Stats of the week: Mookie’s leadoff power, Trea’s 2-HR inning and more

Here’s our weekly look at 10 mind-blowing notes from the last week in baseball (Aug. 18-24).

Leadoff power: Mookie Betts’ 11th leadoff homer this season on Aug. 18 extended his record for the most in a season in Dodgers franchise history. It’s also the most leadoff homers before September in a single season. Betts is just two leadoff home runs shy of tying 2003 Alfonso Soriano’s all-time single season record of 13.

Trea bien: In 18 games since he first got a standing ovation from Phillies fans, Trea Turner is hitting .343 and slugging .630. He’s hit five home runs in that span. Two of those came in the eighth inning on Saturday. Turner became just the third Phillies player with two homers in an inning, joining Von Hayes on June 11, 1985 in the first and Andy Seminick on June 2, 1949 in the eighth.

The fastest man: On Saturday, the speedy Elly De La Cruz hit a triple and scored on the same play on a throwing error. His home-to-home time was 15.3 seconds, the Reds’ fastest home-to-home time tracked by Statcast (since 2015), surpassing a 15.6 sec by Billy Hamilton on May 19, 2017. Then on Monday, he stole his 20th base in just 64 career games, marking the fewest career games to at least 10 homers and 20 stolen bases since 1900. He passed Barry Bonds, who reached the marks in 65 career games.

JULIOOO: Julio Rodríguez tallied four straight games with at least four hits on Wednesday through Saturday, tying 1925 Milt Stock for the most consecutive four-hit games since at least 1901. He had 17 hits in the four games, the most in a four-game span since at least 1901, as well as five stolen bases. Prior to Rodríguez’s streak, the most hits in a four-game span with at least five stolen bases (since at least 1901) was 13, by Bake McBride (1974), Ty Cobb (1927) and Cobb (1907). He surpassed that, and then some.

Fourth hit’s the charm: It wasn’t just Rodríguez. From Tuesday through Sunday, the Mariners had at least one hitter with a four-hit game in six consecutive team games. That tied the longest such streak since 1900, with the 1929 Giants and 1923 Dodgers, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. For the Mariners, it was Dominic Canzone, Ty France, Teoscar Hernández, Dylan Moore and Rodríguez (four). For the 1929 Giants: Travis Jackson, Freddie Lindstrom (two), Edd Roush (two), Bill Terry (three) and Mel Ott. And for the 1923 Dodgers: Jimmy Johnston (four), Bernie Neis and Jack Fournier.

Extra-base hits abound: At 22 years and 52 days old on Sunday, Gunnar Henderson became the youngest player in Orioles/Browns history with four extra-base hits in a game. Henderson was the 12th-youngest player since 1901 with four extra-base hits in a game and youngest since Miguel Cabrera in 2005. It was the 44th individual game since 1901 with multiple doubles, a triple and a home run. The last player to do it before Henderson was David Wright on June 23, 2013.

20 homers for all: Eddie Rosario hit his 20th home run of the season on Tuesday. He became the Braves’ seventh player with at least 20 homers this season. Tuesday was game 125 for Atlanta. That’s the fewest team games for any team to reach seven 20-homer players in a season. The record for a season is eight such players, by the 2019 Twins, who set the single-season home run record with 307. The Braves are currently on pace for 308 home runs.

Brotherly love: Joshua and Richie Palacios faced off in MLB games for the first time this week. Joshua homered on Monday and then on Tuesday, Richie hit his first career home run. He became the fifth player in the divisional era (since 1969) to hit his first career homer in a game where he played vs. his brother, per Elias. He joined Cesar Crespo vs. Felipe (6/7/01), Chris Gwynn vs. Tony (6/8/90), Joe Niekro off of Phil (5/29/76) and Oscar Brown vs. Ollie (9/10/70).

Shotime: Shohei Ohtani finished his 2023 pitching season with a .372 batting average in games he pitched this year. He also had a 1.220 OPS in those games. That is the highest OPS by a player in games he pitched since at least 1901, with a minimum of 60 such plate appearances.

And still unswept: Teams enter each series trying to win the series, but even just avoiding being swept is worth noting. To that end, the Orioles have now gone 80 straight series without being swept, entering the weekend. That’s the fourth-most consecutive series of multiple games without being swept, per Elias. They trail only the 1942-44 Cardinals (125), 1903-05 Giants (106) and 1922-24 Yankees (83).