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Los Angeles Angels skipper Mike Scioscia reached the 1,300-win plateau as a manager with Monday night’s victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, per the Angels’ official Twitter feed.

Angels starter Garrett Richards was dominant on Monday night from his first pitch to his last as he went the distance on a five-hit, complete-game shutout in a 5-0 Halos victory. The 122-pitch performance (76 for strikes) was Richards’ second career complete game and his first career shutout.

Unfortunately for the Angels faithful, the team dropped its final three games of the cross-town series and will now look to end the mini-slide Friday night against the Boston Red Sox.

Prior to Scioscia—now is in his 15th season as the Angels manager—the longest tenure for any Halos skipper was nine seasons by Bill Rigney, who served as the team’s very first manager from 1961 to 1969. Rigney is also second on the franchise wins list for a manager, albeit with an unappealing 625-707 record.

Scioscia‘s winning percentage of .546 is also the best in franchise history. And, with his 1,300 wins and .546 winning percentage, Scioscia is the 31st MLB manager to achieve 1,300 victories and only the 10th manager to have a .546 win percentage along with 1,300 wins.

Among active managers, Scioscia trails only former San Diego Padres and current San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who has 1,591 victories and counting.

Scioscia has won five American League West titles, with his career highlighted by a memorable World Series victory in 2002, when the Angels beat the Barry Bonds-led Giants in seven games.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu, who pushed his hitting streak to 20 games Thursday afternoon, is just the second player in the last 65 years with multiple 18-game streaks during his rookie season, per Lee Sinins‘ Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. Abreu joins Ichiro Suzuki, who racked up hitting streaks of 23 and 21 games on his way to winning the American League MVP award as a rookie in 2001.

Per the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia (via GammonsDaily.com), Abreu is also the first White Sox player—rookie or not—to have collected two such streaks in the same season since Eddie Collins did so in 1920.

Over the course of his first 18-game streak—lasting from June 15 to July 4—Abreu registered 24 hits in 71 at-bats (.338 batting average), with eight home runs, 18 RBI and an impressive 1.100 OPS.

This second time around, Abreu’s run started July 6, just a day after his earlier streak ended. Over the course of the ongoing 20-game hitting streak, the slugging Cuban has 33 hits in 80 at-bats (.407 BA), albeit with somewhat modest totals of four home runs and 14 RBI. That said, 10 of his 33 hits have been doubles, contributing to a 1.153 OPS.

Set to challenge a slew of rookie records, Abreu has already joined Nomar Garciaparra (1997) as the only rookies in MLB history to record both 30 home runs and a hitting streak of 20-plus games, per STATS on Twitter.

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Boston Red Sox right-hander Clay Buchholz is hoping to avoid a dubious feat this season, as he’s in danger of becoming the first pitcher to triple his ERA from one year to the next while throwing more than 100 innings in both campaigns, per ESPN Stats & Info (via Elias Sports Bureau).

After posting a 1.74 ERA over 108.1 frames (16 starts) last year, Buchholz saw his 2014 ERA balloon to 5.87 with an ugly outing Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The 29-year-old surrendered seven runs (all earned) over five innings in a 14-1 loss, and he now owns the American League’s fourth-worst ERA among pitchers who have tossed 60 or more frames.

With 96.2 innings to his name this season, Buchholz will likely hit triple digits in his next start, which is scheduled for Sunday against the New York Yankees.

As the first part of the criteria is seemingly unavoidable, Buchholz will need to lower his ERA below 5.22 by the end of the season to avoid an unfortunate piece of history.

Optimism may be hard to come by in Boston these days, but Buchholz does stand a decent chance to finish south of the 5.22 mark.

Since returning from a knee injury June 25, he owns a semi-respectable 4.63 ERA over seven starts.

Prior to the injury, Buchholz—owner of a 3.86 career ERA—posted an unsightly 7.02 mark through his first 10 starts of the season.

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New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter continued his assault on the record books Monday night, using a three-hit performance against the Texas Rangers to move into seventh place on MLB‘s all-time hits list, per ESPN New York’s Wallace Matthews.

Jeter had three hits and a walk in four plate appearances against Texas Rangers starter Yu Darvish, bringing the veteran shortstop’s career total to 3,420 hits, one ahead of Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski (3,419).

Jeter singled to left field in the first inning and doubled in the third to tie Yastrzemski, before breaking the tie with a seventh-inning single. He registered a fifth-inning walk between the second and third hits, and later made the game’s final out in the top of the ninth.

