FanPost

This Date In Royals History (6.27): John Mayberry Rips The White Sox

On Jun 27, 1972 the Bob Lemon Royals defeated the Chuck Tanner White Sox by a line of 6-4 as John Mayberry goes 4-4 with a home run and a double.

Join me as I break into the DNC after the jump...

Mayberry struggled to open the '72 campaign and at the end of May he was hitting .216/.303/.321 with just seven extra base hits in 153 plate appearances.

By the end of the month, Lemon had seen enough and Big John lost his starting spot at first to the unremarkable tandem of Gail Hopkins and Carl Taylor. However, Mayberry made his way into several games as a late inning defensive replacement . In three consecutive games, his spot came around in the order, giving him a single at bat. Each time, he banged out a hit, one of which was a bases loaded double.

Lemon reinserted him into the starting lineup on June 7 and Mayberry kept rolling.

His singular, peak performance of his hot streak came on this date when he collected four hits in four at bats in leading the Royals to their victory over the South Siders. It was the first four hit game of his career. He had seven more four hit games for the Royals, and added three more for the Blue Jays later in his career.

Batting AB R H RBI BB SO BA OPS WPA PO A
Freddie Patek SS 3 0 0 0 0 0 .243 .642 -0.046 2 5 SH
Amos Otis CF 3 0 2 0 1 0 .301 .763 0.042 2 0
Lou Piniella LF 3 0 0 1 0 1 .307 .785 -0.016 0 0 SF,GDP
Richie Scheinblum RF 4 2 2 1 0 0 .324 .834 0.038 1 0 HR,2B
John Mayberry 1B 4 2 4 2 0 0 .288 .829 0.176 7 0 HR,2B
Ed Kirkpatrick C 4 1 2 1 0 0 .302 .871 0.028 9 0 2B
Cookie Rojas 2B 4 0 2 0 0 1 .282 .671 0.015 4 3
Bobby Floyd 3B 4 0 1 0 0 0 .170 .358 -0.041 2 2 2·GDP
Paul Splittorff P 3 1 2 0 0 0 .243 .541 0.003 0 1 3B
Tom Burgmeier P 1 0 0 0 0 1 .375 .750 -0.001 0 0
Roger Nelson P 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333 .667 0.000 0 0
Team Totals 33 6 15 5 1 3 .455 1.245 0.198 27 11
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/27/2012.

Big John seriously recovered from his slow start. He finished the season ranked third in the AL in OBP (.394) and fourth in slugging. (.507). His '72 performance garnered him some down ballot MVP consideration where he finished 12th. Sandwiched between Catfish Hunter and Jim Palmer.

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