May 2010 GRBI Summary

Month number two of the season done. Time for the May summary. Game-winning RBI's has reached some nice parity with six players tied for first at 7 gribbies and 10 players tied for seventh with 6 gribbies. Longoria still leads in Game-winning Runs but Tulowitzki is right behind him at 9.

Catchers have still not allowed a GRBI via a passed ball or interference while there have been 35 through fault of pitchers - balk (3), wild pitch (13) and walk (19).

We also introduced the Game-winning Run statistic this month.

Top MLB GRBI Leaders

1.	Joey Votto (7)
	Andre Ethier (7)
	Chase Headley (7)
	Adam Dunn (7)
	Evan Longoria (7)
	Troy Tulowitzki (7)
7.	10 players tied with (6)

Top MLB GWR Leaders

1.	Evan Longoria (10)
2.	Troy Tulowitzki (9)
3.	Kevin Youkilis (8)
	Michael Young (8)
5.	Jayson Werth (7)
	David Eckstein (7)
7.	6 players tied with (6)

Top Game-winning Plays

1.	Single (232)
2.	Home run (223)
3.	Double (122)
4.	Sacrifice fly (50)
5.	Error (35)
6.	Triple (31)
7.	Walk (19)
8.	Ground out (14)
9.	Wild pitch (13)
10.	Fielder's choice (9)
11.	Ground into double play (6)
12.	Hit by pitch (4)
13.	Ground rule double (3)
	Bunt single (3)
	Balk (3)
14.	Inside the park home run (1)
	Sacrifice bunt (1)

Back-to-back Nights

The Los Angeles Angels have hit walk-off home runs in consecutive games. The May 29, 2010 home run by Kendry Morales followed by Howie Kendrick's non-broken-leg version on May 30. This has already been accomplish twice this year by the New York Mets and the Chicago White Sox.

The Angles last three wins have been walk-offs (Bobby Abreu single), but with a loss mixed in. Even more impressive (though one was on an error) has been the Atlanta Braves three consecutive walk-off wins on May 18, 19 and 20.

Tulo

Troy Tulowitzki is showing he's not to be forgotten by moving up both leaderboards. As of May 27, 2010 Tulo is tied for first - with 5 others - with 7 GRBI's (the last 4 being home runs and the last three of the solo kind) and is currently second in GWR's with 8 (tied with 2 others).

Double-day Double-up

Jerry Harriston Jr. has hit gribby solo home runs in back-to-back days giving him a quick additional two GRBI's and two GWR's. On May 25, 2010 it came in the 2nd inning and on May 26, 2010 he hit a 13th-inning walkoff.

Accentuation

For better or worse, 2010's first week of Inter-league play has concluded. As of May 23, 2010 the NL has a slight lead 22-20.

There has been problems with accented characters not showing properly on the site. They should all be fixed now. If anybody is still seeing the problem, please let me know.

Every Boy's Fantasy

Bases loaded, bottom of the 9th. Down by three. Two outs. Step up to the plate. Take a deep breath. And pound a ball deep to center field for a game-winning, walk-off grand slam.

While there were not two outs for him today and it was not really pounded to deep anywhere, Brooks Conrad satisfied every other criteria, knocking in, and scoring, the game-winning run for the Atlanta Braves, today. He tackled a feat that had only been accomplished 23 other times in major league history, that last which was Adam Dunn's in 2002 for the Cincinatti Reds.

To make Conrad's grand slam even more special, as something that has only been accomplished once before, was that fact that he came up to the plate as a pinch hitter. The only other pinch-hit, walk-off grand slam with their team down by three was by Roberto Clemente in 1956.

Rookie Power

Jason Heyward, who hit a gribby in his first major league game on the Braves' opening day, hit his 6th GRBI tody (May 19, 2010) which not only leads 2010 rookies, but ties him for 3rd overall in the league. Only one of his gribbies has been via single, the other 5 have been on doubles (3) and home runs (2).

Walking Off

I'm sure this probably isn't a record, but it still seems special. Four walk-off wins took place today, May 19, 2010. Three walkoff singles and one walkoff error.

Walking Forward

The Detroit Tigers have had back-to-back games with GRBI walks. March 15th by Johnny Damon in the 2nd inning and the previous day by Ramón Santiago as a 12th inning walkoff. On a humorous note, if you watch the replay Ramón didn't appear to realize he had to go touch first base.

