Box Score Bests

deGrom missed out on his first career complete game due to already being over 100 pitches, but he lowered his ERA to 2.75 for the season. There were questions on how sustainable his success from last year was as he gave up just 7 homers in 140 innings, but this year he has give up 6 though 55 innings and has almost identical numbers. With deGrom and Harvey, the Mets rotation looks good for years to come.

It had been a real while. When Joe Mauer stepped to the plate in the 13th inning on Wednesday with the Twins tied in Pittsburgh, he hadn’t hit a homer in 275 days, spanning 77 games and 322 plate appearances. Mauer was never a power hitter other than his 28 homer outburst during his MVP season of 2009, but it had been terrible recently, with him hitting just 4 in 120 games last season and none through 38 this year. Ironically, this outage has come with him shifting to first base to keep his bat in the lineup. He got on the board Wednesday in a big way, however, with a game-winner. He still has never hit a walk-off homer in his career, but it was his second extra inning blast.

Josh Donaldson was doing just fine as the Blue Jays’ number two hitter, but he has taken to the leadoff spot quite nicely. Donaldson led off the game Tuesday with a homerun, his second career lead off homer as well as his second this season. That is impressive enough, until you see that he has only led off three times ever. He has bounced around the lineup a little this year, starting fifth, a few games third, and mostly second, but he got his first career start at lead off May 1 and hit a homer, then returned this Monday with a single and homered Tuesday. Who knows how long the streak will last, but after going 3-3 with two homers his first 3 tries, it seems like Toronto should keep running him out there.

Its been a matter of positions for Jose Bautista this year. After getting off to a painfully slow start (.149 average through 14 games) and missing 5 games with injuries, the Blue Jays brought Bautista back but switched him fro right field to designated hitter, where he has started  19 of Toronto’s 21 games since, with pinch hit appearances in the other 2. In those 21 games, he has hit a much more Bautista-like .294/.412/.559, including Monday night’s 3-4 performance with a double and his 7th homer of the season. It remains to be seen if Bautista returns to the outfield, but so far he is really enjoying his time at DH. 

Nothing like a trip to Great American Ball Park to get a homerun swing on track. Giant’s first baseman Brandon Belt was hitting .287 but had no homers as the Giants arrived in Cincinnati for a four game weekend set, and after being hitless in the opener by Johnny Cueto and company, he went off in the final three games, getting three hits and a homer in each contest. Overall in those three games, he went 9-14 with 2 doubles, 3 homers, 8 runs, and 7 RBI. Add in the magnificent return of Hunter Pence (4-8 with a homer in his first two games of the season) and the Giants once again look to be a huge factor in the National League as they hunt for their 4th ring in 6 years.

Just when it seems clear that the real Jason Kipnis is not the 2013 all-star, he makes you doubt. From that All-Star break of 2013, when Kipnis was hitting .301/.383/.514, until the end of this April, he hit .244/.315/.338 over 215 games. Then May came, and the Indian second baseman has gone bananas. After going 3-6 with a double, a homer, 2 runs, and  2 RBI on Saturday, he is now hitting .517/.586/.833 in 14 May games, with 12 extra base hits and 17 runs scored and giving him the American League lead with 50 hits on the season. 

For a guy who spent about half his career being considered a disappointment, Adrian Beltre is going to end up with some crazy career numbers. The Ranger’s third baseman hit his 400th career homerun Friday night, becoming the 5th player to reach that number while playing at least half his games at third. After debuting at 19 with the Dodgers and hitting .290 with 20 homers as a 21 year old, Beltre struggled for a few years before putting up a monstrous 2004, hitting .334, leading the NL with 48 homers and finishing 2nd in the MVP voting, all at the age of 25. He parlayed that into a huge free agent deal with the Mariners, where he had a few good years but nothing worthy of his contract. After an awful final season in Seattle, he went to Boston, found most of his 2004 ability, and hasn’t stopped hitting since: .316/.364/.535 from 2010 to 2014. Among third baseman all-time, he is now 5th in homers, 7th in runs, 5th in hits, 4th in doubles, 5th in RBI, and 4th in extra base hits. When he does retire, it may be hard to claim he is NOT a hall of famer. 

