Sunday Wrap: Six Weeks in the Books

Pablo Sandoval “painted” his nails pink for Mother’s Day (they are actually decals).

“Relax, all right? Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. It’s more democratic.” – Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) to Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), Bull Durham (1988)

[I had reserved this spot for Chris Sale had he completed the perfect-game-in-progress he had going through six tonight, but Mike Trout broke that up. I never really get excited anymore when announcers or twitter starts getting excited about a perfect game or no-hitter.  Don’t we all feel a little embarrassed to tune in only to see it broken up?]

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Okay, this Indians run is getting ridiculous.  They have now won 12 of their last 14 (setting aside Umpire Angel Hernandez‘s terrible call on the HR review against the A’s), they took 2 out of 3 from the Tigers and now are tied with the Tigers for first place in the AL Central.  Amazing.  They’ve got a double header against the Yankees tomorrow and the Tigers play Houston. Michael Bourn is back and contributing already.  We’ll see.

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Closer blues: The Tigers lost in extras following Jose Valverde‘s first blown save of the season… Brandon McCarthy pitched eight scoreless innings and was removed with only 88 pitches to give way to Heath Bell in the 9th.  Bell gave up four hits while recording only two outs. The Diamondbacks eventually lost… The Indians are always flirting with disaster when closer Chris Perez is out there (he did give up a game-tying HR to A’s Rosales– the ump bailing him out doesn’t really change that).

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Jim Cook, that Sam Adams Boston Lager guy, always sounds drunk and huggy and a little weepy– he’s got that drunk’s sentimentality to him and their ads always have corny music that are all emo.  My question is: the Sam Adams people know that he sounds like the drunken uncle you wouldn’t wanna get stuck in a conversation with, don’t they?

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Michael Cuddyer, Rajai Davis, Jake Westbrook, J.J. Putz, Roy Halladay…. just a few of the recent entries to the Disabled List.  Here is the link to see updates on all injured players, whether they on the DL or not.

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Cubs 1B Anthony Rizzo agreed to a seven-year, $41 million extension with the Cubs.  It isn’t a ton of money, so it is low-risk for the Cubs.  For Rizzo, not only might he outperform that deal, but even worse, he’s just agreed to remain a member of the Cubs through the prime years of his career.  No World Series.

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Yankees legend Mariano Rivera is taking advantage of his last year in baseball by raising money for his foundation as well as paying tribute to the many workers from around baseball that he’s gotten to know in the past few decades.  In Kansas City, during batting practice, Rivera was being interviewed by reporters and Joba Chamberlain was yelling to family members in the stands.  Mo shushed him– not probably the best thing to do– but Chamberlain made a bit of a scene.  Look, maybe Mo was rude, but Chamberlain comes across as a pretty unlikable guy.  Or it could just be that like everybody else, just the mere mention of Joba makes our eyes roll into the back of our head, and that conditioning makes us all think of him as a douche.   maybe.

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Playoff picture if the season ended today:

NL West: Giants [Last Week: Giants]

NL Central: Cardinals [Last Week: Cardinals]

NL East: Braves [Last Week: Braves]

NL Wild Cards: Reds & Pirates [Last Week: Rockies & Reds]

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AL West: Rangers [Last Week: Rangers]

AL Central: Indians/Tigers [Last Week: Tigers]

AL East: Yankees [Last Week: Red Sox]

AL Wild Cards: Orioles & Red Sox [Last Week: Royals & Yankees]

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Now let’s take a look at the league leaders in all 10 statistical categories that our Fantasy League competes in:

Runs

1) 33: Austin Jackson

2) 29 (three tied): Shin-Soo Choo, Adam Jones, Starling Marte

5) 28 (five tied): Carlos Gonzalez, Evan Longoria, Manny Machado, Nate McLouth, Justin Upton

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Miguel Cabrera]

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Home Runs

1) 12: Justin Upton

2) 11 (three tied): Chris Davis, Edwin Encarnacion, Mark Reynolds

5) 10 (three tied): John Buck, Robinson Cano, Bryce Harper

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Mike Morse]

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RBI

1) 40: Miguel Cabrera

2) 37: Chris Davis

3) 33 (two tied): Prince Fielder, Mike Napoli

5) 32: Mark Reynolds

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: John Buck]

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Stolen Bases

1) 12 (two tied): Jacoby Ellsbury, Juan Pierre

3) 11 (two tied): Everth Cabrera, Nate McLouth

5) 10 (two tied): Starling Marte, Jean Segura

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Coco Crisp]

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Batting Average

1) .379: Miguel Cabrera

2) .376: James Loney

3) .371: Carlos Gomez

4) ..359: Jean Segura

5) .345: Adrian Gonzalez

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Carlos Santana, Torii Hunter, Troy Tulowitzki]

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Wins

1) 6 (four tied): Clay Buchholz, Yu Darvish, Matt Moore, Jordan Zimmermann

5) 5 (eleven tied): Patrick Corbin, Jeremy Guthrie, Jason Hammel, Felix Hernandez, Hiroki Kuroda, Jon Lester, Lance Lynn, Justin Masterson, Shelby Miller, Max Scherzer, Adam Wainwright

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: none]

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Saves

1) 15 (two tied): Jason Grilli, Mariano Rivera

3) 14: Jim Johnson

4) 12 (two tied): Sergio Romo, Rafael Soriano

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Addison Reed]

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Strikeouts

1) 80: Yu Darvish

2) 66: A.J. Burnett

3) 62: Matt Harvey

4) 61 (two tied): Ryan Dempster, Max Scherzer

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Clayton Kershaw, Jeff Samardzija]

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E.R.A.

1) 1.44: Matt Harvey

2) 1.53: Felix Hernandez

3) 1.58: Shelby Miller

4) 1.59: Jordan Zimmermann

5) 1.62 (two tied): Jake Westbrook, Clayton Kershaw

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Clay Buchholz, Madison Bumgarner, Justin Verlander]

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WHIP

1) 0.73: Matt Harvey

2) 0.74: Hisashi Iwakuma

3) 0.82: Jordan Zimmermann

4) 0.88: Shelby Miller

5) 0.90 (three tied): Mike Minor, Clayton Kershaw, Felix Hernandez

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Madison Bumgarner]

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So there you go.