Weird & Wild: Orioles-Royals homerfest, Giants run in up in extras, triple play history

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It doesn’t seem possible for this baseball season to get Weirder and Wilder every week. But it’s happening!

We had a team win a game on a walk-off single even though nobody was on base. … We had another team blow a save by getting hit in the head by a popup. … And we had the Strangest But Truest bullpen pitching line ever witnessed — with some possible assistance by those wacky Zombie Runners.

But none of that was even the Weirdest and Wildest development of the week. For that, bring along your lightsaber and behold …

The Royals Empire Struck Back

Maikel Garcia had a pair of solo homers for the Royals. (Gregory Fisher / Imagn Images)

Even in those galaxies far, far away, they can’t possibly know how the heck to explain the beautiful and mysterious sport of baseball. Can they?

Consider the weird, wild, inexplicable game that unfolded Sunday in Baltimore … when the team that was last in the major leagues in home-run trots, those hard-hitting Kansas City Royals, rolled into Camden Yards … and this happened:

• A game with 11 home runs!

• A game with 10 solo home runs!

• A game in which the Royals — yes, I said the Royals — hit seven of those home runs! And yes, that’s a sentence that has never before been written or spoken in the history of baseball kind.

So how do we explain it when games like that bust out? I posed that question to the always entertaining TV analyst for the Royals on FanDuel Sports Network Kansas City, Rex Hudler. He reached deep into the thesaurus in his brain and replied:

“It’s an anomaly,” Hudler said. “Is that right? I don’t know, because I don’t know how to spell it. I can barely say it. You know, before I go to the ballpark, my wife, Jennifer, always tells me, ‘Hud, stay away from big words.’ OK, so let’s just say it was a freak of nature.”

Oh, it was a freak of baseball nature, all right. And …

Here are some facts to prove it!

Those seven Royals homers were hit by players who had combined to hit exactly 10 home runs all season! I asked my friends from STATS Perform to look into whether that had ever happened. And while eight other teams had also done that, only one of them has ever done it as deep into a season (35 games) as the Royals did.

That team was Farmer Weaver’s 1894 Pittsburgh Pirates. And you know that was kind of a long time ago since A), that lineup hit only 48 home runs all season and B) Connie Mack homered in that game. So I’m ruling that this was a first. If you’re related to Farmer Weaver, I apologize!

A team that was last in the big leagues in homers hit seven in a game? According to STATS, the only team ever to do something like that was the 2019 Dodgers, who hit eight on Opening Day (but were technically last in homers because of a Japan Series the week before that didn’t involve them). So once again, I’m ruling that the Royals made history.

All four Royals infielders homered! I spent way too much time looking at every game in Royals history for this one.

George Brett, Frank White, Steve Balboni, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and John Mayberry are just some of the luminaries who have played in the infield for the Kansas City Royals through the years. But none of their infields ever had a day in which all four infielders homered.

So naturally, in this game, Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, Michael Massey and Maikel Garcia did what none of those other Royals infields had ever done … because baseball!

The Royals hadn’t hit seven home runs in any week this season. And then they hit seven in one day.

The Royals had hit only 15 home runs all season when they arrived in Baltimore last weekend. Heck, they hadn’t hit more than two home runs in any game this season. And then they hit seven in one game.

And finally, they weren’t in Kansas City anymore! You know how many home runs the Royals had hit all season at home when this homerfest broke out? That would be six. And then they hit seven in less than three hours, in one game at Not Kansas City … because, um, they like Mr. Splash better than Mr. Fountains?

There’s one truly powerful explanation for all this. But first, Hudler had one other theory: He missed this trip to Baltimore. Coincidence? Maybe not.

“Hey, you know how ballplayers are,” Hudler said. “They don’t care who’s there and who’s not there. But once they realized that I wasn’t there … they said, `Well, we’re happy he’s got the weekend off, and unfortunately, we’ll have to see him at home.’”

But the truth is, it had nothing to do with Hudler’s weekend off or any other more coherent theory you might have for this. Ready for the actual reason? Here it comes.

What was the date on the calendar Sunday? That would be May 4.

And you know what we call May 4, don’t you? That would be Star Wars Day, because may the fourth be with you.

And what historic thing happened at Camden Yards on Star Wars Day? These two teams tied the all-time record for … what else? … solos. And if you don’t get that line, here’s the Star Wars Wikipedia page to help you.

Jackson Holliday had two of the Orioles’ four homers on the day. (Gregory Fisher / Imagn Images)

But that’s not even all. Who hit the record-tying 10th solo that day? It was a man named … what else? … Luke! No, not Skywalker. We mean Luke Maile. So was the force strong with him in that at-bat, or what?

