The Mets traded Eduardo Escobar over the weekend, and he’ll surely be missed — a great vibes guy who lost his job to Brett Baty and just didn’t have a place on a team that needs a shakeup. FOGO MODE forever, and let’s bid Escobar farewell with his home run chain.
Eduardo Escobar hit his first home run off Jeremy Guthrie, 4/9/13
Jeremy Guthrie gave up his first home run to Omar Infante, 9/14/04
Omar Infante hit his first home run off Kyle Lohse, 9/10/02
Kyle Lohse gave up his first home run to Dean Palmer, 6/22/01
Dean Palmer hit his first home run off Rick Honeycutt, 6/27/91
Rick Honeycutt gave up his first home run to Graig Nettles, 8/31/77
Graig Nettles hit his first home run off Denny McLain, 9/6/68
Denny McLain connects us to the Omar Narváez home run chain… which was the last We Can Pod It Out post. But… what an achievement for Nettles, hitting the first home run of his career against the major leagues’ last 30-game winner. Thing is, McLain not only won 31 games in 1968, he gave up a major league-leading 31 homers, too. In 41 starts, McLain allowed 86 runs, of which 48 came on dingers. That means an average of less than a run per game against him on non-homers… and 10 of those 38 runs were unearned.
McLain gave up three homers to Reggie Jackson in 1968, and two apiece to Frank Howard, Tony Horton, Rich Reese, and Pete Ward — the last of whom hit the only grand slam against McLain that year.
In addition to Nettles, players who took McLain deep in ‘68 included Boog Powell, Sal Bando, Bobby Cox, Harmon Killebrew, Rico Petrocelli, Joe Pepitone, and Orioles pitcher Dave McNally. Plus, near the end of the season, McLain gave up Mickey Mantle’s 535th career home run — the last of Mantle’s 42 at Tiger Stadium, his most at any visiting park. The following day, September 20, Mantle hit his last dinger, No. 536, back at Yankee Stadium (where he hit 266 homers), off Boston’s Jim Lonborg.
We Can Pod It Out 141: Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey