TODAY’S SPORTSTAT: Dodgers’ Hernandez joins select group
By JERRY TAPP
Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Enrique Hernandez last night was the big story in his team’s 11-1 win over the Cubs. Hernandez had three home runs and seven RBI as the Dodgers beat the Cubs four games to one and will make their first appearance in the World Series since 1988.
Hernandez became the fifth player in MLB history to have seven RBI in a post-season game … and he was probably the most unlikely of candidates. Hernandez had only 37 RBI during the season.
The other four players to get seven RBI in an MLB playoff game (their RBIs in that season are noted in parenthesis) were: Edgar Martinez, Seattle, 1995 (113); Mo Vaughn, Boston, 1998 (115); John Valentin, Boston, 1999 (70); Troy O’Leary, Boston, 1999 (103).
Hernandez also became the 10th player in history to hit three home runs in a post-season game (Note: It has happened 11 times with Babe Ruth doing it twice.) Hernandez is the first player in MLB history to hit three home runs and have seven RBIs in a post-season contest.
Jerry Tapp
Jerry Tapp is a freelance writer from Racine, WI with a major concentration on sports statistics and numbers that define sports teams and players. He began his foray into sports stats-focused writing as a regular contributor to the “Numbers” column in Inside Sports magazine in the mid-1980’s and then began writing a weekly “Stats on Tapp” column for the Racine Journal Times. That column was eventually nationally syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. He later wrote sports stats items for the Washington Post under the “Stat of the Day” heading. After launching his blog, www.statsontapp.com in 2011, Jerry turned his sports stats attention to sports websites. He wrote regularly for Bleacher Report, BallHyped, football.com and Heavy.com. Today he keeps busy writing weekly columns of stats-centric articles for three sports websites, Today’s Pigskin (NFL), Today’s Knuckleball (MLB) and Today’s Fastbreak (NBA), and as a monthly contributor to the Milwaukee Brewers “GameDay” publication that is distributed to fans attending games at Miller Park.