2012 MLB Regular Season Running Thread

Jair Jurrjens optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett:

http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2012/04/24/jurrjens-roughed-up-again-braves-fall-to-dodgers/

 

Good night last night for the Nats.

 

Clearly it's because Fredi sucks and cannot handle his pitchers.

 

Hudson comes off the DL May 1. And Randall Delgado (who was originally scheduled to go down to Triple A when Hudson came back) has pitched well enough to keep his spot.

I thought they should have dumped Jurrjens during the offseason when they had the chance, but I guess Frank Wren believed in his phantom ERA from last year. He's got no trade value now.

When Jurrjens is throwing his fastball 90-91, his change-up is deadly. When he's throwing the fastball 85-86 like he has been this year, it's batting practice.

 

Pujols destroyed the ball in the preseason and is leading the league in doubles and just had a 8-9 game hitting streak. He will be fine.

Here is the deal. Over the course of a season, every single great hitter in the history of baseball has 2,3, or even 4 stretches per season where they go about .260 or so with little pop over 2-3 weeks. When it happens in the middle or the end of the season, nobody notices. When it happens the first 2-3 weeks, everybody panics. If anybody has followed Albert's career, he has had numerous stretched in his career where he was far worse over a 13 game period than he has been so far.

Now, do I think he will ever be 2008-2009 good again? Of course not. Is he declining? Maybe a little. Is there any indication other than a laughably small sample size that he is about to fall off the cliff? Coming off the heals of a 5 month period in 2011 (June through October) where his OPS+ was over 175? Na.

 

Yea, gotta believe those doubles will turn to homers at some point in the not too distant future for Pujols.

Until then, Cardinal fans can enjoy that the deposed King Albert trails noted sluggers Daniel Descalso in home runs and Rafael Furcal in RBIs.

 

But he's only batting .246. And every slugger does have slumps but Pujols has been having them all the time the last couple years. That 3-homer game in the world series last year might have been his last dying gasp as an elite hitter.

 

Slightly off topic, but nevertheless . . .

Baseball Tonight is not part of my usual viewing routing, but I happened upon it Monday night just as they were going to a Tim Kurkjian-Derek Jeter interview after the Yankees-Rangers game.

This is how it's supposed to be done: four questions, four very good questions, none of this "talk about . . . " crap or a question that was dreamed up by a second-grader ("Are you enjoying your 84-game hitting streak?).

 

Jetes seemed pissed when Kurkigian told him that Girardi believes he struggled the first half of 2011 because of the pressure of the 3000-hit milestone.

It was a stupid thing for Joe to say. I almost wish Jeter had shot back - What would Joe know about that? He never even got to 1,000 hits in his career.

 

Part of their strategy. Takes all the pressure off.

 

He was hanging everything last night and completely missing his targets. Something is very, very wrong.