List of obscure baseball records

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The List of Obscure Baseball Records is a list of events that occurred in baseball games which commentators discovered happened only once or a few times. These events typically involve multiple overlapping statistics, i.e., "most RBI by a switch-hitter in the sixth inning of a rain-shortened second game of a day-night doubleheader."

On May 29, 1996, pitcher William Van Landingham started against Jason Isringhausen. The two pitchers tied a record for the longest combined names of two starting pitchers.^[1]

On May 15, 2006, White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle gave up seven runs in the first inning against the Minnesota Twins. However, he remained in the game and his team went on to score ten runs, giving Buehrle the victory. It was the first time in nearly 106 years that a pitcher gave up seven or more runs in the first inning but went on to earn the victory. The last pitcher was St. Louis' Jack Powell, who did it on September 29, 1900, against the Chicago Orphans.^[2]

In June 2006, the Minnesota Twins became the first team to sweep the American League monthly awards. Catcher Joe Mauer hit for a .452 average and was named player of the month. Pitcher Johan Santana went 5-0 with a 1.05 ERA and was named pitcher of the month. Pitcher Francisco Liriano went 4-1 with a 2.31 ERA and was named rookie of the month. This was the first time in either league that one team won all three awards.^[3]

On July 16, 2006, 3B Chipper Jones socked a home run against San Diego Padres pitcher Jake Peavy. This was the fourteenth consecutive game in which Jones had an extra-base hit. This feat tied a record set by Pittsburgh's Paul Waner in 1927.^[4]

On July 18, 2006, the Minnesota Twins faced the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune noted that "Tuesday's game will feature two All-Star left-handers, Tampa Bay's Scott Kazmir and Minnesota's Francisco Liriano. According to the Devil Rays, it will be only the second time since 1989 that two 10-game winners ages 22 or younger faced off in the same game."^[5]

On July 24, 2006, the Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians 9-7. The Tigers became the first team in 115 years to score 5 or more runs in the first inning of three consecutive games.^[6]

On August 9, 2006, Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins hit his 30th home run. He was the first player to hit 30 or more home runs for the Twins since 1987, when Tom Brunansky, Gary Gaetti, and Kent Hrbek each did. This is a remarkably long streak for power hitting futility. During the same span, every other team in the majors had at least three 30-HR hitters; nine teams had 20 or more^[7]. Torii Hunter also hit 30 homeruns in the 2006 season, finishing with 31.

On August 13, 2006, Kansas City Royals starter Luke Hudson gave up 11 runs (10 earned) in the first inning of a game against the Cleveland Indians. It was the most runs surrendered in an opening inning since the Brooklyn Bridegrooms scored 12 against Kid Nichols of the Boston Beaneaters on Sept. 21, 1897.^[8] The awful start caused Hudson's ERA to balloon from 4.65 to 6.39; his ERA for the game was 270.0.

On August 14, 2006, Greg Maddux got the start for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants, who started Barry Bonds in left field. This marked the first time that a member of the 700-home run club faced a member of the 300-win club. Maddux got the better of Bonds, as Bonds went 0-3 in the Dodgers' 1-0 victory. ^[9]

On September 5, 2006, seven teams shut out their opponents. This was the most shutouts in Major League Baseball in one day since June 4, 1972.^[10] The starting pitchers in the 2006 shutouts were Bronson Arroyo, Doug Davis, Johan Santana, Jeff Suppan, Kason Gabbard, Claudio Vargas, and Jorge de la Rosa.

On September 6, 2006, Aníbal Sánchez of the Florida Marlins threw a no-hitter against the Arizona Diamondbacks. It was the first no-hitter in Major League Baseball since Randy Johnson did it for the Diamondbacks against the Atlanta Braves on May 18, 2004. In terms of total major-league games played, this was the longest drought between no-hitters ever: Sanchez's performance ended a stretch of 6,364 major league games between no-hitters. The longest gap had been 4,015 games from Sept. 30, 1984 (Mike Witt of the Angels vs. the Rangers), to Sept. 19, 1986 (Joe Cowley of the White Sox vs. the Angels).^[11]

On October 6th, 2006, Randy Johnson of the New York Yankees faced Kenny Rogers of the Detroit Tigers in game 3 of the American League Divisional Series. It marked the first time ever that both starting pitchers in a post season game had previously thrown a perfect game in their career.