“Starkie,” Hudler gushed when I laid all this knowledge on him, “you’re gonna win an Emmy for this column.”

Yeah, thanks for the endorsement, man. But they do not award Emmys for goofy columns like this one.

“Oh, sorry,” Hudler replied. “But that’s amazing. That’s crazy. I can’t believe the coincidences there. You’ve gotta share that with the people, man.”

Yessir, Captain Hudler. Consider it shared. The force has awakened.

What did I miss?

You’d think we could miss a week of doing this column, and nothing momentous would happen. Ha. Are you familiar with baseball? Stuff happens! Always. So let’s catch up on a few of the highlights you would have read in last week’s Weird and Wild column if there had been one.

THE OLD TRIPLE STANDARD — Back on April 25, in our nation’s capital, one of the weirdest, wildest triple plays you’ll ever see unfurled. What the heck happened? Just watch it.

It was one of those rare 3-6-3 triple plays, all based on a busted call by an umpire. But whatever. That isn’t even why it made this column.

If it seemed strange at the time, it got stranger — when Nathaniel Lowe, the first baseman who “caught” this line drive by the Mets’ Jesse Winker, told Nationals radio voice Dave Jageler that it all felt deja-vu-ish to him … because of this!

Wait. Was that the same hitter (Winker) lining into another triple play, to the same fielder (Lowe)? Yup, that happened — in a Mariners-Rangers game on April 20, 2022.

So you know who was curious about whether anybody had ever hit into two triple plays to the same defender? Lowe was! Along with every other living human who remembered that.

And it turns out, according to the amazing Katie Sharp of Baseball Reference, the complete list of hitters and fielders who have ever done that consists of … Jesse Winker and Nathaniel Lowe. Awesome.

EUGENIO GOES BOOM… BOOM… BOOM… BOOM — You won’t run across many more unlikely four-homer games than the quadfecta that Arizona’s Eugenio Suárez unleashed on the Braves on April 26. Here’s why.

Four homers in one game, five singles all year? Yep, that was Suárez’s claim to fame that night. According to my friends from STATS, only one man in the modern era ever went into a game with five singles all season (or fewer) and then bombed four long balls: Mike Schmidt, on April 17, 1976, at Wrigley Field. But hold on now because … Schmidt came into the game with only 15 plate appearances all season. Suárez had 90. So the winner: Eugenio!

A .167 hitter smokes four home runs? Yeah, that happened. The only other man in the modern era who had an average that low going into a four-homer game? It’s Schmidt again. He was 3-for-15 (also .167) before his big day at Wrigley.

Four homers by a guy who only had 15 hits? Suárez was 15-for-90 before he hit those four homers. Again, that was the fewest in the modern era by a four-homer man who was more than a week into the season. The previous record, STATS reports, was held by … Willie Mays, who had 16 hits (in 55 at-bats) before hitting four homers on April 30, 1961.

He had more homers than his team had hits? Correct! Four home runs for Eugenio … versus three hits (all singles) for all the other Diamondbacks that day. So who does that? Only Eugenio Suárez, of course.

But STATS did find one other player who hit four in a game and had more hits than the rest of his team. That was Big Ed Delahanty, who got five hits (four homers and a single) on July 13, 1896, a day when all his Phillies teammates got just four hits. You know what else Big Ed and Eugenio had in common? They both hit four homers in a game their team lost!

The epilog: Oh, and one more thing. Eugenio Suárez hit home runs in four straight at-bats that night … and then needed 30 more plate appearances to get his next four hits … none of which were homers, because the baseball gods are sneaky like that.

GO DEEPER

Sliders: Eugenio Suárez is streaky, superstitious — and now he’s made his mark on baseball history

PLAY IT AGAIN, BOONIE The Yankees, man. There’s no home run history like Yankees home run history. But this one is just ridiculous.

Before this Opening Day, the Yankees had played baseball for 122 seasons. So they’d already hit about 2 gazillion homers. But you know what they’d never done? Led off any game — out of more than 19,000 of them, counting the postseason — with back-to-back-to-back home runs.

Three pitches into this season, that was no longer true!

The Yankees just went back to back to back on Nestor Cortes on the first 3 pitches of the game pic.twitter.com/aL6z6e5BEA

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) March 29, 2025

But if we thought it would be another 122-year wait for the next time they did that … well, are you familiar with this column? It took … exactly one month! Whereupon on April 29, this happened.

BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK TO START THE GAME.

AGAIN.

