Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

So Jason Kendall has been suspended four games for charging the mound. It occurs to me that Kendall's chances of hitting a home run during those four games is probably as great as if he played. It has been more than 878 at bats for Kendall since his last home run. Kendall is the anti-slugger. For the past three years his OBP has been greater than his slugging percentage. You have to be a real punch and Judy hitter to accomplish that... It is still too early but technically Detroit leads either the Red Sox or Yankees by 2.5 games for the AL Wildcard.... Many people predicted great things this season for the Rangers' Brad Wilkerson (and I was one of them). It was very disappointing to see Wilkerson get off to such a slow start but now he's heating it up. Over the last seven days - Wilkerson has gone 11 for 24 (.458) with 2 HR... Mike Lowell of the Red Sox continues to be a doubles machine. So far this season he has 16 which leads the major leagues. Lowell's best mark for doubles in a season is 44 (which he did twice) and I think the top mark for a Red Sox third baseman for doubles in a season is the 51 posted by Wade Boggs. Lowell is on pace for an 80+ doubles season... Speaking of doubles - Vlade Guerrero got his first double of the season last night. Prior to last night Guerrero had 37 hits of which 29 were singles, 8 were home runs and 0 were doubles. Just sort of strange... Its kinda amazing that we are this deep into the season (about 18% of the season) and still both the Cleveland Indians (with a .311 mark) and the Toronto Blue Jays (with a .308 mark) are still both hitting over .300 as a team. Just as amazing is the fact that the Blue Jays are slugging over .500 as a team (.507)... You would expect this from a Pittsburgh or Kansas City but the Minnesota Twins are just 3-12 on the road... Break up the Royals! They've now won two games in a row. It is now a race between the Royals (7 wins), Pissburgh (8 wins) and Florida (8 wins) to see who will be the last MLB team to reach double digit wins for the season... Combined the Mets and Braves used 16 pitchers last night... Byung-Hyun Kim seems to have found a home in Colorado. He's had two starts this season and is sporting a 3.29 ERA. BK - I (one finger) salute you...