Last night the Mets and Giants played 16 innings on the West Coast, which caused me to stay up until 3:00 a.m. and tweet some very stupid things. It also allowed Brandon Belt to get eight at-bats and the Giants first baseman went hitless while striking out five times in the 4-3 loss.
Striking out four times in a game in a “golden sombrero” and I believe striking out five times is a “platinum sombrero.” Of course, striking out five times while going 0-for-8 is a whole different level of misery, so I searched Baseball-Reference.com for all the instances of a player going hitless in at least eight at-bats with at least five strikeouts.
Brandon Belt 07/08/2013
Chris Davis 05/06/2012
Jim Thome 07/02/2004
Cecil Cooper 06/14/1974
Bobby Darwin 05/12/1972
Billy Cowan 07/09/1971
Tony Conigliaro 07/09/1971
Ron Swoboda 04/15/1968
Byron Browne 07/19/1966
Rick Reichardt 05/31/1966
So last night Belt became the 10th player in MLB history to have at least eight hitless at-bats while striking out at least five times in a game, including just the third player to do it since 1975. And there are plenty of very good hitters on that list. Chris Davis is the last guy to do it, about 14 months ago, and he’s currently leading MLB in homers and slugging percentage. And the last guy before him was Jim Thome, who’s headed to the Hall of Fame.
Also of note: Two of the 10 instances came in the same game, back on July 9, 1971, when the A’s beat the Angels 1-0 in 20 innings and Angels teammates Tony Conigliaro and Billy Cowan each went 0-for-8 with five and six strikeouts, respectively. They were hitting third and fourth in the Angels’ lineup, too.