With 30 MLB teams each playing 162 games a year, there aren’t many statistical feats we don’t see often. Washington Nationals’ third baseman Anthony Rendon accomplished one Sunday with a performance for the ages, though, going six-for-six with three home runs and 10 RBI in a 23-5 rout of the New York Mets (who lost starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard in the second inning with a “possible lat strain”). According to ESPN, that’s only the second time a MLB player has put up six hits, three HR and 10 RBI in almost a century of the RBI stat being official:
Anthony Rendon: 2nd player with 6 H, 3 HR, and 10 RBI in a game since RBI became official in 1920.
The other was Walker Cooper (1949 Reds). pic.twitter.com/h7CCykECf5
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 30, 2017
And Cooper’s performance actually wasn’t quite as impressive as Rendon’s. Cooper, the Reds’ catcher, wound up going 6-for-7 in that game, a 23-4 win over the Chicago Cubs. Rendon put up the same numbers of hits, home runs and outs in one less at-bat, and got a hit every single time he came up. He also came extremely close to a fourth home run and an 11th RBI, settling for a three-run double in the fifth inning when his shot to right-center bounced off the top of the out-of-town scoreboard:
Rendon made history for more than just the six-for-six and the three home runs, though. His 10 RBI alone are a franchise record (in Nationals and Expos history), and they’re only the 13th time anyone’s done that in MLB and the first time it’s happened since 2007:
https://twitter.com/JATayler/status/858788614234415107
And this definitely helped boost Rendon’s stats on the year, too, especially in advanced metrics such as weighted runs created:
In one day, Anthony Rendon raised his wRC+ from 59 to 107. April baseball is great.
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) April 30, 2017
This hadn’t been a great year for the 26-year-old Rendon so far, as he entered Sunday hitting just .226/.316/.250 on the season, well below his career averages of .272/.343/.425. While this is only one game, Nationals’ fans and management will certainly be happy with what he was able to do here, and it’s perhaps particularly good to see his power on display again. We’ll see where Rendon goes from here, but he definitely produced a game for the ages Sunday.
[MLB.com]
