Just My Latest Jinx

If you recall, I priased Jay Bruce's hot start back on June 2nd. At the time, he had an OPS approaching 1.700 and a 1:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his first six major league games.

My how times have changed.

His OPS has dropped 900 points, his strikeout-to-walk has done a virtual 180 (it's now 2.5:1), and in the 26 games since my post, he has just three multi-hit efforts.

For further perspective, consider this. The upper line shows Bruce's pre-post numbers. The lower line shows how he's fared post-post (which is a funny compound word).

13 for 22 (.591), 10 runs, 5 XBH, 6 RBI, 6 walks, 1 strikeout

21 for 97 (.216), 8 runs, 5 XBH, 8 RBI, 7 walks, 32 strikeouts

What's ironic about all this is that "the real" Jay Bruce is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of where he is right now with his torrid and frigid stretches included. Over 600 AB's it works out to roughly a .286, 20 homerun, 71 RBI, 91 run, 10 steal season...not bad even for a highly-touted 21-year-old. I just wish I could use my powers for good rather than evil.

I Guess I've Officially Taken Sides

My wife and I are in Boston right now, visiting friends. It's my first time in New England in years, and last night, my first-ever trip to Fenway Park. And I think I can sum up the experience in one word, "wow."

First of all, we show up around 5 o'clock- two hours before first pitch. And yet, the whole area outside the ballpark is absolutely packed. Yawkey Way, the shops, the sports bars...all jam-packed...and it's a random Wednesday in late-June.

We ate at "Game On!" and there was an hour wait to be seated, which was no problem because there was plenty of space in their standing-room-only section (although it made eating nachos interesting). Another thing that struck me inside the bar was the number of people in Red Sox jerseys or some type of Red Sox attire in general. With only a handful of exceptions, literally every person in there (again, we're talking I-sure-hope-there-isn't-a-fire-in-the-kitchen-because-someone's-getting-trampled-if-we-all-have-to-evacuate crowded) had on some sort of Sox stuff. Having grown up near Baltimore going to Camden Yards, this was a completely new phenomenon to me.

We finished our meal right around first pitch and made our way over to the park right at 7:05 to see Randy Johnson vs. Tim Wakefield, or as our friend Dave (aka Ezekiel) put it, AARP night. We had very good seats on the third base side of home plate a few sections up and I'll say this about the two hurlers. Johnson can still bring it and Wakefield's stuff breaks about 3 feet. The Big Unit was at 91-92 the whole night but hit 94 a few times later in the game and looks like he's 8 feet tall on the mound. Meanwhile, T-Dub threw one curveball that was 59 miles an hour and made, among others, Connor Jackson look like he was hitting a high-arc softball pitch for the first time ever. Oh, by the way, his knuckler is good too.

Next, to the player introductions, because a few of them were funny. Manny Ramirez (who I'm told came up to Afroman's "Because I Got High" a few seasons ago), chose "Zombie" by the Cranberries. Seriously. Every time #24 and his halfway-down-his jersey-dreads sauntered to the plate, some lady was singing "in your heaaaa-d, in your he-ah-ah-ed...zombie! zombie!" Weird. My favorite had to be Dustin Pedroia's plate music, "Dre. Day" by Dr. Dre. First of all, great song. Second of all, really funny for a balding, white, 5-foot-tall middle infielder.

As for the game, the Sox got some contributions from some unlikely places- Coco Crisp, Brandon Moss, and Kevin Cash, whose 3-run blast in the 8th all-but put it out of reach. Craig Hansen started the 9th and was wild, so with two outs and the bases loaded in a 5-0 game, Terry Francona came out to the mound to summon Jonathan Papelbon, whose face is in every Dunkin Donuts shop in New England. As soon as he started to walk in from the bullpen, they played "Wild Thing" by Steppinwolf and I have to admit, I kind of wished he had summoned me to come in and pitch. I was so pumped up, I think I probably could have touched 90 on the gun. Anyway, Papelbon got loose to "Shipping Up To Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys, the song he made famous during last season's playoffs. Then he struck out poor Chad Tracy on a series of 97 mile an hour fastballs. Poor guy didn't have a chance. Then, shocker, Fenway Park and it's nearly 40-thousand fans who all stayed until the last out, went nuts.

We visited the team shop after the game just for fun and it, too, was packed! Our friend Monica ended up buying a pink Red Sox thong for a friend's upcoming bachelorette party (sure it was for a friend, Mon) which was also funny. Then we left.

So getting back to the title of this post. I've never been to Yankee Stadium. But I don't think I can imagine a better environment to watch a baseball game than Fenway. Maybe it's the same in the Bronx as it was here last night, but I find it hard to imagine. And although I'm still officially an Oakland A's fan, I must consider myself leaning Massachusetts in the whole Yanks/Sox rivalry, largely thanks to my experiences last night.

Time To Go Closet-Digging

Remember these from 1993? The All-Star game is in Baltimore. Cito Gaston is managing the AL. Mike Mussina is sitting in the bullpen, waiting, waiting, waiting, but never gets called on to pitch. Gaston, instead, uses his own closer, Duane Ward to finish off the NL. T-shirts are promptly born.

Well, he's back, so I'd expect these shirts to start popping up all over Charm City too, especially July 21-24 when the Jays come to town.

I'll say this. I had no idea the O's were 4.5 games up on Toronto for 4th place in the AL East and just a game back of the Yankees for 3rd. Impressive!

