from Citizen’s Bank Park, where it’s incredibly hot for late September, a thunderstorm is an apparent possibility, and the Phillies’ umpteenth must game is about to begin.
The Phillies didn’t seem tight, during BP and all the pre-game stuff, but they did seem, let’s call it quiet. The exception, it goes without saying, was the relentlessly upbeat Jimmy Rollins.
Rollins, by the way, has been brilliant this year, and become way better offensively than I thought he had a chance to. But he’s not the National League MVP.
(We interrupt for this breaking news…. Rollins opened the game with a tracer to right-center, past the now-overrated Andruw Jones, for his 19th triple. Through three innings off righty Tim Hudson, it’s 4-0, and the Phils’ lefty bats have three hits, a walk, a hit-by-pitch, three runs scored and three RBI.)
Of the six Phillies who’ve been more-or-less full-time players (Rollins, Utley, Burrell, Howard, Rowand and, I’m including Shane Victorino with 442 AB), Rollins is last in on-base percentage. He’s third on the team in batting average and third in slugging average. (Although his slugging mark, .529, is pretty strong for a shortstop. Cal Ripken beat it once as an everyday player.)
For all the talk about Rollins’ defense, his range factor (plays made, or chances, per defensive inning) is slightly below the league average. That’s consistent with his career; the eyes suggest he’s a terrific shortstop but by the numbers he’s always been roughly average.
Larry Bowa was a similar case, except that Bowa’s numbers weren’t average, they were mediocre-to-awful. If you watched closely enough you could see that. Bowa just didn’t cover enough ground to ever have been a Gold Glove contender. You can’t see that, or at least I can’t, by watching Rollins. I can’t explain that, but I can’t ignore it, either.
(Mark Teixeira just went very deep, to center, after a Chipper single. Chipper’s throwing error, by the way, opened the gates for the Phils’ three-run third. It’s 4-2.)
Anyway, Utley is the Phillies’ (and the NL’s, I would argue) best and, except for the month of zero value while injured, most valuable player. Rollins could well win the vote if the Phils make the playoffs, but a non-Phillie is probably going to be the true MVP.
More news: In what might be his first good at bat since his injury, Shane Victorino blasted a 2-2 Hudson fastball into the second deck in right to lead off the seventh. It’s 5-2. Hudson’s spot in the order just missed coming up in the previous inning, after a Jeff Franceour double, in which case Hudson almost certainly would have been out of the game. On the other hand, the Phillies just missed Lohse’s spot, in which Victorino was pinch-hitting, in the sixth. Would Charlie have taken Lohse out then?
Baseball is cool.
In other news:
The latest edition of Tuesday Morning Quarterback raises some scary questions about the Patriots and Cameragate.
Baseball-reference.com, the product of St. Joe’s professor Sean Forman, is now even more amazing. For every major league player, you can now look up what the guy did in every big-league game he’s ever played (pick a date), how he’s done against every pitcher/hitter he’s ever faced and the circumstances (count, men on base, etc) for every home run he’s ever hit. Astoundingly, all this remains free, although you are strongly encouraged to throw Forman a buck or two. He’s one of the greatest living Americans.
