AL MLB Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous AL MLB thoughts and observations.

With his HR yesterday - David Ortiz took over 10th place on the Red Sox all-time list (he was tied with Nomar Garciappara). Ortiz now has 179 HR in Boston. Next up on the list is Rico Petrocelli with 210 HR... Alex Rodriguez is tied for 30th in the AL in walks which is very surprising to me. You'd think that as hot as he's been that some teams would at least pitch around him if not intentionally walk him outright... Highly touted Royals rookie Alex Gordon has struggled out of the gate. So far in his young career - Gordon is hitting just .145 (which is haunting some fantasy baseball team owners who thought Gordon was going to be a steal)... I find it hard to believe that the Angels have such an abundance of starting pitching that they can afford to option Joe Saunders back to AAA. Saunders in three starts was 2-0 with a 1.96 ERA (tied for 6th in the AL)... The Orioles are in second place in the AL East in large part because they have hit 16 HR while their opponents have only hit 8. I guess that's another way of saying the team pitching has been pretty good (3.89 team ERA - 5th in the AL). Is this evidence of the efforts of Leo Mazzone bearing fruit?... Sure Sammy Sosa has 4 HR and every time he hits one - he makes the SportsCenter highlights but overall he's hitting just .196 with an OPS of just .696. That's well below replacement player levels... Speaking of the Rangers - what's up with Michael Young? He's hitting a Sosa-like .171 with an even worse OPS of .520 (in six of the Rangers last 10 games Young has failed to get a hit)... Ichiro is on a pace for 212 hits this season. Ichiro has had at least 206 hits in each of his six MLB seasons... The leading hitter on the A's (batting average wise) is Eric Chavez with his .265 average. That's just awful. As a team they are hitting just .226 which is pitiful but interestingly not the worst in the AL. That (dis)honor belongs to the White Sox who are hitting just .223 as a team. Even though they seemingly can't hit - the A's are still in first place in the AL West because their pitching is second in the league with a 2.98 team ERA... Minnesota is third in the AL in runs but they still haven't hit double digits as a team in HR (they have just 9 - which is tied for worst in the AL with the weak hitting A's)... I guess those last couple of points is another way of saying that if you are a fantasy baseball team owner - bench all of your hitters from the A's...