Atlanta Braves’ Freddie Freeman can’t be stopped for long
Maybe the Atlanta Braves stat guys weren’t in mid-season form Tuesday night?
It was declared multiple times during and after Tuesday’s Atlanta Braves game with the Rays that Freddie Freeman had never carried a golden sombrero (4 strikeouts) in a single game before. Close, but not quite…
Actually… it was the tenth time that had happened.
- 2011: June 12 vs. Houston (a Braves win)
- 2011: June 18 vs. Texas (yes, it happened just a week later!)
- 2013: April 26 vs. Detroit (Anibal Sanchez struck out 17 Braves in 8 innings that day)
- 2013: May 26 vs. the Mets (Shaun Marcum did it)
- 2013: July 26 vs. St. Louis (a Braves win over Adam Wainwright)
- 2015: May 26 vs. the Dodgers (yes, it was Kershaw)
- 2016: April 20 vs. the Dodgers again (a team effort that day)
- 2016: July 17 vs. Colorado (Braves win 1-0, but Jon Gray got him)
- 2016: Aug 5 vs. St. Louis (Jaime Garcia was pitching for them)
- 2020: July 28 vs. Tampa Bay
The first reaction you might be having now could be “Maybe he should never play on the 26th of a Spring or Summer month.” I’m going to ignore that one.
The next reaction you might have is “Wow – anybody every do that more often for the Atlanta Braves?”
Glad you asked: the answer is actually No. That includes every Braves/Doves/Beaneaters/etc. team over the entire history of this franchise. However, Freeman does currently share this “franchise record” of ten 4-strikeout games with Andruw Jones.
The next closest is Dale Murphy (7 times).
Seems that longevity with the team has its benefits… and pitfalls. Hey – that’s why Albert Pujols has more GIDP than anyone else ever (395). Happily, Hank Aaron doesn’t hold that record anymore (he’s now 4th all-time on that double-plays list).
The team record for K’s in a single game is 5 – the Platinum Sombrero, if you will.
Andruw is a member of that club. So also are Bob Sadowski, David Justice, Jason Heyward, Jeff Francoeur, Justin Upton, and Ozzie Virgil.
Freeman himself narrowly missed joining that group: during the second Dodgers game noted above, he had a 5th plate appearance. On a 2-2 count (and the 6th pitch of the AB), he barely made contact, nubbing a ball toward pitcher Chris Hatcher and was thrown out at first.
But documenting Freeman’s failures was actually not the point of this writing exercise. The question I wanted to answer was this: what did he do the next day?
Let’s find out…