/1959 to 5/20/1959
  Bill Bruton, MLN, 7/5/1960 to 7/22/1960
  Kirby Puckett, MIN, 4/18/1986 to 5/3/1986
  Lloyd Moseby, TOR, 8/5/1986 to 8/21/1986
  
  
• 13 games
  Hank Aaron, MLN, 7/15/1956 to 7/27/1956
  Tommy Harper, MIL, 5/12/1970 to 5/31/1970
  Bob Brenly, SFG, 8/24/1984 to 9/3/1984
  Tony Armas, BOS, 9/21/1984 to 4/14/1985
  

2007 NL LOB/RISP Data

I thought it'd be interesting to look at the numbers of baserunners (a guy that hits a home run doesn't count as a baserunner for this) left on base and in scoring position by each team in the National League. To do that, I'm going to use a table to show raw numbers for all of the teams and then a number of lists for some further percentages.

In the following table, LOB, as usual, stands for Left On Base, RISP stands for Runners In Scoring Position, RLISP is Runners Left In Scoring Position, and RISPR is Runners In Scoring Position Runs, my lingo for runs scored by guys who began the run-scoring play in scoring position. You'll note RLISP and RISPR values don't always add up to RISP values. This is because teams make outs on the basepaths - runners picked off second or third or thrown out at third or home plate may have started the play in scoring position but may not have made the final out of the inning. If they did make the final out of the inning, I considered them runners left in scoring position. Perhaps that's not the right way to interpret the term but I figure in most cases they could have pulled up a base short and not been thrown out or gotten picked off; either way, the risk they took hurt their team and I wanted to reflect this in the numbers. What's the difference between a guy absentmindedly being picked off third base and a guy who's too busy swinging for the fences to make contact with RISP and two outs in the long run?

2007 NL Raw Numbers for Baserunners

Team	Baserunners	LOB	RISP	RLISP	RISPR
Colorado	2156	1251	1292	716	556
Philadelphia	2151	1295	1296	722	546
Atlanta	2035	1205	1221	667	525
New York	2032	1196	1221	672	519
Los Angeles	2019	1200	1209	666	508
St. Louis	1996	1167	1157	639	494
Chicago	1993	1190	1194	661	494
Florida	1970	1196	1140	644	465
Cincinnati	1961	1170	1124	645	452
Houston	1950	1181	1133	653	455
Washington	1921	1163	1093	629	441
Pittsburgh	1903	1119	1123	611	484
San Francisco	1901	1141	1099	612	453
San Diego	1889	1152	1098	604	472
Milwaukee	1863	1117	1084	614	442
Arizona	1826	1090	1058	592	437
NL Sums	31566	18833	18542	10347	7743
NL Averages	1973	1177	1159	647	484

You can see every team was within 330 baserunners of each other; that's a little over two per game. Alone, these numbers don't say much: so what if Arizona left the fewest runners on base, they had the fewest opportunities to leave guys out there. With that in mind, here's the list of teams ranked by lowest to highest LOB%:

1. Colorado, 58.02% of baserunners left on base
2. St. Louis, 58.47%
3. Pittsburgh, 58.80%
4. New York, 58.86%
5. Atlanta, 59.21%
6. Los Angeles, 59.44%
7. NL Average, 59.66%
   
8. Cincinnati, 59.66%
9. Arizona, 59.69%
10. Chicago, 59.71%
11. Milwaukee, 59.96%
12. San Francisco, 60.02%
13. Philadelphia, 60.20%
14. Washington, 60.54%
15. Houston, 60.56%
16. Florida, 60.71%
17. San Diego, 60.98%

The fact playoff contenders and non-contenders are all jumbled up is a pretty good clue that LOB numbers don't have much bearing on a team's overall success. The fact all teams are within 3 percentage points of each other is another -- given the league average number of baserunners, 3% is 59 baserunners. That's about 1 every three games; hardly a huge number.

If you get on base, your ultimate destination is home plate. It's much easier for your teammates to bring you home if you are on second or third base--they only need to hit a single in most cases--so I want to look at which teams had the highest percentage of baserunners who got into scoring position.

