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Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Intentional Walks as Leadoff Hitter
By Tangotiger, 02:07 PM
One of the remarkable things about Tim Raines is how much he was intentionally walked. As a leadoff hitter, he was IBB a career total of 102 times, with a career high of 14 in 1987 (the year he missed the first month due to collusion, and actually batted 3rd often enough that he only started 58 games in leadoff!). From 1985 through 1988, he was IBB 43 times in the leadoff spot in 336 starts.
Here are 93 of those games (including multiple IBB games), thanks to Play Index. He actually had a stretch of 5 straight games with an IBB as the leadoff hitter of the game. I can’t tell if Raines is the career leader in the category of lifetime career IBB in the leadoff slot, but I’d sure bet on it.