Amazing Feats and Anomalies

Baseball is an amazing game and some amazing things happen as well as some confounding things. Here are some things that happened this year:

Jeff Francis is a promising left-handed pitcher who had the unfortunate thing happen of having the Colorado Rockies draft him. He can only hope that his arm lasts through his six year service with the Rockies. Even so, he has inexplicably pitched better at home than on the road. At home, hitters have a .277/.338/.415 line against him and he has a 6-2 record and a 4.09 ERA with only five homers allowed. Away, hitters have a .303/.376/.467 line and he has a 2-4 record and a 6.34 ERA with five homers allowed. In Denver, pitchers have to try a bit harder to make their pitches work and maybe he is trying to hard on the road when he does not need to. Whatever the case, it's weird.

At this moment, the Washington Nationals are on pace for 95 wins.

The Yankees are on pace for 86 wins and they are sitting in third place while their starting pitching has a collective ERA of 4.82 with a rookie being their ace. Randy Johnson is 9-6 with a 4.16 ERA, 8.25 K/9, and is on pace to give up 35 homeruns. He has only given up 30 homers once and is on pace to give up a career high in homers.

Carlos Beltran is on pace for eighteen homers, eighty one RBIs, seven stolen bases, and a .266/.321/.434 line. Sure his quad contributed to his woes, but this is not what anyone has expected. I will have more on this one tomorrow.

I could not have expected Kaz Matsui's disappearing act after showing so much promise after a strong showing in 2004.

Jose Reyes and Cliff Floyd played in a combined 167 games and Jose Reyes only missed one game while Cliff Floyd only missed eight games.

Brian Roberts has been perhaps the biggest surprise in baseball. In his career, he has twelve homers in 384 games and has hit fifteen in 80 games so far this year. But more impressive is his complete dominance of right handed pitchers. He has destroyed righties to the tune of .389/.448/.653 with eleven homers and thirty one RBIs in 216 at-bats. He has also hit safely sixty-nine of eighty games this year and gotten at least a walk or a hit in seventy-three of eighty games and one of those games he did not get hit or a walk was pinch hitting performance.

Manny Ramirez is only three grand slams behind Lou Gehrig's all time record of 23.

Mark Teixiera is hitting .247/.319/.329 with no homers and five RBIs in eighty five at-bats while hitting .303/.376/.644 with twenty five homers and sixty eight RBIs in 267 at-bats.

Alex Rodriguez likes playing at Yankee Stadium. He has hit .375/.476/.716 at home with sixteen homers and forty seven RBIs compared to his .248/.343/.423 line with seven homers and twenty five RBIs when he is not in the Bronx. If anyone has him on their fantasy team, maybe you should think about starting a platoon.

Eric Milton was a fly ball pitcher who has a propensity to give up a few homers who was signed to pitch half his games in a hitters park. He was armed with a new sinker to try and cut down on some of the long balls, but that bad new is, it did not really work. He is on pace to give up a ridiculous 53 homers beating his own mind boggling personal best of 43.

Hitting over .400 for a month is hard enough, but Derek Lee managed to do that not once, but twice so far. In April he hit .419/.490/.767 in eight six at-bats. He followed that up with a .313/.424/.646 May and people thought he was coming down to earth. Ummm...no. In June, he hit .407/.458/.713 in 108 at-bats. He is also on pace for fifty homers and 134 RBIs.

Mike Lowell is on pace for eight homers in 149 games and 543 at-bats. He is batting .226/.282/.351. Also, all his homers were hit at home and twenty seven of his thirty six RBIs have come at home as well.

There are tons more that's happened, but it’s getting late and I need to get this post done.

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Minor update:

• St. Lucie vs. Lakeland was rained out.
  
• Hagerstown beat Lake County 6-5. Carlos Gomez went 1 for 5 and Ryan Coultas went 2 for 3.
  
• Kingsport lost to Danville 10-5.
  
• The GCL Mets beat the GCL Marlins 3-2. They faced one of the Marlins first round picks Chris Volstad and he went four innings, gave up one hit, which was a homer, one walk, and six strikeouts.

Gary Sheffield on the Baseball World Cup.

"My season is when I get paid," Sheffield told the New York Daily News. "I'm not doing that. ... I'm not sacrificing my body or taking a chance on an injury for something that's made up."

Some people would be honored to play for their country. Gary Sheffield? Not so much.

Stephen Drew is sitting atop BA's Prospect Hot Sheet. Gaby Hernandez is still firmly planted in the top twenty with Brian Bannister as an honorable mention. Carlos Gomez makes his first ever appearance on the hot sheet with his solid hitting of late. Gomez played in fifty seven games and stole seventeen bases. This year he has stolen forty four bases and got caught only twelve times in seventy three games. He is only thirteen short of Jose Reyes' minor league high of fifty eight stolen bases. The kid has wheels.

TCPalm.com has a good look at Eddie Camacho and Scott Lauber has a great article on Brian Bannister.

Adam Rubin has given out a whole lot of A's and B's for a .500 team that has struggled.