1. Philadelphia, 60.25% of baserunners got into scoring position
2. New York, 60.09%
3. Atlanta, 60.00%
4. Colorado, 59.93%
5. Chicago, 59.91%
6. Los Angeles, 59.88%
7. Pittsburgh, 59.01%
8. NL Average, 58.74%
9. Milwaukee, 58.19%
10. San Diego, 58.13%
11. Houston, 58.10%
12. St. Louis, 57.97%
13. Arizona, 57.94%
14. Florida, 57.87%
15. San Francisco, 57.81%
16. Cincinnati, 57.32%
17. Washington, 56.90%

Good and bad teams are still jumbled up, though perhaps not as much as before. It's kind of intuitive that if you get more runners into scoring position, you'll likely have a better offense anyway. One other thing to note: teams that knock out a bunch of extra base hits don't need runners in scoring position as much. If you're hitting home runs a lot, you can score runners from first just fine.

So, of all those guys to get into scoring position, which team was best at not stranding them there?

1. Pittsburgh, 54.41% of RISP stranded
2. Atlanta, 54.63%
3. San Diego, 55.01%
4. New York, 55.04%
5. Los Angeles, 55.09%
6. St. Louis, 55.23%
7. Chicago, 55.36%
8. Colorado, 55.42%
9. San Francisco, 55.69%
10. Philadelphia, 55.71%
11. NL Average, 55.80%
12. Arizona, 55.95%
13. Florida, 56.49%
14. Milwaukee, 56.64%
15. Cincinnati, 57.38%
16. Washington, 57.55%
17. Houston, 57.63%

If you thought Pittsburgh was the best at not leaving runners in scoring position, congratulations. The fact the league average is below ten teams underscores just how out of whack the five bottom teams were. Of course, and I don't know if this is true, it's possible those were the most conservative teams - if you don't try and take extra bases with less than two outs, you can't get thrown out doing it. Similarly, maybe teams near the top were more reckless than others.

Finally, which teams were the best at bringing their RISP around to score?

1. Pittsburgh, 43.10% of RISP scored
2. Colorado, 43.03%
3. Atlanta, 43.00%
4. San Diego, 42.99%
5. St. Louis, 42.70%
6. New York, 42.51%
7. Philadelphia, 42.13%
8. Los Angeles, 42.02%
9. NL Average, 41.76%
10. Chicago, 41.37%
11. Arizona, 41.30%
12. San Francisco, 41.22%
13. Florida, 40.79%
14. Milwaukee, 40.77%
15. Washington, 40.35%
16. Cincinnati, 40.21%
17. Houston, 40.16%

I guess Pittsburgh wasn't reckless after all; I didn't realize they scored the highest percentage of runners in scoring position. Be that as it may, again there's about a 3% difference between the top and bottom teams. Given the league average number of runners in scoring position for a team, that's about 35 runs per season, or one every four games. Teams near the bottom of this can mitigate their lack of RISP conversion by hitting a lot of home runs; you'd be hard pressed to say Milwaukee and Cincinnati didn't have good offenses last season.

Expanding on Yesterday's Post

I wanted to see what would happen if every team had scored their baserunners at both a league average clip and at the same rate the league-leading Colorado Rockies. Since I doubt there's any real way for a team to improve their numbers from year to year, all this is pointless and hypothetical, but it's fun to think about anyway.

First, I want to figure out the number of runs each team would have gained or lost by driving in 30.11% of their baserunners, the league average rate. Then, for fun, we can add these runs to the number the teams actually scored to see how their Pythagorean Winning Percentage and record are affected. I sorted the following table by each team's new Pythagorean Winning Percentage (remember Colorado and San Diego played 163 games). The final column shows how much each team's Pythagorean record changed from that derived from their actual runs scored.

Team	RS	RA	RS Change	Adj. RS	Adj. Pythag. Win %	Adj. Pythag. W-L	Pythag. Win Change
San Diego	741	666	-1	740	.548	89-74	0
Chicago	751	690	-1	751	.539	87-75	0
Colorado	820	758	-40	820	.536	87-76	-4
Atlanta	789	733	-21	789	.534	86-76	-2
New York	789	750	-15	789	.523	85-77	-1
Philadelphia	861	821	-31	861	.522	85-77	-2
Milwaukee	792	776	-9	792	.509	83-79	0
Los Angeles	737	727	2	737	.506	82-80	0
Arizona	721	732	9	721	.493	80-82	1
San Francisco	703	720	20	703	.489	79-83	2
Cincinnati	794	853	11	794	.467	76-86	1
Houston	754	813	31	754	.466	75-87	3
Washington	701	783	28	701	.450	73-89	3
St. Louis	742	829	17	742	.449	73-89	2
Florida	794	891	4	794	.447	72-90	0
Pittsburgh	721	846	-3	721	.427	69-93	-1