By the way, all games for this year are finally caught up to date.

From the Ethier

With his hot start to the month not going unnoticed, as of May 11, 2010 Andre Ethier has blazed onto the leaderboard to take the top spot from Evan Longoria with 7 GRBI.

Evan Longoria, the Game Winner

Through May 5th, Evan Longoria has 5 GRBI (tied for first) and 9 GWR (first) making him involved in the game-winning run in 14 of the Tampa Bay Rays first 20 wins of the season.

Impressive.

Introducing the Game-winning Run (GWR)

After a very good debate on what should and should not constitute a gribby, something very smart and obvious made itself apparent. When telling the story of a game the RBI is only one part of the run-tally. There is no RBI without a run scored. In following that simple logic, the game-winning RBI really doesn't exist without its counterpart - the game-winning run.

Therefore, we are not only reviving the wonder of the GRBI statistic, but we are now introducing a brand-new statistic into the game - the GWR.

Currently, the website is showing who scored the GWR under the GRBI information. There is also a "Top Ten" leaderbaord for game-winning runs, but there is not yet any links for the players' GWR-scoring games.

April 2010 GRBI Summary

With the first month of the season over, it seems like a prudent time for a summary of findings with our new GRBI statistic.  Jorge Cantú is still leading the majors and the gribby home run is doing its best to try and keep pace with the single gribby.

MLB Player Leaders

1.	Jorge Cantú (5)
2.	J.J. Hardy (4)
	Carlos Peña (4)
	Chase Headley (4)
	Hideki Matsui (4)
	Dustin Pedroia (4)
7.	19 players tied with (3)

Top Game-winning RBI generating Play

1.	Single (104)
2.	Home run (97)
3.	Double (54)
4.	Error (23)
5.	Sacrifice fly (21)
6.	Triple (15)
7.	Walk (8)
8.	Ground out (6)
9.	Fielder's choice (4)
10.	Wild pitch (4)
11.	Bunt single (3)
12.	Ground into double play (2)
13.	Ground rule double (1)
14.	Inside the park home run (1)
15.	Sacrifice bunt (1)
16.	Hit by pitch (1)

Closing in on May

Three days shy of our April 2010 summary.

Also added in a missing day.  Somehow the April 16, 2010 game between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays was AWOL.  For the record, Pat Burrell hit a 12th-inning home run when the suspended game was resumed on April 17th.

Home Runs and Singles

Added in a few more backlog days up til April 23rd.  After three weeks of baseball we have:

75 Singles for gribbies
75 Home Runs for gribbies

Pretty interesting.  I would have assumed singles would have out-paced any other play.  Carlos Peña, who is tied for 4th in game-winning rbi's, has hit all three of his GRBI's via Home Run.

Speeding Along

Spent some time optimizing the code to speed up the page views.  So far only on the per-date viewing, but it will be expanded throughout.  You guys should see some speed improvements already and there will be more.

Added in a few more back-log games.  Up to April 18th and moving along.  Hope to get up to current soon.

Not that anybody would be surprised (if they can remember back to the state of the league on 4/18/2010), but Jorge Cantú is leading the league with five (5) game-winning rbi's.

The Return is Complete

Today is the day we can once again indulge the in likely unnecessary but ever-so-much fun game-winning RBI stat.  The gribby is reborn!  And better than ever.  Sure, it is already 33 days into the 2010 season, so I am a little late getting her up and running.  My bigger disappointment is that everybody's dear friend, Ernie Harwell will not get to share in the fun.

Ernie, you were the inspiration behind the gribby's revival.  I hope we can make this a success as one more testament to your undying legacy.

Since the site is late to the game, so to speak, I have only gotten a few days' worth of games recorded, but I will be working diligently to catch up to the MLB schedule.  You can certainly keep up-to-date here at the blog, but obviously more importantly keep checking the site as I intend to get multiple games in each night until I do get caught up.

I expect many changes and improvements to the website as we move along and all feedback is appreciated.  I'm sure I'll get plenty of "this stat is worthless", but that's OK.  I'll try to convert everybody over.

Welcome back, Gribby.  We've missed you!