By Adam Gilfix
This post is just a short and sweet follow-up to this article regarding Red Sox players Alejandro De Aza, Mookie Betts, and Brock Holt becoming just the 11th trio of teammates to each double and triple in an MLB game within the last 100 years. Good news for Sox fans (and there isn’t all that much to cheer about these days): Betts and Holt were it at again Sunday afternoon. The two rising stars hit lead-off and second, respectively, each collecting 3 hits, 2 RBI, and 2+ runs to spark Boston’s offense to a 13-run, 16-hit (13 for extra bases) win and weekend series victory over the Royals. Moreover, Holt’s 3 hits were two doubles and a triple, while Betts was just a single shy of the cycle. As detailed in my above-linked post last week, just 5 days earlier, on Tuesday at home against the Braves, Holt hit for the cycle and Betts was only a home run short of another.
What makes this even more special is that in both games (last Tuesday and yesterday’s triumph) Betts and Holt each hit a double and triple. Let that sink in. Two teammates both doubled and tripled in the same game – for only the 367th time in the MLB in 100 years. But they did it twice in one season…heck, in one week. I don’t know about you, but that gets me thinking. When was the last time the same two teammates each hit a two-bagger and three-bagger in the same game on two different occasions in one season?
Well, with lots of research last night using Baseball-Reference’s Play Index Tool, I was able to answer that question. The result: Mookie Betts and Brock Holt are just the second pair of teammates to accomplish the feat in Major League Baseball in the past 100 years – and the only one in 80 seasons. Since 1914, the only other duo to both double and triple in two games in the same year was that of John Stone and Buddy Myer for the 1935 Washington Senators. Guess what, though? Like Mookie and Brock, John and his buddy Buddy also achieved this rarity, each doubling and tripling in the same game twice, in one week. In fact, Stone and Myer did it in back-to-back games! The first game was June 15, 1935 (an 11-3 victory for the Senators at the St. Louis Browns) and the second was the next day, June 16, 1935 (a 17-8 win, also over the Browns), exactly 80 years to the day before Betts and Holt’s first double-triple duo performance.
Furthermore, similar to Betts and Holt (1st and 2nd in the Sox lineup in both games at hand), Stone and Myer were also adjacent in the top of their lineup, hitting out of the 2 and 3 spots in both of their consecutive performances. There is yet one more parallel between these two pairs of teammates, who are the only ones to accomplish such a rare feat (and happened to do so in almost identical manners). In the games analyzed above, Betts played outfield (center) and Holt spent time at second base, while Stone was also an outfielder (LF) and Myer played second.
Thus, we have the only two pairs of teammates in the MLB in the last one hundred years to each hit a double and a triple in the same game twice in one season:
As you can see, not only did these players accomplish something interesting but obscure by doubling and tripling together in two games in one season (same week), but all of these guys had remarkable games in doing so. All four ballplayers had 3+ hits, scored 2 or more runs, had at least an RBI, and did not strike out once in their respective games.
Look for Betts and Holt to set a record by accomplishing this feat three times in one season, as their bats are really heating up for the Red Sox right now.
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