Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose.
-- Mike Schmidt
Jeff Francouer of the Braves has 7 HRs and 19 RBI in his first 19 major league games. This is a hell of a way to break in. Only one active player hit more homers in his first 20 major league games: that would be Old Friend Carlos Delgado, who hit 8 in his first 20 games in 1993-94. Delgado and Hideki Matsui both had 20 RBI in their first 20 games, but the best performance in this category was turned in by Albert Pujols, who had 22 RBI in his first 22 games.
All of these guys turned out to be pretty fair major league hitters. Francouer is just 21 years old. The Braves, the Braves... well, they got beat last night. And speaking of Albert Pujols, he has now become the first player in history to hit 30 home runs in each of his first five seasons. It's pretty cool to have achieved something as a hitter that Henry Aaron and Ted Williams and Barry Bonds and Willie Mays didn't achieve...
It was Mark Mulder's birthday - he beat the Braves and John Smoltz, and it was Eric Hinske's birthday as well. Hinske went 2-3 with a walk, and scored both Toronto runs.
Speaking of The Dude, his June slump was so unspeakably awful that it was hard to believe this man had ever seemed capable of hitting major league pitching. Here are his month-by-month numbers:
SPLIT AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB HBP SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS April 83 18 24 4 0 4 17 9 1 22 2 0 .289 .366 .482 .848 May 86 16 25 6 1 2 8 7 1 22 3 1 .291 .347 .453 .801 June 76 13 10 3 0 1 8 14 0 26 1 0 .132 .264 .211 .474 July 78 11 19 10 0 3 15 7 1 23 0 1 .244 .310 .487 .798 August 14 4 9 2 0 0 1 2 0 2 1 1 .643 .688 .786 1.474 Total 337 61 87 25 1 10 49 39 3 95 7 3 .258 .338 .427 .765Does he have bad biorhythms in June or what? What was that, anyway?
I'll be at the ball park. Here's what's on:
AL
Baltimore (Cabrera 8-9, 4.66) at Texas (Wasdin 0-1, 4.35) 4:05
New York (Johnson 11-6, 4.11) at Toronto (Downs 0-2, 5.23) 4:07
Cleveland (Westbrook 9-12, 4.55) at Detroit (Bonderman 13-7, 4.03) 7:05
Oakland (Blanton 6-9, 4.29) at Kansas City (Lima 4-9, 6.58) 7:10
Boston (Wells 9-5, 4.45) at Minnesota (Santana 10-6, 3.65) 7:10
Tampa Bay (Hendrickson 5-7, 6.75) at Los Angeles (Bootcheck 0-0, 0.60) 10:05
NL
Chicago (Maddux 8-8, 4.67) at New York (Seo 2-1, 2.00) 1:15
Atlanta (Hudson 7-6, 3.57) at St.Louis (Marquis 9-9, 4.00) 1:15
Houston (Oswalt 14-8, 2.40) at San Francisco (Lowry 6-11, 4.59) 4:05
San Diego (TBA) at Washington (Drese 7-10, 5.61) 7:05
Milwaukee (Capuano 12-6, 3.58) at Philadelphia (Lieber 9-10, 5.12) 7:05
Los Angeles (Perez 6-5, 4.46) at Pittsburgh (Duke 4-0, 0.92) 7:05
Florida (Moehler 6-8, 3.64) at Cincinnati (Hudson 2-5, 8.39) 7:10
Colorado (Francis 10-7, 5.16) at Arizona (Gosling 0-2, 3.68) 9:40
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050805205755740