Rarer Than Halley's Comet

The Giants beat the Cardinals today, 7-1, to even the National League Championship Series at one game apiece. Ryan Vogelsong had the best outing for a Giants pitcher this postseason by handcuffing the Cards for seven innings before turning over the ball to the bullpen.

An event that could have future repercussions was the first inning hard slide into second base by outfielder Matt Holliday, injuring (but x-rays showed not severely) Giants second baseman Marco Scutaro. Possibly inspired by the blow to their teammate, the Giants' bats erupted and had the game in hand, 5-1, by the fourth inning.

To this humble observer the most remarkable event was a statistical rarity [bold added]:

Vogelsong doubled in the sixth to become the first Giants pitcher to get a postseason extra-base hit since Jack Bentley homered in the 1924 World Series.

After 1924 the New York Giants played in five World Series. Since moving to San Francisco, the Giants have played postseason baseball ten times, making it to the World Series on four occasions. Through those 88 years of playoffs, not one Giants pitcher had a double, triple, or home run until tonight.

One of the reasons that we love baseball: it has an unrivaled library of statistics that can tell us that what we're looking at hasn't been seen or done for nearly a century (or, in the Cubs' case, for over a century). Perhaps we'll see more such moments in the weeks ahead.