Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

Much is being made of A-Rod's walk off grand slam against the Orioles yesterday. Let me say that Alex Rodriguez is indeed a great player and much of the criticism of him is petty and usually based upon either envy of his huge contract, disgust at his hyper-pc always trying to say scripted type things or because some people are big Derek Jeter fans and they think they need to cut A-Rod down in order to keep Jeter on a pedestal. I just wanted to note two things. First A-Rod's two home runs yesterday moved him out of his tie for 28th place on the all-time HR list with Dave Winfield who was derisively known in some quarters as Mr. May (a name some say fits A-Rod better). Second - I still say that the Rangers would have been better off if they just kept A-Rod. They're paying half his salary anyway. If A-Rod had stayed in Texas - he probably would have even better numbers by now and this season he'd probably opt out of his contract with the Yankees begging to sign him... It took only five games but already there are no undefeated teams and no teams who have not won at least one game... The feared Boston offense is dead last in the AL in runs per game with an anaemic 3.20 runs per game. The Indians, Yankees and Blue jays are all averaging at least double that number of runs. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are a combined 8-38 (.211) with just one extra base hit between them... Travis Buck had a great spring training for the A's - leading them in pre-season hits with 21. Buck's great spring coupled with injuries in the A's outfield opened a roster spot for the 23-year old. But since the real games have begun Buck has struck out in 8 of his 13 at bats and may be playing himself out of that roster spot... Pitching was supposed to be a trouble spot for the Mets but so far the pitching staff is sporting a very impressive 1.02 ERA. Of course this could also be the result of playing their openings series against the Cardinals who are averaging a worse than AAA 1.40 runs per game. Seriously - you could bring up a AAA team and I bet they average better than 1.40 runs per game... On this date in 1974 - Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run breaking Babe Ruth's career record for homers. To me and to many others - Aaron remains the true home run king - no matter what Barry Bonds does...