Who needs pitching, huh?

The Phils collected 26 hits yesterday in a BP-like route of the Dodgers, 15-3.  J.D. Durbin collected his first major-league win to go with his three hits, the first of his career as well.  Ryan Howard collected two homers and four RBI. Shane Victorino and Aaron Rowand collected five hits each.  Rowand had three doubles along with a homer, and Chase Utley had two.  Every starter got a hit, the last being Chris Coste who singled in the ninth. In total the Phils had 26 hits: four home runs, a triple, six doubles, and 15 singles. Oddly, they had just one walk (Burrell) to go with three strikeouts, two of which were Howard.

And yet it seemed that the Phils offense was going to be reined in early in the game.  After scoring three runs in the first, they loaded the bases with no outs to start the second.  After Durbin was out at home on a Chase Utley grounder and force out and was guilty of dogging it down the line.  Howard then struck out and Rowand popped up, his only out of the night.  The Phils then went down in order in the third…  And then the five-run fourth put the game away.

The team record for hits was set on August 17, 1894—36 hits, 28 of which are singles, Both are major-league records.  It came in a 29-4 win over the Louisville Colonels with Big Sam Thompson hitting for the cycle and going 6-for-7. The game was played at the University of Pennsylvania Athletic Field, a UPenn park of some sort that predated Franklin Field.

Three other Phils (CF "Sliding Billy" Hamilton‚ SS Joe Sullivan and catcher Mike Grady) also collected five hits, a record for 5-hit teammates. Big Ed Delahanty—a lot of Big's in the lineup—scored five runs, Lave Cross and Jack Boyle both had eight ABs, and all eleven players in the lineup got a hit. 

Oddly, three days earlier with the Phils playing at the same ballpark, allowed 6 homers to Louisville getting pasted, 13-7. The Phils then won the last three games of the series, 14-4, 17-3, and 29-4 (the 8/17 game). Those games and a doubleheader played against the old, old Washington Senators (a team before the first AL team), which the Phils won 10-7 and 16-4, are the only games ever played at that UPenn field. The Phils went 5-1 outscoring their opponents 93-35 there (or about 16-6 on average).

The Phils batted .349 as a team that year with four starting to semi-starting outfielders registering a batting average of .400 or better (actually .404 or better), the only time that has ever happened.

The next most hits in a game that I could find was 33 by the Indians on July 10, 1932, in an 18-inning losing effort against the A’s. The A’s had 25 hits and won 18-17. The 58 hits for both teams in that game set a major-league record.

The next most hits were 31 by the NY Giants June 9, 1901 in a 25-13 game in Cincinnati which ended up a forfeit and the Brewers back when they were in the AL beating the Blue Jays 22-2 at Skydome on August 28, 1992.

The Giants were added by a plethora (Jefe, do you know what a plethora is?) of ground rule doubles due to the seventeen-plus thousand fans in the overflow crowd being ringed in in the outfield.  As the crowd grew so did the GR doubles.  A 15-4 game at the end of six grows to 25-13.  With two outs in the ninth and the crowd infringing on the infield, plate ump Bob Emslie declares the game a forfeit to the Giants.  The Reds had 18 hits themselves, and the two clubs collected an NL-record 36 singles (22 by NY, 14 by Cincy). Three Giants collect at least five hits—Kip Selbach (6 hits), George Van Haltren, and Charlie “Piano Legs” Hickman.

This was the Reds final season in old League Park (II), which was largely destroyed in a fire the previous season (one grandstand survived and the field was repositioned to accommodate it). In 1902 they opened a new concrete and steel ballpark, the palatial Palace of the Fans, on the same site. Redland Field (renamed Crosley Field in 1934) was built also on the same site on 1912 to address the need for box seats. Basically, the Reds played in four separate ballparks on the same site, a former brickyard, from 1884 to mid-1970 when Riverfront Stadium opened.

But I digress…The Phils also set a new record for the most hits in Dodger Stadium and tied the record for most hits allowed by the Dodgers at home since they moved to LA.  The record was set in 1958, their first in LA, when they played in old LA Memorial Coliseum while awaiting the completion of Dodger Stadium. The previous record for hits in Dodger Stadium was 25 by the Angels last year in a 16-3 win.

Here are the most team hits in a Dodgers game since their 1958 move (at least 20 hits by one team):

* = Second game of a doubleheader