Good evening from the New York @Yankees. pic.twitter.com/C54IQeO35Z

— MLB (@MLB) April 29, 2025

That was, amazingly, a second trifecta of back-to-back-to-back homers to lead off a game. And here’s why I think it’s safe to qualify that as highly Weird and Wild:

21 of the 30 franchises have never done this once! And the Yankees just did it twice in 30 games.

Only one team has ever done it twice in franchise history! That was the Diamondbacks (in 2017 and 2019). And the Yankees have done it twice just on the 29th day of every month they’ve played a game this season.

Kyle Gibson, meet Nestor Cortes! OK, one more thing. The first time this happened, Cortes was making his first start for the Brewers … and the Yankees went back-to-back-to-back on him to launch his Brewers career. But then …

The second time this happened, Gibson was making his first start since signing with the Orioles … and the Yankees went back-to-back-to-back on him to launch (the second stint of) his Orioles career.

So after the first time this happened, my friends at STATS reported that in the division-play era (1969-present), the complete list of pitchers who had ever allowed homers to the first three hitters they faced for a new team consisted of … Nestor! … who held that distinction for … exactly a month … until Gibson became the second … against the same team.

Baseball. It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it?

More stuff that I can’t believe really happened

The White Sox blew a save Tuesday … because their second baseman (Chase Meidroth) got hit in the head with a popup!

This is White Sox baseball pic.twitter.com/savOveXmed

— Sox On 35th (@SoxOn35th) May 7, 2025

The Giants won a game on a walk-off single … even though the bases were empty!

“The Giants win the game on a Little League home run. Tell me you’ve seen that one before.”

“Well, not since my oldest son was 10 years old.”

Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow react to the Giants beating the Rangers on a Little League home run from Heliot Ramos. pic.twitter.com/heDIulX3sU

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 27, 2025

Gunnar Henderson drew a walk … even though the entire at-bat consisted of just two pitches! It went clock violation, ball two, ball three, pitch-free intentional walk. (Hat tip: Kevin Brown.)

Cubs hitters made it through an entire game … with zero strikeouts! (Last time they had a game with 18-plus base runners and no strikeouts: 1992!

The Triple-A Syracuse Mets won a 20-12 game against Worcester … even though they managed to get outhit (17-14).

The Reds gave up nine runs in a game in which they also … retired 20 hitters in a row! No National League team had done that since 1992! (Hat tip: Joel Luckhaupt.)

Two lead-flipping grand slams with two outs in the ninth on the same day? Yeah, that … happened … too … last Saturday, when Kyle Stowers went slamming for the Marlins and Daniel Schneemann slashed one on the road for the Guardians! … Schneemann had also homered the inning before, making him the second player in history whose second homer of a game was a game-winning grand slam with his team down to its last out on the road. … The only other guy to do that? Babe Ruth, for the Red Sox, on July 18, 1919. (Hat tip: STATS.)

This Week in Useless Info

Riley Greene celebrates one of his two ninth-inning homers against the Angels. (Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

CLOUD NINE TURNS GREENE — On the latest (must-listen) episode of Starkville, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch challenged me to deliver this note. His electrifying outfielder/rising star, Riley Greene, had just turned the ninth inning of a game in Anaheim into his own personal human highlight reel … like this:

Go-ahead home run to lead off the ninth (versus the great Kenley Jansen).

Then a second homer, to cap off an eight-run inning (still in the epic ninth).

No player in MLB history had ever hit 2 homers in the 9th inning of a game … until Riley Greene last night.

(h/t @SlangsOnSports)

(MLB x @BudweiserUSA)

[image or embed]

— MLB (Bot) (@mlbbot.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 10:31 AM

So how many players had ever hit two home runs in the ninth inning of a game? That would be zero … until Greene reached the batter’s box last Friday. And his manager knew just the writer he could depend on to type some words about that feat.

“If that doesn’t make into your (column) of odd things that happen, then you would get a text or a call saying, ‘Hey, listen, you missed something in our game.’” Hinch said on Starkville, “because when you do something that no one else has ever done (in the ninth inning of a) game, that deserves to be in the column.”

OK, OK. Here you go.

Riley Greene from Opening Day 2023 until that game — 79 ninth-inning trips to the plate … one home run.

Riley Greene last Friday — two ninth-inning trips to the plate, two home runs.

One text from the manager (to this column) — averted!

ROCKET SCIENCE AT FENWAY — So how cool was this moment?

What a moment 😮

Kody Clemens homers in his first game at Fenway Park … of course Roger Clemens was there to go crazy for it! pic.twitter.com/QWGhEExl36

— MLB (@MLB) May 3, 2025

Kody (Son of Roger) Clemens homering in the first game he ever played at Fenway Park? What a script!

