One True Outcome: February 22

Your reliable baseball trivia is here for another segment in these trying times without a new deal on the horizon. Without any further ado let’s get into it.

1. Barry Bonds reached a point during the early 2000’s where his power threat was so great that his base on balls number broke the sport. If you look at walk/on-base rankings, it’s very clear that the outlier completely deviates from anything one could reasonably expect.

With that in mind, do you know who has the most walks in a single season in the twenty-first century, not named Barry Bonds? This player drew 135 free passes.

• (A) José Bautista
• (B) Adam Dunn
• (C) Aaron Judge
• (D) Jay Buhner
• (E) Brian Giles

2. During the Wild Card era, we’ve had a total of 131 single seasons with at least 85 walks, the number of different players is not that large because many did that on multiple occasions. Out of all those 131 times, only once did a player go the entire season without receiving a single intentional walk.

Who was that player?

• (A) Greg Vaughn
• (B) Richie Sexson
• (C) Curtis Granderson
• (D) Logan Morrison
• (E) Joey Gallo

3. Greg Maddux made the complete game shutout with fewer than 100 pitches a famous achievement. Any game with those requirements before him was great, but he gave the name to that feat. Every single time a player does that now, he just pitched a Maddux.

Tweaking around with the concept a little bit, I learned that Maddux threw 26 complete games with fewer than 100 pitches. 13 of those were a Maddux (shutouts also) and in 13 others he allowed at least one run.

Second in that category is the great Don Newcombe with 18 and interestingly enough, Bartolo Colon has six of those. Would you care to guess who is the leader among active pitchers with five?

• (A) Cole Hamels
• (B) David Price
• (C) Zack Greinke
• (D) Adam Wainwright
• (E) Rick Porcelllo

4. Stolen bases are few and far between in today’s game. I was surprised to learn that in the Wild Card era (since 1995), there are only 84 registered seasons with at least 10 stolen bases. Out of those 84 seasons, only once a player did that without being caught at least one time.

Who was that player?

• (A) Giancarlo Stanton
• (B) Albert Belle
• (C) Marcus Semien
• (D) Christian Yelich
• (E) Ken Caminiti

5. Looking at the top 250 in Home Runs in the history of baseball, you’ll see two players with exactly five career triples. They are Brian McCann and Chris Davis. There is only one player on that list with fewer than five career triples.

Who is he?

• (A) Mark McGwire
• (B) Cecil Fielder
• (C) Boog Powell
• (D) Victor Martinez
• (E) Mike Napoli

Answers

1. (E) Brian Giles had 135 walks in 2002 with the Pirates in what was the best season of his career. The lefty-swinging outfielder had a 1.072 OPS and only struck 73 times.

2. (C) Curtis Granderson was walked 85 times in the 2011 season with the New York Yankees and out of those 85, not a single one was an intentional free pass.

3. (B) David Price has five of those games and interestingly enough in all five, he allowed at least you guessed it, five hits. Only one shutout and a total of six earned runs allowed.

4. (B) Albert Belle stole 11 bags during the 1996 season with Cleveland and wasn’t caught a single time on the basepaths.

5. (D) Victor Martinez had a total of three career triples and he is number 249 in the all-time home run leaderboard with 246 long balls.