It is always fun to see a player work his way back to the top of his game, and Aaron Harang has definitely done that. After an underappreciated run in the mid 2000s with Cincinnati (From 2005-2007, he was 8th in starts, 3rd in IP, 3rd in K’s, and 23rd in ERA+ in the majors), the wheels fell off the bus for a couple years, going 18-38 with a 4.71 ERA from 2008-2010. He then left the Reds (and Great American Small Park) and bounced around, putting up three solid seasons in the next four while playing for 5 teams. This year, though, on his 7th team in 6 years, he has been better than ever. With 8 shutout innings vs. the Pirates on Thursday, the new Phillie now has a 2.03 ERA through 8 starts, 7 of which have been quality. The Cardinals roughed him up for 5 runs in 6 innings in late April, but in his other 7 starts he has given up just 7 earned runs in 47.1 innings. Much of this is unsustainable (.258 BABIP), but at 37 Harang is still going strong, and it is a treat to see. 

Well this one is easy. After a painfully slow start to 2015 for the reigning AL Cy Young winner, Corey Kluber dismantled the Cardinals on Wednesday. Coming in, he was 0-5 with a 5.04 ERA, and it was getting worse. After a solid first three starts, he had a 7.43 ERA in his last 4 and had given up a whopping 38 hits in just 23 innings. Wednesday, however, Kluber led the Indians to a 2-0 win by going 8 innings, giving up just 1 hit, and striking out 18. That was just the second time in MLB history anyone had 18 K’s, 1 hit, and no walks allowed, the other being the Kerry Wood 20 strikeout game from 1998. By Bill James’ ‘Game Score’ metric, it was tied for the 20th best game ever for a pitcher that went 9 or fewer innings (Kerry Wood’s is first), and the greatest game ever by a pitcher who went less than 9 innings. 

Historically a slow starter, former MVP Andrew McCutchen got off to an especially cold April this year, which extended a week into May. The Pirates’ center fielder was hitting .188/.279/.292 on May 6, but he seems to be regaining his form. With two hits and a homer on Tuesday, Cutch is hitting .409/.462/.727 his last 6 games with five extra base hits, equaling his total from those first 26 games. It appears that start was not anything wrong and simply an example of how small sample sizes can mess with a baseball player. They always seem to end up playing to the back of their baseball card.

Earlier in the season, we commented on National’s third baseman Yunel Escobar having 5 singles in a game. Clearly, he enjoyed the feeling, because exactly one week later he did it again. With another 5-5 performance against the Diamondbacks Monday night, Escobar becomes the first player this season with multiple 5 hit games and just the fourth player since 2000 with multiple 5 single games in one season, joining Nomar Garciaparra, Ichiro Suzuki, and Juan Pierre, pretty good company to be in. He also became the first third baseman to have multiple 5 hitters since Adam Kennedy in 2009. He has done all of this by mid-May, so if he can eke out another great game, he could start reaching some even more impressive “first since...” stats.

This throwback game probably doesn’t mean a turnaround is coming, but it inches Beltran ever closer to the amazing milestones he could hit in his career (within shouting distance of 400 homers and 2500 hits, while just 1 run and 11 RBI away from 1400 of each in his career).

Saturday was a good day for this name, as Chris Davis of the Orioles homered, but the Brewers’ version upstaged him, as Khris Davis went 3-3 with a couple doubles and 3 RBI. Davis had reached base 4 times in just 3 of his first 227 career games, but he has now done it back to back days. Davis hit .209/.305/.308 through 27 games this season, but Friday and Saturday he combined to go 7-8 with 3 doubles, a homer, and 6 RBI, raising his season line to .263/.351/.414. It’s amazing what a good weekend can do to your stats this early in a season.

Nobody beats Father Time, but Torii Hunter is at least trying to hide from him. The outfielder’s return to Minnesota did not start well, just a .205/.244/.315 line in April, but he has really turned things on in May. After hitting .367 with 2 homers through 7 games this month, Hunter exploded Friday, going 4-4 with 2 doubles, a homer, 4 RBI, 2 runs, and a walk thrown in too. At just about 2 months shy of his 40th birthday, he became the 2nd oldest player to reach base 5 times with 3 extra base hits and 4 RBI in a game, behind Reggie Jackson in 1986. Include 4 hits in the criteria and he is THE oldest, as Jackson had just 3 hits with 2 walks in his game. Any way you slice it, Hunter had one of the greatest games ever for a player of his age.

To further add to his feat, if you require 4 hits in the game it drops to 60 occurrences and 3 runs make it 46. All in all, Grandal put up one of the greatest offensive games in a long time. 

It was also already the sixth multi-homer game of Harper’s career, making him the seventh youngest player to reach that number, a list led by Mel Ott, who already had 10 at this age.

Frazier now has 4 doubles, 9 homers, and 9 singles for the Reds this year. Mark Teixeira is the only other player with at least 6 homers and as many homers as singles, as Teixeira has 10 homers and an amazingly low 3 singles. WIth a BABIP bounceback (.186 this year, .309 last year), Frazier should be in for another all-star season with the power he is showing.