StaTuesday: Brewers OF Grisham's rare rookie 5-hit game
The Miami Marlins retired Trent Grisham on a grounder his first time at-bat, leading off Monday’s game.
Hopefully they savored the moment because the Milwaukee rookie outfielder had a hit in each of his next five at-bats – double, single, single, triple and single.
It was the third five-hit game by a Brewers player this season, but the first in a nine-inning game in which Milwaukee won. Christian Yelich went 5-for-6 on Aug. 17 at Washington in a game that lasted 14 innings, Lorenzo Cain also was 5-for-6 in a loss to Philadelphia on May 13 and Ryan Braun had six hits (in eight at-bats) in an 18-inning affair against the New York Mets on May 4.
While Grisham’s performance accounts for one-fifth of his hits with the Brewers (he enters play Tuesday 25-for-96, with a slash line of .260/.324/.448), really, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that he had this in him.
Grisham began the year in Double-A and was promoted to Triple-A San Antonio in late June, where he proceeded to hit .381/.471/.776 before being called up to Milwaukee on Aug. 1.
Five weeks after his move to Triple-A, Grisham had a five-hit game. Five weeks after his move to Milwaukee, he had a five-hit game.
Grisham’s accomplishment Monday in Miami was just the second time a Brewers rookie has had five hits in a game – Keon Broxton had the other in Arizona on Aug. 6, 2016. Broxton did it in his 47th career game; Grisham his 32nd.
Since 1908, Grisham is the 56th player to have a five-hit game within his first 32 major-league games (Maurice Archdeacon in 1923 and Wally Moon in 1954 each did it twice in that span) and first since 2016.
Four other Brewers had a five-hit game in their first 162 MLB games, although had lost rookie status by the time they did so: Randy Ready (78th career game, Sept. 10, 1985), Mike Felder (77th, June 11, 1987), Jean Segura (94th, May 28, 2013) and Elian Herrera (110th, July 13, 2014).
Only seven Brewers have had more than one five-hit game with the team: Braun, Jeff Cirillo, Geoff Jenkins, Paul Molitor and Christian Yelich with three and Mark Loretta and Fernando Vina with two. In all, there have been 45 instances in which a Brewers player had 5+ hits in game, with 37 of those done in a nine-inning game, like Grisham. Grisham is one of just five to have a triple as part of his five-hit game (Vina had two, Felder, Bill Hall and Yelich).
Here’s the list of the 37 five-hit games in a nine-inning game:
| PLAYER | DATE | AB | H | NOTES |
| John Briggs | 8/4/1973 | 6 | 6 | 2 2B |
| George Scott | 9/2/1975 | 5 | 5 | 2 2B |
| Von Joshua | 8/10/1977 | 5 | 5 | 2 2B, HR |
| Don Money | 7/13/1978 | 5 | 5 | 2B, HR |
| Charlie Moore | 7/11/1980 | 5 | 5 | |
| Cecil Cooper | 8/11/1980 | 5 | 5 | 2B, 2 HR |
| Robin Yount | 7/2/1982 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Paul Molitor | 7/27/1983 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Randy Ready | 9/10/1985 | 5 | 5 | |
| Mike Felder | 6/11/1987 | 6 | 5 | 3B |
| Paul Molitor | 9/9/1989 | 5 | 5 | |
| Darryl Hamilton | 7/28/1991 | 6 | 5 | 2B |
| Paul Molitor | 7/28/1991 | 6 | 5 | |
| Kevin Seitzer | 8/28/1992 | 7 | 5 | 2 2B |
| Scott Fletcher | 8/28/1992 | 6 | 5 | |
| Fernando Vina | 9/12/1996 | 6 | 5 | 3B, 2 HR |
| Jeff Cirillo | 6/28/1998 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Jeff Cirillo | 7/3/1999 | 5 | 5 | 2B, HR |
| Mark Loretta | 7/17/1999 | 6 | 5 | 2B, HR |
| Jeff Cirillo | 8/27/1999 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Mark Loretta | 5/11/2000 | 5 | 5 | |
| Geoff Jenkins | 4/11/2003 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Lyle Overbay | 5/1/2005 | 5 | 5 | 2B, HR |
| Carlos Lee | 6/5/2005 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Geoff Jenkins | 8/4/2005 | 5 | 5 | 2 2B |
| Geoff Jenkins | 9/5/2005 | 5 | 5 | 2 2B |
| Bill Hall | 9/15/2005 | 6 | 5 | 2B, 3B |
| Ryan Braun | 4/21/2009 | 5 | 5 | 2 HR |
| Prince Fielder | 8/2/2010 | 7 | 5 | 2B |
| Ryan Braun | 8/2/2010 | 7 | 5 | |
| Rickie Weeks | 8/30/2012 | 5 | 5 | 2 2B |
| Jonathan Lucroy | 5/31/2013 | 5 | 5 | 2B, 2 HR |
| Elian Herrera | 7/13/2014 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Keon Broxton | 8/6/2016 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Christian Yelich | 3/31/2018 | 5 | 5 | 2B |
| Lorenzo Cain | 5/13/2019 | 6 | 5 | 2 2B |
| Trent Grisham | 9/9/2019 | 6 | 5 | 2B, 3B |
Dave Heller is the author of Ken Williams: A Slugger in Ruth's Shadow (a Larry Ritter Book Award nominee), Facing Ted Williams - Players From the Golden Age of Baseball Recall the Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived and As Good As It Got: The 1944 St. Louis Browns
