On May 27, 2019 Bill Buckner passes away at age 69 from Lewy Body Dementia. He played 22 years in the majors for five different teams. He was with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who drafted him in the second round of the 1968 amateur draft, and the Chicago Cubs for eight seasons each before joining…
Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers continues to have a superlative season. Today, in a 9 – 5 win over the Mets, he hits his 19th homer of the year and also throws out two baserunners. He nabs Michael Conforto at home in the 1st, and then gets Carlos Gomez at third base in the 8th, completing a double play on a throw from just in front of the warning track in right field.
A game between between the Astros and Indians begins as a pitcher’s duel between Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer, former college teammates and rivals at UCLA, but ends with a 10 – 9 Indians win in 14 innings. Bauer strikes out 13 in 7 1/3 innings for Cleveland, while Cole has 8 in 7 innings. Both bullpens falter however, as Houston scores 6 runs in the 8th, but Cleveland comes back with 5 in the bottom of the 9th to force extra innings. Evan Gattis hits a three-run homer off Ben Taylor for the Astros, before three relievers allow 7 hits to the Indians in the 9th, with a two-out, two-run single by Michael Brantley being the key blow. The two teams exchange solo home runs in the 13th, with Gattis going deep again and Yonder Alonso replying, before Greg Allen homers off Brad Peacock’s first pitch of the bottom of the 14th to end the game.
The Dodgers and Braves complete a six-player trade, with 3B Juan Uribe and P Chris Withrow headed to Atlanta in return for IF Alberto Callaspo and Ps Eric Stults, Ian Thomas and Juan Jaime. Callaspo originally blocked the trade, as is his right as a player who was signed as a free agent before the season, but changes his mind after thinking about it for a day.
Cubs pitcher Jon Lester sets a new record for most hitless at bats from the start of a career by going 0 for 2 in a game against the Nationals. Coming into the game, he had been tied with Joey Hamilton with 57 fruitless at-bats.
Things have not been going so well on the mound for Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo this year, but today it’s with his bat that he gives his team a win. Called upon as a pinch-hitter in the 10th inning against the Orioles, he hits a double off T.J. McFarland to drive in Mark Reynolds from first base for a 7 – 6 win. The Orioles had walked Reynolds intentionally with two outs and the bases empty, knowing P Francisco Rodriguez was due up next and that Milwaukee had used all of its position players already. However, Gallardo, who boasts a lifetime .202 batting average and 12 homers, makes them pay for their presumption that pitchers cannot hit.
Yu Darvish adds to his major league-leading strikeout total by fanning 14 batters, matching a career high, but he gives up a two-run game-tying homer to Didi Gregorius in the 8th, and the Rangers surrender another run in the 9th, as Arizona completes a doubleheader sweep, 5 – 3 and 5 – 4. The D-Backs’ Tyler Skaggs strikes out 9 and picks up the win in the opener in a one-day call-up from the minors.
The Rockies and Reds combine for 9 home runs, the most ever hit in a single game at Great American Ballpark, as the Reds prevail, 7 – 5. Mat Latos allows 5 hits in 7 1/3 innings – all of them solo homers – to pick up the win; Jamie Moyer who has surrendered more long balls than anyone in major league history, adds another four to his total. 8 different players go deep, with Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez the only man to do so twice.
Paul Konerko hits his 400th homer in a White Sox uniform, a three-run shot off Ubaldo Jimenez in the 4th, to lead Chicago to a 12 – 6 win over Cleveland, completing a three-game sweep. Konerko is now batting .399 for the year and the Sox have moved to within half a game of the AL Central-leading Indians.
A sign bearing the likeness of Mike Piazza connecting for his decisive eighth-inning home run in the Mets’ 3-2 victory against Atlanta in the first professional sports event in New York City following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 proves to be the winning entry in the Mets’ revival of Banner Day, a team tradition started in 1963 that lasted until 1996. The artwork, created by cousins Olivia Nuzzo and Stephanie Giangrande, included a section of the NYC’s former skyline, with the WTC towers silhouetted above Piazza’s heroic homer in mid-swing above the words, “The home run that helped heal N.Y. God Bless America. Let’s Go Mets.”