O' EM-GEE: WHAT A WAY TO GET TO 700 7+ RBI GAMES

YES, we are working on different slices of arcana that will surface here sometime soon in this dementia-addled summer of discontent...but since the 7+ RBI thing has reared its crooked-number head once again, we will roll (with) it all the way to the riverbank.

And if one was going to pick a date for when the seven hundredth instance of RBI almond-cluster conflagration would occur, the one that put the congenitally bedraggled blue-collar slugger Ryan O'Hearn into the tidy-bowl of immortal records couldn't be more apt: 7/7. (A day that will live in...at least for the primary victim of O'Hearn's surreal onslaught, the Braves' embattled word-salad #1 draft choice from 2023, the health-challenged--and glottally-challenging--Hurston Waldrep, who surrendered the first two of three homers that O'Hearn hit during his night of nights.)

O'Hearn was a colossal bust during his time (2018-2022) with the Cheese Royales (again following tragedy with farce in 2026 as they once again find a way to backpedal furiously from fleeting success...) but when flipped to the mid-Atlantic via a bag o'cash from the Orioles, he found his footing. (Though our oft-time partner-in-crime Jeff Angus is still at best "thumbs-sideways" regarding him...)

WHAT the media wags missed in their coverage of O'Hearn's three-HR, 10-RBI lollapalooza was that blast #3 (which was gilding the lily for the 7-RBI thing, but when in Rome...) was the 100th in a career that was once as checkerboard-y as Ralston-Purina. (Now there's a hyphenate that needs to appear in a box score, n'est-ce pas? Do we have enough of 'em to field an entire team? We'll look into that...)

So, the anguish of Angus notwithstanding, we salute what certainly looks like a belated career year for O'Hearn (hmm...can we make an entire roster out of a combined gaggle of hyphenates and "O" guys? We'll look into that, too...). Two more taters would mark a career single-season high for O'Hearn, who (as shown above) might be as shocked at this development as anyone.

THE mee-dee-uh noted that we now have seventeen hitters who've amassed double figures in RBIs in a single game, and we figured you'd want to see a TimeGrid™ for when that happened. (Here it is, anyway...as you might care to note, they are happening more frequently in this fraught 21st century.)

A curiously twee feature of O'Hearn's arrival on this list is that we now have enough players who played different positions that we can field two starting lineups (thanks to the presence of Shohei Ohtani, who can DH and pitch for both sides).  Take a look...

For catchers, we have Walker Cooper and Rudy York.

For first basemen, we have Jim Bottomley and Norm Zauchin (who has the fewest lifetime HRs--50-- of anyone on the list).

At second base, Tony Lazzeri and Scooter Gennett.

At shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra and Alex Rodriguez.

At third base, Anthony Rendon and Mark Reynolds.

In the outfield, O'Hearn joins Phil Weintraub and Mark Whiten as the "low end sluggers" to go "big RBI" against the more formidable HR numbers possessed by Reggie Jackson, Fred Lynn and Garret Anderson.

As noted, Ohtani can pitch and DH for both sides...except when he has to bat, when we will substitute Tony Cloninger, he of the batting-practice fastball and the two-grand-slams-in-a-game fame. (After all, while it's true that Ohtani is Superman™, even he can't pitch to himself.)

THE bleary, fish-eyed summer of discontent simmers on...and while we wish we could finally hear the last from that godawful Orange Menace™, we hope we haven't heard the last from...Hurston Waldrep. With a name like that, he's got a future--in "fright-quote" politics (if nothing else)...