The Yankee captain is having a solid year in this, his 20th and final MLB season. He has a .278 batting average and .333 on-base percentage through 93 games, albeit with only two home runs, 27 RBI and 34 runs. His career batting average stands at .311 entering Tuesday’s game against the Rangers, meaning he’ll retire with a mark well above .300.

Jeter started the season in ninth place on the all-time hits list with 3,316 and has added an additional 104 to pass Paul Molitor (3,319) and Yastrzemski (3,419).

The next mark on Jeter’s hits list is Honus Wagner, who is currently in sixth place with 3,430, according to MLB.com. There is a bit of a discrepancy in the record-keeping, as Baseball-Reference.com lists Wagner with 3,420 career hits, which would put the two legendary shortstops on equal footing, at least for another day or two.

Either way, barring a serious injury within the next week or two, Jeter will eventually hold down the No. 6 spot.

All stats courtesy of MLB.com unless specifically noted otherwise.

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It’s no secret that Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu has burst onto the scene, but the rate at which he’s threatening first-year player records still comes as a bit of a surprise.

The Cuban rookie has already set a pair of records among first-year players in the All-Star Game era, with 29 home runs, 50 extra-base hits and 203 total bases before the break, per MLB Stat of the Day. The Midsummer Classic, of course, goes back to 1933, covering all but 13 years of the live-ball era.

Going back to 1933, Abreu’s 29 home runs before the All-Star break rank second-best among all rookies, trailing only the 33 that Mark McGwire hit for the Oakland Athletics in 1987, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

McGwire finished that season with 49 home runs, setting a rookie record that stands to this day. With 29 home runs through his team’s first 96 games, Abreu is on pace to match McGwire, despite spending time on the disabled list in late May and early June.

On a per-game basis, Abreu has bested McGwire, homering once every 2.83 games. “Big Mac” logged 151 contests as a rookie in ’87, hitting one out every 3.08 games.

McGwire also had the advantage of some previous big-league experience, as he logged 58 plate appearances in 1986, falling well short of the threshold needed to lose rookie eligibility. Therein lies the distinction between “first-year players” and “rookies,” as Abreu qualifies as both while McGwire was merely a rookie in 1987.

Of course, McGwire was also only 23 years old at the start of the ’87 season while Abreu turned 27 in January.

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San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner earned a piece of history Sunday, becoming just the second pitcher in MLB history to hit two grand slams in a season, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Long known as one of the more respectable batters among major league hurlers, the 24-year-old Bumgarner went deep off of Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Matt Stites in the sixth inning of Sunday’s eventual 8-4 Giants win.

The home run, which was Bumgarner‘s third of the season and fifth of his career, pushed his season-long slash line to an impressive .275/.302/.550. He previously hit a grand slam on April 11 against the Colorado Rockies and now has 12 RBI through just 40 at-bats this season.

Previously, the only pitcher to hit multiple grand slams in a season was Tony Cloninger, who smacked two for the Braves in their first season in Atlanta, back in 1966. Though his career wasn’t remarkable from either a pitching or hitting perspective, Cloninger walloped five of his 11 career home runs during that 1966 campaign, one year after posting a 24-win season.

Bumgarner earned a second slice of baseball history Sunday, as he and star Giants catcher Buster Posey became the first starting pitcher-starting catcher duo to both hit grand slams in the same game, per MLB Stat of the Day.

Posey’s third-inning slam accounted for San Francisco’s other four runs, as the batterymates knocked in all eight of their team’s runs.

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New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter hit a pair of singles in Thursday’s 9-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians, thus becoming the fourth player whose career began after 1914 with 1,000 multihit games, per Bill Chuck of gammonsdaily.com.

It was an otherwise ordinary night for the Yankee shortstop, who struck out in his other two at-bats and also drew a walk.

He then went hitless in five at-bats Friday against the Orioles before recording multihit game No. 1,001 on Saturday.

Now in his 20th and final major league season, Jeter ranks eighth on MLB‘s all-time list with 3,407 career hits. He’ll likely pass seventh-place Carl Yastrzemski (3,419) and sixth-place Honus Wagner (3,430) in the coming weeks but would need to play another season to catch Tris Speaker (3,515) in fifth.

As for the other players since 1914 with 1,000 multihit games, all-time hit king Pete Rose recorded an incredible 1,225, with the group rounded out by Hall Of Famers Stan Musial (1,059) and Hank Aaron (1,046). 

Rose finished his career with 4,256 hits, Aaron ranks third on the all-time list with 3,771, and Musial sits in fourth with 3,630.

