This is the all time leaderboard for hitting Derek Jeter with pitches:

John Lackey - 4

Mike Timlin - 3

Dustin McGowan - 3

Daisuke Matsuzaka, Matt Clement, Bronson Arroyo, Casey Fossum, Rich Garces, Kevin Appier, Denny Bautista, Erik Bedard, Chris Carpenter, Scott Downs, Kelvim Escobar, Chuck Finley, Danny Haren, Scott Kazmir, Rodrigo Lopez, Chuck McElroy, Aaron Myette, Joel Pineiro, David Riske  - 2

Lackey hasn't hit anyone else more than twice, though he did become the Angels franchise leader in career plunks last season, with 73 - passing Chuck Finley.

I'm sure that's not the only reason for the signing though.

Along with being the first HBP in Mark Teixeira's postseason career, and the first HBP recorded by a Yankee in a World Series game against the Phillies since Joe Dimaggio got hit by Jim Konstanty in 1950, Teixeira's 8th inning HBP Thursday night was the 100th postseason plunk in Yankees franchise history.  That's particularly impressive because no other team has been hit by more than 44 pitches in the postseason.

The Yankees have been hit 49 times in the World Series, 26 times in the LCS and 25 times in the Division Series.  Of the 100 baserunners they've earned from their plunkings, only 16 of them actually came around to score a run.  They've also been hit 3 times with the bases loaded in the postseason, most recently by Mike Stanley in the '97 ALDS.

The Yankees have won 53 postseason games in which they were plunked at least once and lost 31.  They've won 34 postseason series in which they were plunked at least once, and lost 16.  In series in which they don't get hit by a pitch, they're 11-5. 

The all time leader in plunking Yankees in the postseason is, of course, Pedro Martinez with 4 - although he didn't add to that total when he had the chance Thursday night.  No other pitcher has hit the same team that many times in postseason history.  The Dodgers lead all teams in hitting the Yankees in the postseason, with 16, and the only teams that haven't hit the Yankees in the postseason are the Rays, Blue Jays, Royals, White Sox, Astros, Rockies, Nationals and Breweres. 

To learn more about Yankees being hit by pitches in the postseason, go browse over to plunkeveryone.com

Here's the full list of Yankee leaders in postseason HBPs, after the jump:

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Kevin Kouzmanoff's 3rd inning HBP from Matt Cain was the 36th of his career - making him the first Padre ever to be hit by 36 pitches in his career.  The previous record was 35 by Gene Tenace, from 1977 to 1980.   Kouzmanoff has now been hit 6 times by the Giants, 8 times on Saturdays, twice by Matt Cain, 4 times by pitchers named Matt, 7 times when he scored a run after reaching base on the plunk, 6 times in the 8th inning, 4 times with two outs in the 8th inning, 10 times in May, and 21 times on even numbered days of the month, but he's never been hit by a pitcher born in Pennsylvania.

Here's how the Padres top ten HBP list looks as of yesterday:

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I just thought I'd point out that Kevin Kouzmanoff tied the Padres career record for HBPs when Manny Acosta hit him in the 8th inning on Wednesday.  He's now tied with Gene Tenace at 35.  Kouzmanoff also became the first Padre ever to have three seasons with 10 or more HBPs, and you probably remember that he broke the single season franchise record last year with 15. 

If you're reading this and saying "Really? The Padres plunk record is only 35?  Don Baylor got hit that many times in 1986."  you're right.  The Padres are tied with the Rays for the lowest franchise plunk record among current MLB teams.  Along with the Padres and Rays, the Mets are the only other team which hasn't had at least one player take 50 plunks for them.

I usually assume people who are fans of a given team know these things, but this might be a little off the beaten path so I thought I would bring it to the attention of you Marlins fans.  The Florida Marlins have been plunked 997 times in franchise history, and could pass the historic milestone of 1000 HBPs any day now.  So, I was wondering if anyone was planning a big celebration or if maybe the players would celebrate with a bench-clearing hug on the pitchers mound, possibly on top of the opposing pitcher.  Or, if the celebration might take shape more like a gasp and a quick prayer that no one is hurt, and then moving on as though nothing important just happened.  Any predictions on which Marlin will be the (un)lucky recipient of the 1000th free pass the painful way?

Personally, I think it is an important milestone in a team's history, and notable just because the Marlins will beat the Rockies to that mark, and be the quickest to 1000 plunks of any of the modern MLB teams.  And, if they time it right by getting hit twice in Atlanta this weekend, and make sure they don't hit anyone before they get hit at home against the Mets next weekend, they can have the 1000th HBP for a Marlins batter coincide with the 1000th plunk in the history of Land Shark Stadium.

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This doesn't appear to have been mentioned anywhere in the media, but I thought some Angels fans might be interested to hear that when John Lackey hit Victor Martinez in the first inning of Wednesday's game, he broke the Angels franchise record in hitting batters.  Lackey has hit 72 batters in his career, eclipsing the previous record of 71 by Chuck Finley.

Continue reading this post »

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With yesterday's 2 HBP performance against the Pirates, Jason Kendall became the second player to get hit by a pitch against all 30 major league teams.  Rondell White somehow beat him to that record, despite only being hit 88 times compared to Kendall's 235 career plunks.

The Pirates are the only NL Central team against whom Kendall is not the active leader in HBPs.  He still leads active players in getting plunked by the Brewers, and holds the HBP lead among active players against the Marlins and Dodgers, as well as a share of the lead against Padres.

