With their Season 22 and Season 23 World Series wins, the Pirates and Mets stretched the NL's championship streak to 7 seasons (and 6 of 7 for the NL East). Overall, the NL leads, 16-7.
Batting Records
In this pitching-dominant era, we have just witnessed perhaps the best 2-season run by a hitter in the history of World Major Leagues. The Cubs' Rico Uribe had almost certainly THE best hitting season in the world's history in Season 22: OPS - 1.191, #1 all-time...#2 all-time in runs created (180.13)...#3 all-time in RC/27 (12.55)...#4 all-time Slugging % (.740). ALL the other top-5 performances in all those categories came in the (pre-Season 13) steroid era. Then, he followed it up with an 1.128 OPS last year (#5 all-time runs created with 167.83).
Question: Is Uribe the best hitter in the history of Major Leagues? He's the career leader in OPS at 1.035. His career RC/27 of 9.52 (compiled entirely post-steroid era), is 8.4% better than the 8.78 of # Luis Escobar (compiled entirely IN the steroid era). Answer: He is.
Jae Nakano retired after Season 22 as the all-time Batting Average (.342) and hits (3,274) leader.
Roosevelt Thomas reached the top 5 in career runs created (1872.56).
Pittsburgh's Walker Sobolewski cracked the top 5 in all-time Batting Average at .325.
Pitching Records
The last couple of seasons haven't seen similarly-dominant (as Uribe's) single-season performances on the pitching side, but there were some notables. Benito Acosta's Season 22 with the Padres was the #3 WHIP year of all-time (.84) and the #4 OBP-against ever (.236). Florida's Grover Thames logged 277.3 innings in Season 23, good for #3 all-time.
In the career records department, 4 future Hall-Of-Famers made (or extended) their marks.
Luis Contreras took over sole leadership of the career complete games record with 60, stretched his career Quality Starts lead to 424, passed Cesar Carrasquel for #1 in career strikeouts with 3672, and pushed his career wins mark up to 285.
Contreras' longtime Mets rotation-mate Byron Watson quietly got to #2 in Complete Games (380) and #5 in wins with 236.
Cincinnati's Miguel Rojas and Pittsburgh's Keith Caldwell deepened their rivalry. They're now 1/2 in career ERA (2.04 to 2.32), career OBP Allowed (.262 to .264), career Slugging % Allowed (.273 to .279); and they're tied for the career WHIP lead at 1.01.
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