The Big 3-0

Mike Carminati (who I really should link to more often) lists the other occasions before Wednesday night’s massacre when a major league team scored 30 or more runs in a game, the most recent being the Cubs in 1897. Not surprisingly, 15 of the other 23 occasions were in the National Association between 1871 and 1874, the dawn of professional organized baseball and before fielders wore gloves, including the lone 40+ game, a preposterous 49-33 affair between Philadelphia and Troy in 1871. Only four of the games came after 1883 and two of those were in weakened leagues in 1890 & 1891.
Still, when you look at the 1893 Reds and 1897 Cubs next to this Rangers lineup, you see the randomness of single-game batting records. The Reds were a relatively weak-hitting team for their era, and the Cubs were fourth in the league in runs scored. Nor was Louisville, the victim on both occasions, an especially bad pitching team, although I would infer that in 1897 the game got out of hand in the hands of Jim Jones, making the first of two Flavor-Aid tasting major league pitching appearances (the second was four years later) and allowing 22 runs in 6.2 innings of relief on the way to finishing the game.
As for the Rangers, you might have expected something like this from Juan Gone, Raffy and Pudge or from Teixeira, Soriano and A-Rod. Instead, the greatest damage was done by four players – three of little note (Ramon Vazquez, David Murphy and Marlon Byrd) and the fourth (Jarrod Saltalamacchia) very young and not yet come into his own. But they were swinging the bats well that day, and ran into a pitching staff in a downward spiral.
Sad fact: the Orioles are still underperforming their Pythagorean record even after losing a single game by 27 runs.