You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Baseball is a great game because we can atomize everything about it yet tomorrow always presents a surprise. To wit:

Evan Gattis leads the Astros this year with seven triples. He had one triple in his entire career previously.

Royals rookie Paulo Orlando’s first three career hits were triples. Victor Martinez has three lifetime triples in 6,400 plate appearances.

Jenrry Mejia managed to face 27 batters between suspensions that will sideline him for 242 games.

You think the Tigers are out of it? On June 30, the Yankees were in third place in the AL East, four games above .500. Less than a month later they have a seven-game lead and a 57-42 record.

Clayton Kershaw in July: 3-0, 0.27; two walks/45 strikeouts; three extra base hits allowed, all doubles. He’s back.

The last time the Cubs were no-hit, before Cole Hamels got them, Gomer Pyle USMC was the top-rated comedy on TV.

Carlos Ruiz has served as Cole Hamels’ battery mate 207 times, most in the Majors. With Hamels on his way elsewhere and Ruiz riding the pines, that number may not change.

After 101 games, the Astros were tied for first place. Time travel back to April 1 and read that statement.

Nats’ reliever Drew Storen is third in the Majors in saves, sports a 1.73 ERA, has allowed just one home run and fanned five times as many batters as he’s walked. And he’s about to lose his closer job to Jonathan Papelbon.

Jose Fernandez since returning from Tommy John surgery: 4-0, 2.53; 10.4K/game; WHIP under 1; 5-1 K/BB ratio. Pretty much the same as when he got hurt last season.

Julio Teheran has a 2.37 ERA at Turner Field and a 7.24 ERA on the road. 

Nick Markakis’s resume included 141 lifetime homers when the Braves signed him this year. He’s hit one out in two-thirds of a season. Rays rookie catcher Curt Casali has seven homers in 50 at bats after hitting just 30 in five Minor League seasons.

The Baltimore Orioles won 18 of 23 at one point in the season but they’ve also lost five in a row three separate times. The Chicago White Sox lost five of six before their current six game winning streak. The Minnesota Twins lost six of seven, then won nine of 10, then lost 11 of 14 then won seven of eight, then lost 9 of 13, then won four in a row, then lost seven of nine.

Scoring is up this year, if ever so slightly, and strikeouts are down, by a similar margin. Game times have fallen by nine minutes. Rah.

They're Not Races; They're Roller Coasters

For all those who have written off the .500 teams or declared victory for the division leaders, along comes the NL Central to remind us all that baseball just doesn't work that way.

On August 19, the Milwaukee Brewers led the division by two games with a 71-55 ledger, the best in the senior circuit. At 68-57, the Cardinals stood two-and-a-half games back, with Pittsburgh another four-and-a-half behind, having completed a seven-game losing skid.

Two weeks later, the top of the division has flipped, with St. Louis enjoying leads of three and five on their rivals and the Brewers clinging to a Wild Card berth. Pundits are writing off the chase, in part because Milwaukee always felt like a pretender and in part because the Cards have been here before and before and before.

A quick look at the etiology of the Central race demonstrates vividly how unsettled things really are. Consider:

The Cards are setting the pace on the strength of a five-game victory streak. But that followed losses in six of eight, which succeeded seven wins in eight games, which came on the heels of a 10-game stretch of seven defeats.

The Brewers have lost hold of the division by falling eight straight times, but they secured their grip with seven wins in 10 games, following three defeats in four tries.

And Pittsburgh, now with their MVP back, has dropped four in a row, three to the hated Redbirds. Prior to that, seven of eight up, seven straight down, five of seven up.

Which is to say, St. Louis is fully capable of entering a six-of-eight slide while Milwaukee and Pittsburgh run out strings of seven wins in eight games. Then, voila, the Brewers lead the Central by two and the Pirates slip into second. It's not the way to bet, but it's happened before. Ask fans in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas and Anaheim, to consider just the last four or five years.

It's the beauty and the curse of baseball: your team can struggle or flourish for 140 games. But if they revive or falter at the end, the first six months turn out to be just preliminaries.

So hang on to your hat.