If you can’t remember another son of a Red Sox great doing that, there’s an excellent reason for that. According to STATS, this was the first known instance of any son of a former Red Sox player going deep in his first game at Fenway.

The previous closest calls: Will (Son of Billy) Wagner — in his second game at Fenway (just last year) … Bo (Son of Dante) Bichette homering in his third game … and Doug (son of Dolph) Camilli also homering in his third game.

Special citation: Mike (Grandson of Carl) Yastrzemski homered in his first game at Fenway in 2019. But that was grandson/grandpa history, not this.

FINDING NIMMO — There was so much wacky stuff that happened in the Mets’ 19-5 win over the Nationals on April 28 that it could be a Weird and Wild column unto itself. But we’ll keep this pithy and merely say: Brandon Nimmo!

Here’s a list of just some of the players who still haven’t driven in nine runs all season: Gunnar Henderson, Michael Conforto, Max Muncy (either of them), Dylan Crews, Joc Pederson and Jonathan India. So why would I mention that? Because …

In this game, Nimmo piled up nine RBIs in three innings: three-run homer in the sixth, a slam in the seventh and a two-run double in the ninth. As friend of the column Eric Orns reports, Nimmo was only the second player in the modern era to begin the sixth inning of a game with no RBIs and finish that game with nine RBIs (or more). The other? Mike Moustakas on Sept. 12, 2015.

But are you ready for the best part? Nimmo then came to the plate again for the fourth inning in a row in the ninth — against Amed Rosario, who would be best described as not a pitcher. And this happened.

Yep. Nine RBIs in three innings against real pitchers. A groundball to the second baseman against Not a Real Pitcher. But it was all worth it, says Eric Orns, because it resulted in … a “box-score-agami!” It was the first 6-4-4-9 box-score entry in history. And who among us wouldn’t root for that?

WHO’LL STOP THE URENA — But wait. One more thing about that game! Since it’s the Year of the Cheap Save, of course the Mets waved in José Ureña to finish this classic, and he got a save — in a 19-5 game.

But that’s not even the Weird and Wild part. He got a save even though … he gave up five runs … and allowed eight base runners … and was responsible for every run the Nationals scored.

So how many other pitchers have ever recorded a save like that, you ask? Zero is always a tremendous guess.

And oh by the way, Ureña’s reward for that pristine performance was … then getting designated for assignment. Want to guess how many other pitchers ever racked up a save in their only game pitched for the Mets? Zero remains a tremendous guess.

LET’S PLAY THE NAME GAME — Everyone ready for another edition of Fun With Names? Let’s do it.

Reds rookie Luis Mey made his big-league debut on … May Day (May 1). Hat tip: Chris Kamka.

When the Rangers sent Jake Burger to the minors last weekend … you know what that meant: One Burger to go!

How could they not have played Save a Prayer when Sunday’s Twins-Red Sox game ended with the first-ever Duran-Duran save! That was Jhoan Duran striking out Jarren Duran for the final out.

So naturally, Baseball Reference’s Kenny Jackelen and I burrowed deep down the Name Game rabbit hole on this one, looking at every save on record in which the pitcher and hitter had the same last name.

There were two Will Smith versus Will Smith classics. … And Lee Smith kept us busy, with three of these against Ozzie Smith and two more against Lonnie Smith.

But this is one career saves list Mariano Rivera doesn’t lead. (He had just one of these, against Juan Rivera). Lee Smith is No. 1, with five. And there’s a tie for second between Francisco Rodríguez (four of them, against A-Rod, Pudge and Luis Rodriguez) and Mark Davis (also four, against Eric, Glenn and Jody Davis).

But only one of these name-game save matchups owns a Grammy, best I can tell — until somebody signs the Beyonce twins!

WHO’S NO. 1 — On April 26, for the third time this year, the Tigers won a game in which a former No. 1 overall pick (Casey Mize) got the win and another No. 1 overall pick (Spencer Torkelson) hit a homer.

All right, here they come — the only other teams to win three games (or more) like that in one year, according to Katie Sharp:

2019 Astros (Gerrit Cole, Carlos Correa)

2016 and ’17 Nationals (Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper)

2004 Reds (Paul Wilson, Ken Griffey Jr.)

1992 A’s (Mike Moore, Harold Baines)

1984 White Sox (Floyd Bannister, Harold Baines)

DO YOU HAVE CHANGE FOR A CINCO? I don’t know why I spend every May 5 rooting for somebody to go 5-for-5 on Cinco de Mayo — but somebody has to do it!

Oh well. For the 23rd straight Cinco de Mayo, we went 5-for-5-less. So the last to do it is still Omar Vizquel — in 2002!

