History-making month for Rollins

JIMMY ROLLINS has had himself a very steady couple of weeks. How steady? How about getting one hit - and one hit only - in 13 consecutive games (entering Friday night's contest in St. Louis).

Only six other major leaguers have had a longer such streak over the last 100 seasons, led by the Cardinals' Ted Sizemore (who would spend 1977 and 1978 with the Phillies) going one knock at a time for 16 straight contests in 1975. (Go to philly.com/boopstats for the full list.)

Throw in the fact that Rollins broke the club's all-time hit record in the midst of that run, and you've got a half-month run you will never see in Phillies history again.

Here are some other quick stats that caught our attention recently . . .

* We could spend a week listing all the amazing numbers put together by the great Tony Gwynn, who passed away earlier this week, but this would still be our favorite: In 2,467 career games (regular season and playoffs), Gwynn had exactly one game where he struck out three times . . . Six different Phillies already have multiple three-strikeout games this season.

* When Wil Nieves came up lame on his second double of the game Wednesday, fellow catcher Carlos Ruiz made the 11th pinch-running appearance of his Phillies career. That is the same number of pinch-running appearances made by Jeff Stone as a Phil.

* Through Thursday, reliever Antonio Bastardo had been a baserunner (one walk) as often in June as he had allowed a baserunner (one hit) in June. His on-base average for the month: 1.000. Opposing batters' OBA facing him: .036 . . . Hard. To. Do.

* The San Antonio Spurs have five NBA titles in last 16 seasons . . . Philly NBA teams (Sixers and Warriors) have a combined four titles in 67 seasons.

* The Spurs' plus-70 point differential for the NBA Finals was the largest margin in history.

* Which leads us to this . . . The Spurs hadn't won a championship in 6 years, then Brett Brown leaves to become head coach of the Sixers and San Antonio has the most dominating Finals ever.

* With its 2-0 loss to Chile, Spain was eliminated from advancing, becoming the 12th consecutive World Cup champion to fail to defend its title.