Friday, August 31, 2012

Painfully Useless Royals Doubleheader Trivia



• The Royals have played the Rangers in seven doubleheaders in Kansas City. Texas won the first game of the first of those doubleheaders on July 2, 1972. Since then, the Royals have gone 13-0.

• The Royals and Yankees have hooked up in 12 doubleheaders, but only one of them was played in KC.

• The Royals have played more doubleheaders against Oakland than any other team (24).

• 1996 and 2011 are the only years in which the Royals have played zero doubleheaders.

• Between June 16-20, 1969, the Royals played three doubleheaders, and no singleheaders.

• Five back-to-back doubleheaders in club history:
September 21 (vs OAK) and 22 (vs WAS), 1970
September 25 (@ WAS) and 26 (vs WAS), 1971
July 15 (@ CHI) and 16 (@ CHI), 1976
September 14 (@ OAK) and 15 (vs OAK), 1977
August 13 (@ DET) and 14 (@ MIL), 1983

The Royals have played 215 twin bills, 110 on the road, 105 at home.

• The Royals have played well in doubleheaders with a record of 232-198 (.540). They are 120-95 in first games and 112-103 in second games.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Royal Doubles

Billy Butler has slowed down in his pursuit of the Royals single-season home run record, but Alex Gordon has a good shot to capture a less glamorous team record: doubles in a season. Hal McRae has held the team mark with 54 since 1977. Gordon is up to 44 and is on pace for 56. Here is a graph of McRae's and Gordon's doubles totals by game:


And while we're talking about Royals doubles, here are the top doubles hitters in team history:

Rk Player 2B
1 George Brett 665
2 Hal McRae 449
3 Frank White 407
4 Amos Otis 365
5 Mike Sweeney 297
6 Willie Wilson 241
7 Joe Randa 223
8 Billy Butler 204
9 David DeJesus 187
10 Freddie Patek 182
11 Alex Gordon 176
12 Mike Macfarlane 174
13 Carlos Beltran 156
14 Johnny Damon 156
15 Mark Teahen 146
Generated 8/29/2012

Mark Teahen looms disturbingly large in team hitting history. Billy and Alex are already looking good from the counting perspective (they might be 8-9 in team history by the end of the year), and their rates look even better. Out of the 76 humanoids with 1000+ plate appearances for the Royals, here are the hitters with the most doubles per 550 PA:

Player PA 2B 2B/550
Mark Quinn 1166 72 34.0
Mark Grudzielanek 1432 88 33.8
Hal McRae 7362 449 33.5
Billy Butler 3392 204 33.1
Alex Gordon 2906 174 32.9
Jeff Francoeur 1141 66 31.8
George Brett 11625 665 31.5
Mike Sweeney 5278 297 30.9
Clint Hurdle 1240 69 30.6
Wally Joyner 2173 120 30.4


Jeff Francoeur ya'all!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Graph of Billy Butler's Home Run Pace Compared To '85 Balboni


114 games into the 2012 Royals season, Billy Butler has 24 ding dongs. In 1985, Steve Balboni had 25 at that point in the season. Balboni was on pace for 35.5, and finished with 36, the infamously pitiful team record. Billy is now on pace for 33.8.