Did you know that there has never been a true Cinco de Mayo pitching line (5 innings, 5 hits, 5 runs, 5 walks, 5 strikeouts) — on any date in the modern era?

If you’re thinking I should really find more useful things to do with my time, you’re correct! But I can’t help it, because I love …

Baseball!

Strange But Trueness of the Week

The Rangers welcomed Bret Boone back to the majors with a 16-hit barrage. (Jim Davis / Associated Press)

THE BOONE SQUAD — Bret Boone played 14 seasons in the big leagues, so he was familiar with a place known as Fenway Park. Now here comes the Strange But True part of his return to the big leagues this week, as a hitting coach for the Rangers.

Games in which his teams got 16 hits in a game at Fenway as a player — none!

Hits by the Rangers at Fenway in his first game as a hitting coach — 16!

NORTH OF NORTH (SIDE) — Speaking of ballparks you may be familiar with, does the name, Wrigley Field, ring a bell? It’s safe to say a few baseball games have taken place there — by which I mean more than 8,500 of them.

 So what were the odds of this:

April 18 — The Cubs and Diamondbacks combine for … the highest-scoring inning in the history of Wrigley Field (with 16 runs — 10 of them by the D-Backs in a game they didn’t even win).

May 6 — The Giants erupt for the most runs in any extra inning in the history of Wrigley Field (with nine of them — and only one scored by a Zombie Runner).

So think about this: This park hosts more than 8,500 games — which comes to more than 75,000 innings of baseball — and no innings like that ever happen. Then, in a span of just 10 home games, the highest-scoring regulation inning and the highest-scoring extra inning in Wrigley history both bust out.

Baseball! It’s the best.

NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU (UNLESS IT RAINS) — So how strange (but also true) is this:

The White Sox are now 38 games into the season. They have one save — and it was by accident!

It came in a rain-shortened game on April 24 in Minnesota. Brandon Eisert trotted in to pitch the seventh … and since the game then got rained out, he got credit for a save, minus the handshake line (or any knowledge at the time that he was saving anything).

So I turned to my friend Katie Sharp and said: This can’t have happened before, right? A team getting this deep into a season with only one save — in a game that didn’t even go nine innings?

Katie then dug through the annals and … I was right. Since the dawn of the modern save rule in 1969, none of the other teams that had just one save at this point racked up that save in a game that didn’t make it to the ninth. But …

Asterisk alert! Dyar Miller’s 1975 Orioles somehow had zero saves — on their way to 90 wins — for their first 58 games, until Grant Jackson finally collected their first save … on June 16!

THE JORDAN RULES — The good news for the Rockies, back on April 24 and 25, was that Jordan Beck erupted for five home runs in two days. There was a doubleheader in there, so it was actually three games, but what the heck. That was great, right?

Oh, yeah. It was awesome … except for the part where his team lost all three games!

So I asked my friends from STATS to fire up the computers and figure out just how strange but true that was.

On one hand, they did find seven other players in history who hit five homers or more in a span of three games, and their teams lost all three. The only other teams to do it in the 21st century: the 2016 Twins (with Brian Dozier) and 2016 Rockies (with Charlie Blackmon).

On the other hand, you know how many teams in history have gone 0-3 in any two-day period when one of their players was making five home run trots (or more)? That would be exactly one … those 2025 Colorado Rockies.

RYAN PRESSLY: ALL SHOOK UP — Finally, I think we just saw the Strangest But Truest bullpen box-score line in baseball history. And I don’t say that just to jolt you back to consciousness because you’ve been reading this column for 20 minutes.

This was the actual pitching line of Cubs closer Ryan Pressly, Tuesday against the Giants, after he jogged to the mound in the 11th inning of a tie game:

0 IP, 5 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HBP

So what’s up with that? Before Pressly stopped by, only one other reliever in the modern era had allowed nine runs in a game in which he got zero outs. That was Hank Borowy, for the Tigers, on Aug. 18, 1951. Whoa. But …

That wasn’t even the Strange But True part!

The Strange But True part was this little addendum to his line that I cagily forgot to include the first time:

9 runs allowed, 8 batters faced!

Feel free to blame the Zombie Runners for that part. But whatever. It’s just one more reminder that mathematics is now officially irrelevant here in the increasingly unpredictable sport of …

Baseball! (In 2025!)

GO DEEPER

What Ryan Pressly is working to correct after a historically bad outing

GO DEEPER

Cubs takeaways: What’s going on with Ryan Pressly after historic loss in extra innings?

(Top photo of Bobby Witt Jr.: Gregory Fisher / Imagn Images)

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