In game one of the NLCS last night, Cody Ross hit two home runs off of Roy Halladay. It is extremely hard to hit two home runs in the majors, let alone two against Roy Halladay in the postseason. Ross became only the 5th player to hit two home runs in the first game of a League Championship Series. As a comparison, there have been 10 players with at least 2 home runs in a LCS game two, 8 players in a game 3, 7 in a game 4, 2 in a game 5 or 7, and only 1 in a game 6. This is presumably based upon the starting pitcher on the opposing team, and the ace of the staff will usually pitch games 1, 4 or 5, and possibly 7. The lack of games in the later series games (5-7), is probably due to the lack of overall games (if a series ends in a sweep there will not be any game 5, 6, or 7), the quality of starting pitching, and the strategy of managers playing for one-run innings, so more sacrifice bunts and less at-bats.
Ross also became only the 4th player to hit 2 home runs in a postseason game while batting 8th in the lineup. More impressively, the other three players were all hitting with a position player behind them (a game involving the DH), so Ross became the first player to ever hit 2 home runs with the pitching batting behind him.
Finally, he became only the 19th player to hit at least 2 home runs in his first five postseason games in either the World Series or LCS (18 other players have hit at least two in their first five games in the LDS). All of these statistics are fairly impressive, and become more impressive when you consider that he did it against Roy Halladay, who threw the second no-hitter in postseason history in his last start.
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