Second-place Ty Cobb (4,191) almost certainly recorded 1,000 multihit games, but he played a good portion of his career before 1914.

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Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw had his incredible scoreless streak snapped at 41 innings Thursday night, when San Diego Padres third baseman Chase Headley hit a solo home run to left-center field in the sixth inning of an eventual 2-1 Dodgers victory.

Kershaw‘s streak, which had become the subject of significant media attention, was the third-longest in Dodgers history, trailing only the 59-inning run put together by Orel Hershiser in 1988 and the 58-inning streak courtesy of Don Drysdale in 1968, according to the team’s official Twitter page.

The pair of aforementioned streaks are the two longest in MLB history, a fitting feat for an organization known for its impressive history of aces.

Kershaw‘s streak, meanwhile, is tied for fifth-longest in the majors since 1961, according to Eric Stephens of True Blue LA. Hershiser and Drysdale hold down the top two spots, while Bob Gibson had a 47-inning streak for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1968, and Brandon Webb had a 42-inning streak with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007.

Tied with Kershaw in fifth place is Luis Tiant, who tossed 41 consecutive scoreless innings for the Cleveland Indians in 1968.

Three of the top six streaks came in ’68, best known to baseball fans as the “Year of the Pitcher.” Gibson posted a ridiculous 1.12 ERA over 304.2 innings that season, setting a live-ball era record that still stands.

While challenging Gibson’s record is seemingly out of the question, Kershaw currently owns a sparkling 1.78 ERA, putting him on track to become the first qualifying starter since Roger Clemens in 2005 (1.87) with a sub-2.00 ERA at the end of a season.

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Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout stormed his way into the record books Thursday night, using a four-hit performance against the Texas Rangers to become the fastest player in franchise history with 500 career hits, per Angels Director of Communications Eric Kay.

Trout reached the milestone in just 423 games, surpassing the record of 428 games previously held by Garret Anderson.

The 22-year-old outfielder entered Thursday’s contest with 498 career hits and proceeded to fill out the box score in a 15-6 blowout victory. Not only did Trout record a hit in four of his five at-bats, but he also finished the night with a home run, three runs and four RBI.

Set to turn 23 August 7, Trout is already shaping up as a threat to take down Anderson’s franchise record of 2,368 hits.

While never considered a true superstar, Anderson played for the Angels from 1994 to 2008 and was a productive hitter for most of that span. In addition to the franchise hits mark, he also holds Angels records for games (2,013), runs (1,024), RBI (1,292) and total bases (3,743), among others. His 272 home runs in a Halos uniform are good for second in franchise history, trailing only the 299 of retired slugger Tim Salmon.

Trout still has a ways to go before reaching Anderson in any of the counting stats, but he’s the all-time franchise leader in both on-base percentage (.403) and slugging percentage (.553).

Even more impressive, Trout is responsible for the two best seasons in franchise history as measured by wins above replacement (WAR), having posted a 10.8 WAR in 2012 and 8.9 WAR in 2013, per Baseball-Reference.com.

Assuming he sticks around in Anaheim for the long haul, Trout could one day be the Angels’ all-time leader in nearly every significant offensive category.

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With one final outing scheduled before the the All-Star break, Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Marco Estrada is three home runs away from setting the National League record for most homers allowed before the break, per ESPN’s Jayson Stark.

Estrada surrendered his 27th long ball of the season in Monday’s 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, with Phillies second baseman Chase Utley doing the honors. Despite all the home runs and his ugly 4.96 ERA, Estrada only saw his record fall to a still-respectable 7-6 with the loss.

While his season has largely been defined by negatives, the 31-year-old right-hander should be able to avoid an unfortunate piece of history, as his final start before the break will come Saturday against a St. Louis Cardinals team that ranks last in the National League with just 53 home runs this season.

When he faced the Cardinals on April 15, Estrada put forth one of his two homer-less performances this season, though he still allowed three runs over six innings.

According to ESPN’s Stark, the National League record of 29 first-half home runs allowed is shared by Phil Niekro, Fergie Jenkins and Jose Lima.

As for the season-long mark, Lima stands alone in that category, having served up 48 long balls during the 2000 campaign while playing for the Houston Astros, per Baseball Almanac.

Including both leagues, Bert Blyleven set the standard by allowing 50 home runs as a member of the Minnesota Twins in 1986.

Judging by his 4.96 ERA, Estrada likely won’t remain in the rotation long enough to challenge either Blyleven or Lima if he keeps going this way.

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