With Barry Bonds one homer away from tying Hank Aaron, let's take a moment to recognize the efforts of one former Montgomery Biscuit to help. It takes a lot of good swings to hit 754 home runs (entering Sunday) and a lot of pitches, too.
With that, let us all applaud former Biscuits pitching coach Xavier Hernandez and the way he "helped" baseball history.
This is the chart we published last year when Bonds was reaching Babe Ruth's 714 that detailed each time Hernandez pitched to Bonds.
Houston vs. Pittsburgh
May 22, 1990: Single
May 2, 1992: Three-run HOME RUN in the eighth inning; Bonds' eighth homer of the season and 150th of his career
May 8, 1992: Intentional walk
July 22, 1992: Intentional walk
Houston vs. San Francisco
May 17, 1993: Two-run HOME RUN in the seventh inning; Bonds' 10th homer of the season and 186th of his career
Cincinnati vs. San Francisco
July 3, 1995: Solo HOME RUN in the eighth inning; Bonds' 14th homer of the season and 273rd of his career
July 6, 1995: Popout to shortstop
July 26, 1996: Flyout to center
Houston vs. San Francisco
June 13, 1996: Single
Texas vs. San Francisco
June 27, 1998: Hit by pitch
Source: retrosheet.org
Baseball-reference.com now gives you the ability to look up past hitter vs. pitcher statistics. It tells us that only Eric Davis matched Bonds with three home runs off Hernandez, but it took Davis 18 plate appearances to do so.
Hernandez is now the pitching coach at Class AAA Durham. Former major-leaguer Gary Gaetti is the hitting coach. Hmmm ...
St. Louis vs. Houston
May 21, 1996: Walk
Aug. 25, 1996: Foul out
Sept. 2, 1996: Popup
No comments:
Post a Comment