Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

Casey Kotchman has been hot for the Angels. In the last 10 games he has raised his batting average 42 points - from .258 to an even .300... Last off season Tom Glavine clearly wanted to return to the Braves but Atlanta thinking they were fine with a big three of Smoltz, Hudson and Mike Hampton passed on having a Hall of Famer return to win his 300th game. Now with Mike Hampton out for the season - the back end of the rotation is the big weak spot for the Braves. I bet that Atlanta wishes they had a do-over and again had the opportunity to bring Tom Glavine back into the fold... Nomar Garciaparra is having a disappointing start to the season. He has just 1 HR and his OPS (.687) is 212 points below his career average... The other day I mentioned how maybe hitters who switch from the NL to the AL show a decline because the pressures and the talent in the AL are much greater than the NL. I used JD Drew as my example but another good one would be Josh Barfield who hit .280 last season for the Padres but is hitting just .235 this year for Cleveland. Of course Barfield's struggles could also fall under the cliche of the the sophomore slump... David Ortiz and Ryan Howard are both listed at 230 pounds. There is no way on God's green earth that those two guys are only 230 pounds... Bronson Arroyo is now 2-5 with a 4.01 ERA for the Reds. This may sound crazy but I think the Red Sox are better off with Julian Tavarez (or soon Jon Lester) as their 5th starter than they would be with Arroyo... Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds are both hitting just .231 for the Cardinals. Both "sluggers" have pretty big dollar contracts for next year and both have 10-5 rights to veto any trade attempt. These guys may prove to be albatrosses not just for this year but also next year for St. Louis... I thought for sure that Joe Kennedy would be the season's big surprise success story. However, Kennedy is just 1-4 for the A's even though he has an impressive 3.62 ERA. I'm telling you - if I were a GM for a team trying to win a playoff spot and I needed another starter - I'd make Joe Kennedy a top trade priority. When Rich Harden and Esteban Loaiza come back from the DL - then Kennedy should be expendable by the A's in exchange for a slugger. Kennedy is a free agent at the end of the season so the A's have another reason for wanting to deal him... Red Sox fans are not booing Julio Lugo even though he's hitting just .231 as the leadoff batter. The reason Sox fans have some patience with Lugo is because he always seems to come up big in the clutch. With runners in scoring position Lugo is hitting .319 and with RISP and 2 outs - Lugo is hitting a blistering .346... Mark Loretta is quietly having a nice season for the Astros. The idea going into the season was for Loretta split 2nd with Craig Biggio (especially on the road where Biggio's numbers are awful) but with Morgan Ensberg struggling - Loretta has gotten a lot of AB recently at 3rd base. Lorreta is hitting .351 for the season...