Being Curt About Schilling

Right shoulder surgery will end Curt Schilling's 2008 season before it ever started, and it may end his career. That's all according to #38 himself. Assuming he has thrown his last pitch (personally I think it's too early to say he has) let's examine his Hall-of-Fame resume so far.

His 3,116 career strikeouts are good for 14th all-time. There are four people ahead of him who aren't Hall of Famers, although Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux will be five years after they retire. Roger Clemens is the third, and he's anyone's guess. The fourth is Bert Blyleven and he has nearly 600 more.

What Schilling really lacks is an impressive number of regular season wins, largely due to injuries and his decade spent in Philadelphia. His 216 W's don't even put him in the top-75. He's in Charlie Hough/Kenny Rogers/Kevin Brown territory with that win total, although there are more than a dozen pitchers who got into the Hall with even fewer victories.

He won 20 or more three times. That's also good, but not great. And the fact that he was never a Cy Young Award winner doesn't help either, although he was runner-up on three separate occasions and finished fourth in the voting another time. He appeared in six All-Star games, but never more than three in a row, so he wasn't exactly a staple there.

Up until this point, I'd say he's a long-shot for Cooperstown. But what I haven't mentioned is what's he done in October. And what he's done in October has been exceptional. He has three World Series rings, an 11-2 career postseason record, 2.23 postseason ERA, and 120 strikeouts in 133 1/3 IP. His totals for wins, winning percentage, strikeouts, and innings pitched all rank in the top-10 all-time, meaning it is not unreasonable to make the argument that Schilling has been one of the best postseason pitchers ever. And it is for that reason that I think Schilling deserves a place in the Hall.

He may not be a first-ballot guy. And he may not be on the level of contemporaries Johnson, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz or Rivera, but Schilling still deserves a spot, even if he never throws another pitch.

Statistical Oddities

Today is June 11. Most teams have played about 65 games, meaning we're roughly 40% through the 2008 regular season. Yet, there's still some awfully weird stuff happening, aside from the fact that Tampa has a 3.5 game lead over Oakland for the AL Wild Card.

Here are a few of my favorite examples...

*Milton Bradley, a career .278 hitter, has the highest batting average in the American League (.338).

*In nearly 220 at-bats, Chipper Jones is still hitting .420. He needs to hit approximately .387 the rest of the season to finish up at .400.

*The top 2 pitchers in the AL in wins right now (Cliff Lee and Joe Saunders) already have more wins this season than they did all of last season.

*Entering this season, Edinson Volquez had given up 64 earned runs in 80 career innings. This season, he's given up 14 earned runs in 81 innings, en route to the lowest ERA (1.56) in baseball.

*Ryan Howard has 38 more strikeouts (89) than hits (51).

*Miguel Cabrera is tied for 29th in the league in homeruns, 17th in RBI, and 32nd in batting average. Last year he was 5th, 3rd, and 8th.

*Adam Dunn and Jack Cust are hitting .240 and .247 respectively but their on base percentages are .406 and .407 respectively!

*Four of the top-10 strikeout pitchers in baseball (Sabathia, Harang, Billingsley, Burnett) have losing records.

*Jacoby Ellsbury has more walks than strikeouts and more steals than RBI.

*Joey Votto is on pace to commit 20 errors this season at first base. Kevin Youkilis has one error at first base in 185 games over the last two seasons.

*And perhaps my favorite...Nate McLouth has more extra base hits this season (37) than every single All-Star from 2007 except Chase Utley (41).

Johnny On The Spot

Even though his team is playing more than 1200 miles away in Texas, I'd be willing to bet if there's a brawl in tonight's Orioles/Blue Jays game in Toronto, Jonny Gomes will find a way to be in it. After all, he manages to be a part of every other fight.

He's #31 in the picture above, pounding on Coco Crisp, who charged the mound after being plunked by James Shields, who hit Crisp because Crisp (in the minds of most members of the Rays) slid in too hard on Akinori Iwamura in Wednesday night's game, who is coincidentally the same guy victimized by a hard slide in spring training by New York Yankee Shelly Duncan, a slide which prompted another brawl, which also featured Gomes (got all that?).

After hearing about the brawl in the car last night, my initial reaction was that the Rays (in a Teddy KGB voice from the movie "Rounders") "von't be pooshed a-round" anymore...that their newfound aggressiveness and penchant for fisticuffs are somehow derived from a decade of doormat-dom. Turns out, I'm right. Quoting Shields, "We've been getting stomped around the last 10 years and it isn't going to happen anymore."

Jonny Gomes will probably try to sucker-punch me for saying this but Shields wasn't on the 63-99 Tampa team from 1998 (led by Fred McGriff and Rolando Arrojo). He was a 16-year-old attending Hart High School in Santa Clarita, Calirfornia, where he was most likely not a Rays fan.

With Apologies To Jay Bruce Owners...

Sorry, but I'm about to jinx the heck out of your boy.

In his first 6 games, JB has 13 hits, 6 walks (compared to just one strikeout), 3 doubles, 2 homeruns, 6 RBI, 2 stolen bases, he's scored 10 times, and his OPS is 1.690.

Over the remainder of this season, that projects to a .591/37/111 line with 185 runs scored, 56 doubles, 37 steals, and 111 walks. Oh, and he's been able to legally purchase alcohol for 2 months.

Does anybody know why Dusty Baker stuck with Corey Patterson as long as he did?