Rodriguez record: Obscure, impressive
Pirates utility player Sean Rodriguez quietly set an obscure, though rather impressive, record on Friday night.
Rodriguez had the 54th multi-RBI game of his career when he hit a two-run home run off reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta in an 8-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park.
Amazingly, Rodriguez’s teams are 52-2 when he drives in two or more runs during his nine-year career, which works out to a .963 winning percentage.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there are more than 1,850 players with at least 50 multi-RBI games since 1920, the first season the statistic was officially recorded.
Yet no one has a better winning percentage than Rodriguez in the last 86 years.
Nobody.
Rodriguez surpassed Hal Lanier. The shortstop’s teams went 49-2 (.961) during his 10-year career from 1964-73 with the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees.
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Gregory Polanco feels that one of the reasons behind his breakout season is because he is no longer the Pirates’ leadoff hitter following the offseason signing of first baseman John Jaso in free agency.
The third-year right fielder said he had a tendency to press when he batted at the top of the order. The 24-year-old also primarily hit in the No. 3 hole during his minor league career.
Thus, it is somewhat ironic that Polanco has had much of his success this season when batting with no outs, the domain of a leadoff hitter. His batting average was .339 in those situations in 121 at-bats with six home runs coming into the weekend.
Conversely, Polanco was hitting just .221 with one homer in 86 at-bats with one out. With two outs, he had a .286 average with five homers in 91 at-bats.
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The Pirates won six straight games while allowing three runs or fewer on its road trip that ended Thursday.
They beat the Seattle Mariners 8-1 on June 29 then swept a three-game weekend series from the Oakland Athletics by scores of 7-3, 4-2 and 6-3 from July 1-3 before posting 4-2 and 5-2 victories over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday and Tuesday.
That was the Pirates’ longest such streak on one road trip since running off seven in a row from June 26-July 4, 1968. The first win came against the Cardinals followed by three-game sweeps of the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets.
Steve Blass was the winning pitcher twice during that streak while Hall of Famer Jim Bunning, Bob Moose, Bob Veale, Al McBean and Ronnie Kline also notched wins.