Verlander among midpoint surprises
The All-Star break has typically been used to split up baseball’s first and second halves.
While that has always been misleading — teams often play around 90 games in the first half, leaving only 72 for the second — it is even more extreme this season as the All-Star Game won’t be held until July 19, the latest it has been played in a full season since 1977.
As teams reach their actual midpoint of 81 games this week, it is a good time to look around the majors for the most intriguing plotlines to a season that had seemed in jeopardy of not being played as recently as early March.
Elite on the mound: A look at this season’s ERA leaders shows a bright future for the game.
Tony Gonsolin, 28, a breakout star for the Los Angeles Dodgers in his fourth season, is leading the majors with a 1.54 ERA. Shane McClanahan, 25, a second-year starter for the Tampa Bay Rays, leads the American League at 1.74. Eight of the top 10 were under 30, the youngest of whom, Alek Manoah of the Toronto Blue Jays, is a serious contender for the AL Cy Young Award at 24.
And then there is Justin Verlander. Coming off a two-season stretch in which he pitched a total of six innings because of injuries, the 39-year-old ace of the Houston Astros and former Old Dominion star was fourth in the majors with a 2.03 ERA and was the first pitcher to reach 10 victories.
Perhaps most impressively, the second-oldest active player in the AL was also sixth in the league in innings pitched. That would be a surprise for most aging pitchers after a long absence but somehow makes perfect sense for Verlander, a throwback starter who has topped 200 innings 12 times.
Aaron Judge just keeps hitting home runs.
The New York Yankees’ supersize slugger placed an enormous bet on himself this offseason, turning down a $213.5 million contract extension, and has proceeded to have what is looking like a career season. Through Monday, he was hitting .282 with 29 home runs and 59 RBIs while leading his team to the best record in the majors.
Barring catastrophe, it looks as if Judge’s bet will pay off. The question is how much better things could get from here.
Through Thursday, he had been keeping pace with Babe Ruth’s 1927 season (29 homers in his first 75 games) and was just off the pace of Roger Maris’ 1961 season (30 in 75). Whether you choose to view Maris as the legitimate single-season record holder or not — everyone with more than his 61 homers in a season has been connected to performance-enhancing drugs — the fact that Judge has a chance of breaking the Yankees’ franchise mark is reason enough to get excited.
The Chase for 62:
Moving up as he says goodbye:
The Albert Pujols Farewell Tour is wreaking havoc on the record books and inspiring quite a few smiles, even if the aging slugger was only hitting .189 through Monday.
Pujols had chipped in 23 hits, passing Eddie Collins and Paul Molitor to move up to ninth on the career list. He had added 39 total bases, passing Willie Mays for third place. And with 43 games played, he had passed, in succession, Dave Winfield, Barry Bonds, Cal Ripken Jr. and Mays to move into eighth.
If he were to add at least 20 more games in the second half of the season, he would leapfrog Stan Musial, Eddie Murray and Ty Cobb as well, finishing fifth on that career list.
Unfortunately, Pujols’ goal of being the fourth player with 700 home runs looks like it will remain out of reach. He is 17 short and doesn’t receive the playing time or have the consistency for that to be realistic.
The rise of Clay Holmes: The most valuable reliever in baseball is not his team’s closer — at least not officially.
Clay Holmes, a breakout star for the Yankees, had put together a 0.49 ERA in 37 innings with 38 strikeouts, and he led all relievers with 2.0 wins above replacement. Despite that, he could soon lose his interim gig finishing games because Aroldis Chapman, a fireballing left-hander whose salary is 16 times higher than Holmes’, was activated from the injured list Friday.
With Chapman, 34, eligible for free agency this offseason, and Holmes, 29, just entering his arbitration years, the Yankees appear to have a succession plan in place.
Defense counts: Paul Goldschmidt of the St. Louis Cardinals had 4.4 wins above replacement through Monday. Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels had 3.9, but he was looking up at Tommy Edman, a middle infielder for the Cardinals, who had a 4.2.
Edman’s stat line doesn’t jump out. He was hitting .266 with a .335 on-base percentage and .389 slugging percentage. He was 19 of 22 in stolen-base attempts, had hit seven homers and was leading his league in only one standard category: runs, with 58.
But WAR includes defense, and Edman has been putting on a show there, leading the majors with a 2.1 defensive WAR.
Subway Series, Vol. 2?: The Yankees have been the best team in baseball this season, and for much of the year they were joined at the top by the Mets, who had cruised along as the top National League team despite injuries to pitchers Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom.
A recent downturn on offense, however, has the Mets fading.
Perhaps Scherzer’s return from a rehab stint with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies can be what gets the Mets back on track.