In the next table, I want to see what would have happened if every team had knocked in baserunners at the same rate the Rockies did: 31.96%. Since the league runs scored obviously goes up, I decided to distribute the increase in runs scored evenly across all sixteen teams' runs allowed. This perhaps isn't very fair to every team since all teams don't play each other the same number of times but this is already so hypothetical it doesn't matter all that much. :)

Team	RS	RA	RS Change	Adj. RS	Adj. RA	Adj. PythagW%	Adj. PythagW-L	Pythag. Win Change
San Diego	741	666	34	775	703	.544	89-74	0
Chicago	752	690	36	788	727	.537	87-75	0
Colorado	860	758	0	860	795	.536	87-76	-4
Atlanta	810	733	16	826	770	.532	86-76	-2
New York	804	750	22	826	787	.522	85-77	-1
Philadelphia	892	821	8	900	858	.522	85-77	-2
Milwaukee	801	776	25	826	813	.507	82-80	-1
Los Angeles	735	727	39	774	764	.506	82-80	0
Arizona	712	732	43	755	769	.492	80-82	1
San Francisco	683	720	56	739	757	.489	79-83	2
Cincinnati	783	853	48	831	890	.469	76-86	1
Houston	723	813	67	790	850	.467	76-86	4
St. Louis	725	829	54	779	866	.452	73-89	2
Washington	673	783	64	737	820	.451	73-89	3
Florida	790	891	41	831	928	.450	73-89	1
Pittsburgh	724	846	32	756	883	.429	70-92	0

Scoring Baserunners in the NL: 2007

Obviously, the main goal of a team on offense in baseball is to score runs. Teams with a lot of home run hitters have a leg up on the competition in that regard since they probably don't have to bother with moving runners over quite as much. Of course, no matter how many home runs a team hits, they have to also get some of the players they put on base around to score in order to have a chance at winning games. Using the B-R.com Play Index, it's possible to quickly get a list of how many times each team put runners on base during the season (totaling the Times on Base from each game). It's also easy to figure out how many runs the team scored from those baserunners by taking total runs scored and subtracting the team's home run total (since, obviously, a home run doesn't leave a runner on the bases).

In the following table, "Baserunners" refers to the team's total Times on Base minus Home Runs and BRR stands for "Baserunner Runs," my term for runs scored by players who actually were on the bases (derived from R-HR). BRR% is then the total percentage of baserunners that came around to score (BRR/Baserunners).

Team	Baserunners	BRR	BRR%	OBP
Colorado	2156	689	.3196	.354
Philadelphia	2151	679	.3157	.354
Atlanta	2035	634	.3115	.339
New York	2032	627	.3086	.342
Los Angeles	2019	606	.3001	.337
St. Louis	1996	584	.2926	.337
Chicago	1993	601	.3016	.333
Florida	1970	589	.2990	.336
Cincinnati	1961	579	.2953	.335
Houston	1950	556	.2851	.330
Washington	1921	550	.2863	.325
Pittsburgh	1903	576	.3027	.325
San Francisco	1901	552	.2904	.322
San Diego	1889	570	.3017	.322
Milwaukee	1863	570	.3060	.329
Arizona	1826	541	.2963	.321
NL Sums	31556	9503	.3011	.334

It seems pretty apparent (and should be obvious) that teams with higher on base percentages end up with more baserunners. Milwaukee seems to be an exception, but the Brewers also led the league in home and had over fifty more than every other team with a sub-.330 OBP. Thus it's perhaps understandable that they had relatively few baserunners for their OBP.

In any case, it's interesting to note that the percentages of baserunners scored seems to bounce around a lot, especially near the bottom of the list. Remember, however, that teams that hit a lot of home runs will get some benefits here. Though I took out runs scored by the batters who hit home runs, I didn't take out the runs scored by baserunners on home runs. Here's a chart of BRR% in order to show visually which teams succeeded and which teams struggled.


(click image to enlarge in a new window)

With a couple exceptions (Pittsburgh and Arizona), the teams that were in contention for the playoffs are on the left side of the NL Sums (average) bar and teams that didn't are on the right. I'm not at all sure this reflects any sort of skill on the part of teams beyond getting on base at a better clip, but perhaps the next image should help us tell. It's the same chart as the last picture, but it also has each team's OBP next to their BRR%.


