YERMIN FRANCISCO MERCEDES, #73

On April 28, 2018, Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval made his big league pitching debut, twirling a perfect 1–2–3 ninth inning in a 15–6 loss to the Dodgers.

Changing speeds freely, his velocity ranged from 87 to 63 mph.

Sandoval threw 11 pitches — 8 for strikes — and his relief stint was the first by a Giants position player since utility man Greg Litton found himself toeing the rubber on July 4, 1991.

“Have fun,” Sandoval remarked joyfully. “That’s one of the things we’re going for every day.”

But this was simply a precursor to his history-making day on May 6, 2019.

The Panda started at third and stole third in the second inning, his first stolen base since 2012.

Notable in and of itself.

Then in the sixth, he hit a home run off Reds starter Anthony DeSclafani.

The real fun began when he came in to pitch in the eighth inning, the Giants trailing Cincinnati 12–4.

Sandoval made sure the gap didn’t widen, getting a fly ball out and then a double play to erase a hit batsman.

In so doing, he became only the second player in the Modern Era (since 1900) to have a line including a homer, a stolen base and a scoreless pitching outing in the same game, according to Elias.

The first?

Christy Mathewson — interestingly, also for the Giants against the Reds — on May 23, 1905, who threw nine shutout innings to go along with his home run and stolen base.

In August of the same year (2019, that is) Dodger catcher Russell Martin — who had never pitched at the Major League level before — appeared four times, tied for the second-most by any position player in the Expansion Era (since 1961).

His appearance on August 27, 2019 was his last, and had a lot in common with the previous three — it was a scoreless outing.

One of just two position players with four scoreless outings in a season, this one must be punctuated by an exclamation point, because it preserved a shutout.

Entering the game in the bottom of the ninth with the Dodgers ahead 9–0, Martin allowed a first-pitch, leadoff double to Ty France, but then went strikeout, groundout and foul pop to end it, thus becoming the only Expansion Era position player to pitch in a shutout win for his team.

He wasn’t fooling around.

His Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) of .161 is the lowest among position players pitching, with a minimum of ten batters faced.

His line against: .154/.154/.231 included a pair of strikeouts, and four shutout innings — one at a time — for those 2019 Dodgers, at 36 years of age no less.

Heady numbers indeed.

Most position players can throw.

Most ball players can throw.

That’s baseball.

Throw and catch.

Catch and throw.

(And hit, of course).

But as both Sandoval and Martin could heartily attest, some amazing things can happen.

Ask Stevie Wilkerson, pitching in a marathon (six hour and nineteen minute) 16-inning game for the Orioles against the Angels in Anaheim, on July 25, 2019.

By the bottom of the 16th, the O’s had used nine pitchers.

Enter Wilkerson, Baltimore’s starting center fielder.

It was the third time in July that he found himself on the mound; he threw a scoreless inning on the 12th and allowed one run in two innings on the 20th.

With a two-run lead, Wilkerson got a flyout and induced a groundout, before facing the great Albert Pujols (667 career HRs).

Somehow he retired Pujols, who flew out to center field, ending the game and making Stevie Wilkerson the first position player to earn a save, since the stat became official in 1969.

First baseman/DH Chris Davis of the Orioles and outfielder Darnell McDonald of the Red Sox made history on May 6, 2012, becoming the only Expansion Era position players to get both decisions — the W and the L — during a 17-inning extravaganza.

Davis, who went 0–8 in the game, pitched well, allowing just two hits and striking out a pair in two innings of work.

By notching the victory, he joined only four other position players to do so: Rocky Colavito (1968); Brent Mayne (2000); Wilson Valdez (2011); and John Baker (2014).

Davis is the only one of the group to record multiple strikeouts.

Outfielder McDonald took the loss after giving up the go-ahead three-run dinger to Adam Jones in the 17th.

Colavito was a 35-year-old Yankee in 1968 when he was credited with his win on August 25th against one of his former teams, the Tigers.

Setting a record for the longest scoreless outing by a position player, the Rock pitched 2 ⅔ innings and retired the first batter he faced, Al Kaline on a groundout.

Kaline later doubled off him, but Colavito hung on for a 6–5 victory.

Matty Alou distinguished himself on the hill for the Giants during an August 26, 1965 game in Pittsburgh against the Pirates.

One of three Alou brothers who patrolled the outfield — sometimes together — Matty had his work cut out for him in the only pitching appearance of his career.

Fourth-year major leaguer and future Hall-of-Famer Willie Stargell was the first hitter he faced in the bottom of the seventh, with San Francisco trailing 8–0.

No problem: strikeout looking.

After allowing two singles and getting a pop fly out, Alou struck out Gene Alley to end the inning.

In the eighth he ended up facing Stargell once more, with two outs and runners on first and third.

He struck him out again — his third K — to finish up a scoreless outing.

Alou’s three strikeouts are the most by any Expansion Era position player in a scoreless outing.

And he rung up the legendary “Pops,” twice.

So the beat goes on…

As Emma Baccellieri in her recent (April 20, 2021) Sports Illustrated piece points out, what used to represent a unique twist, producing a jolt of excitement, has now become more commonplace, a “nod toward simple practicality.”

When Willians Astudillo, a squat utilityman, took the mound for the Twins on April 16 — he of the 46 mph strike — it set off a chain of appearances which included the White Sox’ Yermin Mercedes (C/DH) and Danny Mendick (2B/3B/SS) pitching in the same game against Boston the following Monday, and jack-of-all trades Hernan Perez pitching for the Nationals in a game later that day.

These were the seventh, eighth and ninth instances, respectively, of a position player pitching in a game in 2021.

In April!!!

That’s more than MLB saw in all of 2011.

Eight such appearances in 2011 ballooned to a record-high 90 in 2019.

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, if the 35 position players pitching in 60 games kept appearing at the same rate over a full 162, the number would uptick to 95.

More than three a week!!

Oversaturation perhaps, which takes away the novelty of it.

And takes the “fun” out of it.

But it does maximize the value derived from the bullpen: preservation of the real relievers for a greater payoff.

Logical.

Personally, I’d rather see a specimen like Yermin Mercedes — “The Yermin-ator,” — with a stick in his hands.

A tank-like 5’11” and a healthy and robust 245+lbs., he recorded his first big league hit on April 2, 2021, a single against the Angels.

In the same game, he became the first player in Chicago White Sox history to have five consecutive hits in his first major league start.

The following day, Mercedes had hits in his first three at-bats, becoming the only player since at least 1900, to begin a season with eight straight hits.

On April 5 he was named the AL Player of the Week after going 9–14 with a 1.643 OPS, .643 BA and 6 RBI.

#73’s pitching line against the Red Sox on April 19, Patriots Day morning, his first-ever mound appearance?

1.0 IP; 3H; 1R; 1ER; 2BB; 0K; 0HR; 32–16 PC-ST; 9.00 ERA.

Keep givin’ him those ABs.

And allow him to visit the mound only when he calls timeout to confer with his pitcher.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in April 2021.]