Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

It is just painful to continue to see donuts next to Dan Johnson's name. Last night was another 0-fer as Johnson went 0-4 to stretch his hitless streak to 23 AB to start the season. The man born in Coon Rapids, MN is hitting .000 for the season... Not too far in front of Johnson is Jeff Conine of the Orioles. Conine has just one hit (a HR) in 17 AB this season and is hitting just .059. If Conine isn't hitting at least .200 by his 40th birthday in June he may want to think about hanging up the spikes... Scott Podsednik got his second hit of the season last night and is now 2-30 (.067 BA) for the season... Hanley Ramirez, the top prospect given up by the Red Sox in order to get Josh Beckett, is showing to be the real deal. For the season Ramirez is hitting an even .400 with 4 doubles and 2 triples. It looks like this was a win-win deal for both teams as Beckett has been dominating in his two starts this season... I never really think of Greg Maddux as a strikeout pitcher but he needs just 58 more strikeouts this season to move past Bob Gibson into 12th place on the all-time strikeout list.