(click image to enlarge in a new window)

I'm sure the scale used makes it look more dramatic than it really is, but it's obvious team OBP bounces around even as BRR% declines. I don't think this reflects a team skill any more than, say, leaving fewer men on base than the rest of the NL teams (more on this at a later date, but every team in the NL left between 58 and 61 percent of their baserunners on base in 2007).

As final charts before messing around with hypothetical stuff, it might be worthwhile to see what teams were the best at scoring the "smallball" way. As I alluded to above, teams like the Brewers and Reds who hit a lot of home runs have perhaps skewed BRR% numbers since I only took out runs scored by batters who hit home runs, not the runs scored by baserunners at the time. Let's look at the chart of the percentage of baserunners scored in ways other than via the home run.


(click image to enlarge in a new window)

As suspected, Milwaukee and Cincinnati take a hit, falling all the way down to third and second lowest. The rest of the league jumbles up as well. Pittsburgh rises to third, while Philadelphia falls to the middle of the pack, among other changes. (Note: all the images used in the bars for each team are the background images from their official site which explains why the Cardinals are blue).

Finally, here is a chart of both the overall baserunners scored percentage and that of baserunners scored other than on home runs. I think it is good proof of how the baserunners scored percentage fluctuates wildly when you take the home runs out of it:


(click image to enlarge in a new window)

This entry has gotten pretty long, so I'm going to leave you hanging and say I'll post again tomorrow with some numbers derived from playing around hypothetically with data from today's post. As a preview, if the Houston Astros had scored even a league average percentage of their baserunners, they would have scored 31 more runs on the season. Those 31 runs would have changed their Pythagorean Winning Percentage from .447 (72-90) to .466 (75-87).

Most Career RBI, Zero Runs Scored

It's pretty difficult to rack up runs batted in without ever scoring yourself. You have to avoid hitting home runs and generally stay off the basepaths. For this reason, this list has some small numbers on it but any category in which Razor Shines holds the record is postable.

Most Career RBI with Zero Runs Scored Since 1901 (Position Players)

• Razor Shines, 5
• Brandon Jones, 4
  Glenn Redmon, 4
  Mike Krsnich, 4
  Joe Brovia, 4
  George Yankowski, 4
  Wade Lefler, 4
• Pete Zoccolillo, 3
  Mike Moriarty, 3
  Carlos Casimiro, 3
  Matt Stark, 3
  Keith Marshall, 3
  Pat Cooper, 3
  Tony Ordenana, 3
  Bob McNamara, 3
  Joe Jenkins, 3
  Tony Tonneman, 3

Most Career RBI with Zero Runs Scored Since 1901 (Pitchers)

• Tom Hilgendorf, 5
• Micah Bowie, 4*
  Dave Otto, 4
  Steve Busby, 4
  Tom Butters, 4
  Marty Kutyna, 4
  Rex Cecil, 4
  Harry Thompson, 4
• Jay Witasick, 3*
  Anthony Telford, 3
  Jim Abbott, 3
  Bob Myrick, 3
  Al Raffo, 3
  Jay Ritchie, 3
  Ken Hunt, 3
  Webbo Clarke, 3
  Bobo Holloman, 3
  Bill Butland, 3
  Lefty Wallace, 3
  Charlie Bowles, 3
  Alex Mustaikis, 3
  Ensign Cottrell, 3
  Jesse Baker, 3
  Pat Paige, 3

* - active player

Most Career Games Played, Zero Runs Scored

Much like getting a run batted in, if you play long enough you will score a run in a major league game. I want to look at the position players who appeared in the most games without scoring a run. I'm going to exclude pitchers because relievers or AL pitchers since 1973 can rack up far more games than any position player.

Most Career Games Played, Zero Runs Scored Since 1901

• Razor Shines, 68
• Joe Jenkins, 40
• Tony DePhillips, 35
• Chris Jones, 34
• Chico Fernandez, 24
  Sam Narron, 24
• Stubby Clapp, 23
• Joe Brovia, 21
• Pete Zoccolillo, 20
• Yamid Haad*, 18
  Fernando Ramsey, 18
  George Yankowski, 18
• Joe Koshansky*, 17
  Dan Firova, 17
  Odie Davis, 17
  Bob Linton, 17
• Sergio Robles, 16
  Randy Schwartz, 16
  Cal Emery, 16
  Frank Baldwin, 16
  Papa Williams, 16

* - active player