Celebrating the Positive

There is not much in the plus column to take away from last night beside our other division mates losing. One person did have a good game for the Mariners though and that was Ryan Langerhans who came away from the game with the unusual concurrence of playing the entire game and not registering an official at bat. He came up four times and drew four unintentional walks in a game that did not extend to extra innings.

That's not unprecedented for the Mariners, though it certainly isn't a common occurrence either. Until yesterday, the last player to achieve a similar feat was Desi Relaford in 2002. However, reaching base four times without an official at bat is not even record-tying. Two Mariners have drawn five walks without the benefit of an intentional free pass in a regular season game in franchise history. Alex Rodriguez was the first, in an early 2000 game playing the Royals and A-Rod was the first to accomplish the feat in a regulation nine-inning game.

Just three months later in July of 2000, Rickey Henderson would equal Alex Rodriguez with five walks in five plate appearances and Rickey even managed to get his in a game that ended after 8.5 innings. Two other Mariners (Tino and Edgar Martinez) have netted five walks in a game, but both received an intentional walk.

Langerhans didn't just walk four times though. He also scored no runs, drove in no runs and stole no bases. In short, absent the walks column, Ryan Langerhans zero'd the box score. That feat has only one partner: Dave Magadan, in a 1993 7-1 defeat by the Rangers. All together, 22 times has a Mariner hitter unintentionally walked or been hit a total of four or more times in a nine-inning game. Here is the break down of the most frequent on basers:

Edgar Martinez 3
Jay Buhner 2
Alvin Davis 2
Ken Griffey Jr 2
David Bell 1
Steve Braun 1
Mike Cameron 1
Rickey Henderson 1
Steve Henderson 1
Ruppert Jones 1
Ryan Langerhans 1
Dave Magadan 1
John Olerud 1
Ken Phelps 1
Desi Relaford 1 (only other hitter to do it from the ninth spot in the order)
Alex Rodriguez 1 (only short stop)
Danny Tartabull 1