Charlie’s News At Five: 2nd July 2013
Charlie takes a look at five of the hottest stories currently in baseball. This week, a contender comes to life, an ace makes some history, a difference maker is out injured for the year and two legends are honoured.
1. The Los Angeles Dodgers Offense Powered Surge
For the first time this past week, the LA Dodgers were able to put Adrien Gonzalez, Andre Ethier, Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig into the same lineup. The Dodgers offense is still lacking Carl Crawford who is currently on the disabled list.
Out of the six players I mentioned above, only Gonzalez and Ethier have managed to stay healthy for the whole season so far. Gonzo has thrived while Andre has had a season of struggle. An important spark to the lineup however, has been the emergence of Yasiel Puig, who seems to be making history on an almost daily basis.
Another main key for me however, has been the return of Hanley Ramirez. Hanley returned just over a week ago and in his last ten games has hit .378, with four homeruns and 11 runs batted in, as well as posting a 1.042 OPS.
Whilst Puig has been making the headlines, Ramirez has quietly also been one of the Dodgers best offensive weapons, since his return, coinciding in LA going 8-2 over it’s last ten games. This included, a six game winning streak, with the bonus of a sweep over their arch rivals the San Francisco Giants. The blue team from LA, are now only five games back of the NL West leading Arizona Diamondbacks.
2. Max Scherzer Starts The Season 12-0
On Friday 28th June, Detroit Tigers ace, Max Scherzer gained his 12th win of the season, against the Tampa Bay Rays.
To put this achievement into perspective, nobody had started 12-0 since Roger Clemens in 1986. Max is also only the fifth pitcher since the live ball era started in 1920 to accomplish this feat.
Scherzer came up to the major leagues, as a fastball which he throws in the mid-90’s and slider pitcher. He was also known, to have inconsistent command.
In the past few years, he has vastly improved his changeup, and greatly developed a curveball too. This means he has four plus plus (the top grade a scout can grade a pitch) pitches in his repertoire.
Numbers wise, Max has a 3.10 ERA (2.70ERA in his last 11 starts), a 0.897 WHIP, a 5.24 K/BB ratio, a 2.50 BABIP, a 2.68 FIP, 2.68 xFIP and 3.4 WAR. His FIP and BABIP are both a lot lower than his career, average and extremely low in general, so it is fair to expect them to increase as the season goes on.
It is extremely difficult for a pitcher to go through a season unbeaten, the Tigers have arguably the best offense in Baseball, but they have also had closer problems all year. If Scherzer can keep consistently pitching well, and the Tigers can solve their closer issues, then he may just be able to go through the whole season undefeated.
3. Mark Teixeira Out For The Season
Despite all their heroics for the first two months of the season, the New York Yankees have started to falter recently. The main cause of this has been a recent decline in their offense. This was not too surprising, given the fact that the Yankees have been missing Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira for close to the whole season so far.
On Thursday 27th June, it was announced that Teixeira would have to have season ending surgery on his right wrist.
Although Teixeira has been in a technical decline, since 2010, as evidenced by his falling season by season OPS, he was still a key contributor to the Yankees lineup.
In 2012, Tex slugged 24 home runs and drove in 84 RBIs, while posting an OPS of .807. Lyle Overbay will become the Yankees full time first baseman but he has only posted an OPS of .714, thus far this year.
4. Stan Musial To Have A Bridge Named After Him
One of the reasons I love Baseball, is that to me, no other sport, honours, remembers and celebrates its past legends more or better than baseball.
Stan Musial played for the St. Louis Cardinals between 1941 – 1963 (he missed 1945 due to military service). In that time he amassed, 3,630 hits, 475 home runs, a lifetime .331 batting average, 24 all-star game appearances, 3 MVP awards and 3 World series titles all with St.Louis. Stan “the man” would also win another World Series as the Cardinals General Manager in 1967.
Musial was also known as a gentleman of the game, and widely respected throughout the world of baseball. He didn’t have the outright charisma of Willie Mays, or the celebrity aura of Joe DiMaggio, but he loved the game and played the game hard, at a consistently high level. It was this “workmanlike” blue collar attitude that endeared him to a lot of fans, he was very relatable to the fans.
Earlier this past week, it was revealed the US senate had passed a bill to rename the new Mississippi river bridge over the I70, the “Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge”. A very fitting tribute in my opinion to a baseball legend, who not only respected military veterans, but who was one himself.
5. Atlanta Braves Retire Chipper Jones’ Jersey
On Friday 28th June, the Atlanta Braves retired the no.10 of Chipper Jones.
This was a huge occasion, not just for the Braves, but also for Chipper himself. If Derek Jeter is known as the face of the AL over the last 20 years, then in my opinion,Ch Chipper Jones must be the face of the NL in that same time span.
In his Braves tenure from 1993–2012, Jones had a .303 career average, blasted 468 home runs, was an 8 time all-star, the 1999 NL MVP, the 2008 NL batting champion and a 1995 World Series Champion.
As well as all the accolades listed above, Chipper was an inspirational club house leader, and pretty much the unofficial Captain of Atlanta. He had the aura of a special player, who was able to make the other players around him better.
He has also always been a very humble person, and is also widely respected around the world of baseball, when he retired, the active game of baseball lost a legend last year, but the hall of fame will be gaining another legend in four years time.