Who will hit a home run first? Albert Pujols or a pitcher?

The Angels have four more games this month.
After tonight there will be four more days of National League games.

Guess what? Albert Pujols is currently tied with National League pitchers in home runs.
That would be zero.

I didn’t expect Pujols to come out with career numbers. But I didn’t expect him to be tied with Chris Resop in the HR column. Hell he’s tied with ME!

So keep an eye out.
Who will tag one first?
Pujols or ANY National League pitcher.

The smart money is still on Pujols.
But did the Angels spend smart money?

I hate being right about Crawford and Buchholz

I was on a podcast this March talking about the Red Sox on a panel. One of the other guests was asked about Carl Crawford and his chances for a bounce back season.

He talked about how he had no doubt that Crawford was going to come back to being an elite player after a disappointing 2011 season.

Then another one talked about how Clay Buchholz is going to be back and regain his All Star stuff.

And I of course wondered what planet I was on at that time.

They came to me and I said “Crawford is done. I expect nothing from him.”
One of the other guests got upset with me and said “How can you say that?”
I replied, well other than the fact that he is injured, has wrist issues, is getting older which will affect his speed and doesn’t seem like a good fit in Boston, everything seems fine with Crawford.

Then I compared (Feet of) Clay Buchholz with Ben Sheets and Rich Harden. All are talented pitchers who just can’t stay healthy and bring no ACTUAL value to the team, just that remarkable “potential.”

I pointed out that the next year he logs 180 innings will be his first.
The next time he makes 30 starts will be his first.

Yes he was a fragile 22 year old when he threw that no hitter in 2007.
He’s now a fragile 27 year old.

I also said the Red Sox starting staff was garbage besides Lester and the bullpen unreliable.
I was told I was being too pessimistic.

Well here we sit a month later.

Carl Crawford is walking the Earth (like Kane in Kung Fu) trying to find someone to give him good news about his shoulder. He still hasn’t played for the Sox since diving for the final fly ball of the 2011 season.

And Buchholz? Oh he looks great. A fantastic 8.87 ERA, averaging less than 6 innings a start, letting up homers left and right and almost a 1 for 1 walk to strike out ratio.

HOORAY!

I don’t WANT to be correct.
I WANT to be wrong!
I want Carl Crawford to be a 5 tool star and Clay Buchholz to be a stud.

But Crawford isn’t playing and Buchholz isn’t helping by playing.

Being right can be such a burden.

Who is Robbie Ross and how does he have 4 wins already?

Rangers left handed reliever Robbie Ross has appeared in 6 big league games in his career that began on April 8.

He has won 4 games of those games.
Keep in mind, none of those games are starts. And none of those games he finished.

That’s 4 decisions, all wins, in 6 middle relief appearances.
Would someone smarter in math than me figure out the odds for that?

He has a win in 2/3 of his first 6 times on the mound, but not having the benefit of a start or vulturing off of a walk off win!

At that pace, if he made 45 appearances out of the pen, he’d have 30 wins for the year.

If I were Ron Washington, I’d use him as my “the game is tied and we’re about the rally” good luck charm.

If the game is tied or Texas is behind by one or two in the late innings, bring on Robbie Ross!
It’s a sign to the team that the manager is expecting a big rally.

He leads ALL OF BASEBALL in wins.
If that isn’t an indictment of the win statistic, I don’t know what is!

Good luck, Robbie. Hope you get to 30!