Thursday, May 24, 2001

Another off day today for the M's.

Blaine Newnham wrote an article today about first base coach John Moses's perspective on Ichiro, calling Moses, "The Ichiro of his time." That's a poor comparison. To show how ridiculous that statement is, flip it around and call Ichiro "The Johnny Moses of today." I don't see that as the next M's commercial (although if anybody from the ad agency that makes the great Mariners commercials is reading this, and wants to use it, can I have some royalties? Are there royalties for commercials? Or anti-royalties? I don't want to have to help pay for the spots! Never mind. BTW, I love that commercial you're showing this season with Jamie Moyer and Dan Wilson telling scary stories about Edgar around the campfire).

The Indians won today to move into a tie in the AL Central, 2.5 games behind the M's.

Let's take a walk through the leaderboards, starting with the AL (to make it more fun, I added the leaders' approximate paces for the season in parentheses -- bold indicates a record pace).


Ichiro's leading the AL in hits with 76 (273) and stolen bases with 15 (54).

A-Rod's leading in HR's with 17 (59), no surprise after his defection to hitter-friendly Texas.

Manny Ramirez is first in RBI at 56 (201) and batting average at .405.

Oakland's Jason Giambi is number one in walks, with 44 (158). Edgar's second, only three back.

Russ Branyan and Greg Vaughn are tied for first in strikeouts, with 54 (198 and 190) each.


Dave Burba of Cleveland and Brad Radke are tied for the lead with 7 (25) wins each. Radke also has 3 (10) complete games.

Andy Pettite has pitched the most innings, at 76 (267).

Leading the league in ERA at 1.60, Pedro has 108 (388) strikouts, 43 ahead of second place Barry Zito.

Kaz Sasaki is leading the league in saves with 18 (64).

Kelly Wunsch, of the White Sox is out front in games pitched, with 24 (88), but Jeff Nelson and Sasaki are nipping at his heels with 23 each.


In the National League:

Rich Aurilia, having a career year at SS in San Francisco, is leading in hits, with 62 (213), and is 2nd in average at .371. That's what hitting in front of Barry Bonds, the league leader in HR's with 25 (86) will do. In a few years, some team will be really disappointed when they expect this kind of production out of Aurilia, while batting him in front of Ben Davis, Randy Winn, and Quinton McCracken (just to name three random major leaguers with no connection between them, except they can't hit).

Luis Castillo is leading the NL in stolen bases with 14 (50).

Todd Helton is first in RBI at 50 (172).

Houston's Moises Alou is leading in batting average at .392.

Sammy Sosa is at the top of the leaderboard in walks, with 41 (144).

Pat Burrell and Ray Lankford are tied for first in strikeouts, with 53 (190) each.


Curt Schilling has 7 (24) wins.

Randy Johnson has thown more innings than anybody else, with 78.2 (271), but is making them count, as he leads the league in strikeouts with 115 (396).

Kevin Brown of LA leads the league in ERA at 1.96. Mike Hampton is looking pretty good in 4th place at 2.80. I guess he really can pitch in Colorado.

His teammate, Jeff Shaw is first in saves with 14 (48).

After looking at all these numbers, I think there's an obvious reason hitters are hitting so many more HR's these days: They're swinging much harder for the fences. FOUR guys are on pace to break the single-season record for strikeouts, as teams are more willing to put up with K's to get the big HR (not to mention HR's bring more fans out to the ballpark, so team owners prefer them).