Paul, baseball fan
@bravespaul
I love MLB history, the Atlanta Braves, stats, fun facts, trivia, and dad jokes. Baseball Reference Brand Ambassador and longtime Stathead helper. Other enthusiasms: Super Mario, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spaceballs, The Matrix, SQL…
The MLB season will surpass 75% of its games played tomorrow. Wednesday, August 12, is MLB Quarter Pole Day. Writers, your quarter pole articles have my blessing through the weekend.
50 years ago next month on 9/13/1976, #Braves catcher Dale Murphy made his MLB debut, going 2-for-4 with 2 RBI singles. FUN FACT: Another call-up playing in his first game of September (24th MLB game overall)? Speedy Dodgers prospect Joe Simpson, who entered in the 9th as a defensive replacement.
Only 30 players in MLB history have at least a .290 BA, .390 OBP, and .460 SLG in 8000+ PA. 23 Hall of Famers 3 PED-era suspects 1 1930s/1940s guy (Johnson) 1 Joey Votto 1 Bobby Abreu 1 John Olerud 💻 @stathead.com Player Batting Season Finder
@adarowski.bsky.social hey! Long time, no sports ref suggestion! Could All-Stars have an All-Star link here?
Pitchers who have the most 7-out or 8-out saves that @stathead.com can find. Call it the Rollie?
7-out and 8-out saves are a category of their own. They're more than 2 innings but don't trigger the 3-inning-save rule. Since 1990, only four #Braves pitchers have done it, including Victor Mederos last night. 💻 @stathead.com Pitching Game Finder
#Braves have grounded into only 39 double plays, their fewest ever* through 91 games, 6th-fewest among all MLB teams. Previous team low: 45 in 1992. Obscure, inconsequential team record chase? I'm here for it! (via @stathead.com, *GIDP data goes back to 1933)
In the Summer of 1990, I was 7-turning-8, and I spent a lot of time sorting my first baseball cards by team, color, etc. In the Summer of 2026, my oldest is 7-turning-8, and… not just what he's doing, but the cards he's doing it with... ⚾️😍
Episode 2491 of Effectively Wild is full of insightful information on protecting pitchers' arms and catchers' heads. This one is worth saving for a re-listen. I don't recommend a single episode of our podcast often, but if this sounds remotely interesting, you will enjoy it. 
The Miz: Best Game Score ever with Game Score ≥ pitches. 💻 @stathead.com Game Score: Start: 50 +1 per out (+27=77) +2 per inning completed after 4th (+10=87) +1 per strikeout (+15=102) -2 per hit allowed (-2=100) -4 per earned run (0) -2 per unearned run (0) -1 per walk (0) 100 on 95 pitches!
Mauricio Dubón's steal of home in the third inning today was his first time stealing home in his career. Double steal or not, his "SBH" total on his @baseball-reference.com Advanced Stats page under "Baserunning & Misc. Stats" will have a 1 tomorrow.
Mauricio Dubón has home runs in 3 straight games for the first time in his career. 💻 Note the @stathead.com Batting Streak Finder screenshot shows yesterday's date but an asterisk in the "Active" column.
#Braves won 35 of their first 59 games 16 times since 1969, winning the division in 13 of the previous 15 (missed out in 1983, 1994). In four more seasons when they won 34 of their first 59, they were the wildcard three times (missed out in 1984). 💻 @stathead.com Team Span Finder
Ronald Acuña Jr has home runs in consecutive games for the 30th time in his career... ...and home runs in *3* or more consecutive games for only the 7th time. (First streak of at least this length since 2023.) 💻 @stathead.com Acuña Split Finder
Sports analytics has reached an inflection point. Who's paying attention? Don't assume this means rejection of analytics is the high ground. There's more at stake, and better understanding is NOT the problem. From Alain Chacon Espinoza, here: worldbaseballrating.substack.com/p/the-ncaa-j...
According to @stathead.com, there are 75 players in MLB history with a first name (in the @baseball-reference.com database) starting with the letter Y. If you sort them by position player WAR, the first 35 of them are unique names (38 if diacritical marks matter).
Matt Olson is the 23rd player in MLB history with 300+ homers in his first 1260 games. This is also an "Arson" Judge setting the list on fire post. 💻 @stathead.com Batting Game Finder
Matt Olson leads MLB with 30 RBI. Drake Baldwin is tied for second with 29 RBI. Drake Baldwin leads MLB with 31 runs scored. Matt Olson is tied for second with 30 runs scored.
It's amazing how similar these three have been throughout their careers, and the @stathead.com Versus Finder shows it pretty clearly. How seriously will they be considered for the Hall of Fame, I wonder...
Craig Kimbrel has tied Billy Wagner with 853 career games pitched. Kimbrel, Chapman, and Jansen are slowly passing some NAMES on this leaderboard (via Baseball Reference). No other active pitcher is within 200 games of Kimbrel. 💻 www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/
Coming into tonight, the #Braves had the longest streak of not being shutout in the NL, and second longest in MLB. Only a pretty solid offense can accomplish that. Ah well, back to zero.
The #Braves 66 regular season games is the longest streak in the NL and second-longest in MLB without being shutout. Here are the remaining 11 teams to score run in every game of 2026 so far, per @stathead.com Team Streak Finder.
In 162 regular season games in which Bobby Cox was ejected, his teams were 64-98, outscored 834-710. No surprise that the most common pitchers were John Smoltz (133 IP), Greg Maddux (127), Tom Glavine (76.1), and Tim Hudson (56.2). But next most? Dave Stieb (41.2)!
I successfully recreated this as a valid query in my @retrosheet.bsky.social SQL Server database.
Drake Baldwin is the first #Braves player since 1957 Hank Aaron to score in each of the first 7 games of the season. This Friday he could become the first player in MLB history to make it 8. From @stathead.com / @baseball-reference.com:
11 different #Braves batters had a hit or RBI last night, a new franchise record as far as we know, last achieved by ANY team in 1979. (Last time the Braves had 10 players do it was in 1999.) Here are the known occurrences of 11 before last night from @stathead.com.