The Rockies’ Brandon Barnes and a brief history of inside the park home runs

The Colorado Rockies’ Brandon Barnes hit his second inside the park home run of THE MONTH! Yes, two in one month, or actually it was his second in ten days to be more specific.

His first of the month was on June 5 at Coors Field in Colorado off of Arizona Diamondbacks’ Brad Ziegler in a 12-7 win. It was nowhere near as dramatic as what happened Saturday at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

With the Rockies down 4-3 to the San Francisco Giants and two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Barnes hit a line drive to center off of Sergio Romo. When the ball bounced past Giants’ center fielder Angel Pagan, Rockies’ third base coach Stu Cole gave Barnes the sign to round third. He did and when he touched home plate he scored the game winning run. The Rockies’ defeated the Giants 5-4.

It was the third walk-off hit of Barnes career. He hit one when he was still on the Astros and the second was two days after he hit his first inside the park home run of the year, on June 7. The day was made extra special as Barnes had invited his father, stepmother and sister up from their home in Anaheim to see him play for Father’s Day weekend.

Rockies manager Walt Weiss said of the 28-year old,

"“Barnesie has a tendency to be in the middle of things, dust flying and all that. He’s been a real clutch player for us.”"

Barnes is the first player in Rockies’ history to hit two inside the park home runs in a single season, let alone a single month. Only two other players have hit two while wearing a Rockies uniform. Ellis Burks hit one in 1996 and 1994. Clint Barmes hit one in 2005 and another in 2009.

Learning these statistics prompted me to look up more inside the park home run records, so here’s a little list of things you probably didn’t know about inside the park home runs.

Inside The Park Home Runs: Did you know?

• Ty Cobb holds the record American League record for most inside the park home runs in a season with nine in 1909.
• The National League/Major League record for most “inside the parkers” in a season is held by Sam Crawford, who hit 12 in 1901.
• The Major League record for the most in one game? 3 by Tom McCreery in 1896 (pre-modern era, in the modern era there are 17 players tied with 2)
• An inside the park home run has only occurred nine times in World Series history.
• No one player has two in a World Series.
• There were two in the first World Series in 1903 but not in the same game.
• There has not been an inside the park home run in a World Series since 1929.
• The nine players to have an inside the park home run in a World Series game are Jimmy Sebring (1903), Patsy Dougherty (1903), Duffy Lewis (1915), Hi Myers (1916), Larry Gardner (1916), Casey Stengel (1923), Tommy Thevenow (1926), Lou Gherig (1928), Mule Haas (1929).