Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

- In the past seven days, Edgar Renteria has hit .522 (12 for 23) with 1 Hr, 5 RBI and a stolen base. This is the Edgar Renteria folks in Boston have been waiting to see.

- Matt Clement must be loving his run support with the Red Sox. So far this season the Sox have been putting up 7.13 runs on average in Clement's starts. That's not to say that he doesn't deserve his 6-0 start because as his 3.06 ERA will attest - he's pitched well. It's just that after seeing the guy get no run support with the Cubs last year - its nice for him to experience the opposite end of the spectrum. That 7.13 in run support is just 5th in the AL - Chan Ho Park leads the AL with a 7.52 mark.

- Blaine Neal and Byung-Hyun Kim both pitched for Colorado yesterday making the Colorado pitching staff ground zero for misfit former Red Sox pitchers. I must have missed Neal getting released by the Sox because I thought he was still a specter of ineffectiveness to be dealt with. It turns out that he was waived back on the 11th and the Rockies claimed him.

- Jim Thome continues to struggle and his back is probably worse than the Phillies are letting on. Jeff Bagwell's shoulder was killing him and he's now out for the season but yet Bagwell still has more HR in 2005 than Thome (3 to 2). Both these guys came up to the big leagues in 1991 and it is interesting to compare their career numbers:

Thome - .283 BA/ .409 OBP/ .565 SLG / 425 HR/ 1179 RBI/ 5829 AB
Bagwell - .297 BA/ .408 OBP/ .541 SLG/ 449 HR/ 1525 RBI/ 7785 AB

The numbers are pretty even except for RBI where Bagwell has the advantage mainly because he had more at bats. The more at bats are simply because Bagwell was used full time when he came up in 1991 while Thome was a role player for his first few years in Cleveland playing behind Paul Sorrento (yeah - Paul Sorrento).

- Bagwell is 40th all-time in RBI while Thome is not even in sniffing distance of the top 100. If Thome's back doesn't hold up and Thome is not able to get to the magical 500 HR - then there is a good chance Thome doesn't get elected to the Hall of Fame. If that's the case - then I would look back to 1992 and 1993 when he played behind Paul Sorrento in Cleveland as the reason he didn't get into Cooperstown.

- Only one word can describe Aaron Hill's performance since being brought up by the Blue Jays - Wow!

- Kevin Millar has been awful so far this season. Just to illustrate - Dave Roberts has the reputation as a speedy light hitting outfielder but yet Roberts has 15 extra base hits to Millar's 9 and that includes 2 home runs apiece. Dave Roberts has the same number of HR and is out slugging Cowboy Up Millar by 132 points (.465 to .333)!