Here's are Jason Kendall's plunk totals against each team (which you could also get on his splits page on baseball-reference.com, but I'll save you the trip):

Reds - 23, Cubs - 17, Astros - 17, Brewers - 16, Cardinals - 16, Marlins - 15, Nationals/Expos - 12, Dodgers - 11, Rockies - 10, Giants - 9, Mets - 9, Phillies - 9, Padres - 8, Rangers - 8, Royals - 6, Braves - 6, Twins - 5, Rays - 5, Yankees - 4, D-backs - 4, Indians - 4, White Sox - 3, Angels - 3, Red Sox - 3, A's - 3, Mariners - 3, Pirates - 2, Tigers - 2, Orioles - 1, Blue Jays - 1

Kendall's 2nd plunk last night also gave him 17 HBPs since joining the Brewers - which means he's now been hit more times playing for the Brewers than playing against them.

Editor's Note:  This article has been contributed by Michael Bourn, aka "PBR," author of the very amusing site Plunk Everyone.  He gained national notoriety in 2005 as the author of Plunk Biggio, an exhaustive and dogged chronicle of Craig Biggio's epic quest for the most cherished record in sports, for which Bourn was profiled by no less than George Will.  At our invitation, he's composed this authoritative guide to the 2008 Indians and their record-breaking achievement.  Hope you enjoy it.  [Jay]

Great things were expected from the 2008 Cleveland Indians, and they delivered great things — just not quite the ones everyone was expecting.  By the standard measure of baseball success, wins and losses, the 2008 season has been a disappointment.  But last night, Boston's Jon Lester hit Grady Sizemore with a pitch, bringing the Indians total to 101 on the season — a new MLB record, and truly a great thing.  Hey, somebody wins the World Series every year, but getting hit by 101 pitches?  No team has done that since 1899, at the tail end of the first Golden Age of HBPs.

The most remarkable thing about this club's particular 101 HBPs is that it has been a total team effort.  Every Indians batter with more than 50 plate appearances has been plunked at least once this year — 17 different batters — but none were hit more than Ryan Garko's 15 plunks.  When the Astros got hit 100 times in 1997, they needed 34 pitches to land on Craig Biggio.  Of the seven teams who got hit over 100 times before 1900, five of them had at least one batter with over 30 HBPs.  One had a team leader with just 19, but for the Indians to get over 100 HBPs with no one being hit more than 15 times is an amazing testament to teamwork.

Overall, the Indians have won 41 games in which they got hit by at least one pitch, and lost 30.  At that rate, if they'd managed to get hit in every game, they'd have finished the season at 93-69.  If they'd just spread their 101 plunks out over 101 games, and won at the same rates, they'd be on pace for an 89 win season, contending for first place.  But the problem was, they got hit more than once in 26 games, and were only 13-13 in those games (10-12 with 2 HBPs, 3-1 with 3).  That, and those 88 games in which they didn't get hit where they went 38-50 ... that was a problem, too.

Indians who reached base on a plunk this season scored 31 runs and drove in 5.  The Indians scored an average of 5.4 runs in games when at least one Indian was hit by a pitch, but they scored only 4.5 runs per game when they didn't get hit by any pitches.  They also scored nearly a run per inning more in innings that included an HBP.  They scored 0.49 runs in innings that didn't include an HBP, and 1.45 runs in innings in which they got plunked — clearly, the 2008 Cleveland Indians offense was heavily based on getting hit by pitches.  Indians batters who reached base on a HBP went on to score 30.7% of the time, while they only scored on 26.2% of walks and 25.3% of singles.  They say a walk is as good as a single, but a HBP is better than both.

Seventy-one different pitchers plunked the Indians this year — 54 right-handers and 17 lefties.  They pitched for 17 different teams and weighed a total of 14,795 pounds.  The only team the Indians played that managed to avoid plunking them was the Tampa Bay Rays.  Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers hit the most Indians, six, with pitches that had an average start-speed of 92 mph.  The Tigers hit the Indians a total of 21 times, and that is (at least) an expansion era record.  No single team had been plunked by another team more than 19 times between 1957 and 2007 (team vs team plunk totals are hard to come by before 1957).

Ryan Garko got hit the most for the Indians, with 15 HBPs, but he also got hit the hardest — on June 8, a Zach Miner pitch struck him while still traveling 89.1 mph, according to MLB's Gameday stats.  Justin Verlander hit Sal Fasano on July 31 with a pitch that left his hand at 96.2 mph but slowed to 88.3 mph before impact.  Kelly Shoppach took the easist plunk — #100 on the season from Tim Wakefield on September 23 — hitting Shoppach at just 55.1 mph.

The Indians got hit the most often on Tuesdays, with 21, but only got hit 7 times on Fridays.  They got hit 67 times in even numbered months (April, June and August) but just 34 times so far in odd numbered months.  61 of the 101 plunks were thrown by pitchers 28 years old or under, including 21 plunks by 12 pitchers born in 1983.  They've still got three more games against the White Sox to add to their record, including the grand finale against Mark Buehrle on Sunday.  Buehrle has plunked Travis Hafner six times in his career, which is tied for the most times that any active pitcher has hit any active batter.

So congratulations to the Cleveland Indians and their fans for a truly amazing season.  The 2008 Cleveland Indians are the best team in American League history (at getting hit by pitches), the best team in major league history (at getting hit by pitches), and the best major league team (at getting hit by pitches) since 1899, when Hughie Jennings, was working on the all time record.  Despite the 101 times the Indians have been hit, they've only hit their opponents 51 times, showing impressive restraint.  If every team had a full roster of guys willing to take over 100 bruises to help their team win, without getting hysterical and vowing vengeance against the pitcher and his family like certain Detroit Tigers, Major League Baseball would be a truly special place.  Especially if they could do it without getting too injured.

I'll be posting more on the 2008 Cleveland Indians once the final numbers are in Sunday, over at Plunk Everyone, so stop by if you'd like to learn more.  Especially if you don't mind the fact that the "more" you learn is in no way useful.