Giants stuck at bottom of HR block
This home run craze is not going away despite the Giants’ best efforts to keep baseballs in the park.
The Giants remain last in the majors in homers with 42, missing the fastest way to score and a trend that obviously can be a great asset. The Astros, Yankees and Nationals all are firstplace teams, and all are near the top of the home run leaderboard.
With May in the books, here’s the month’s home run total: 1,060. The only month in history with more was May 2000, when 1,069 homers were hit.
And that’s after a homerhappy April: 863, the most in any April except for, again, 2000, when 931 were hit.
The 2000 season, the height of the steroid era, produced a record 5,693 homers, and hitters are on pace this season to surpass that.
The spikes have been dramatic — from 4,186 in 2014 to 4,909 in 2015 to 5,610 last year.
We know a main reason for all the homers in 2000. Check the Mitchell Report. But now? The theories are wide-ranging, including the diminishing value of the two-strike approach, which is being re-emphasized by the A’s amid embarrassingly high strikeout numbers of late.
“There’s more emphasis on power, maybe not as much of an emphasis on putting the ball in play with two strikes,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s not like it used to be. We used to see guys choke up considerably, widen their stances a little bit, go the other way.”
Nationals manager Dusty Baker, whose team leads the National League in homers, expressed the importance of advancing runners and creating first-and-third situations, an art that’s sometimes overlooked in homer-happy moments.
“It’s cool to hit 20, 25 home runs and then hit .215, .220. That’s not helping your team as much,” Baker said. “Like in basketball, if you live and die by the three-point shots. When you’re hot, you’re hot. When you’re cold, you miss the layup.”
Other theories for the homer surge:
Harder baseballs. Increased pitch velocity. The lack of shame over strikeouts, which increase annually. The emphasis on uppercut swings, launch angles and exit velocities. The closer fences, at least in a few parks.
And maybe, in some cases, more undetectable drugs, a possibility we’ve learned not to disregard.
Unlike the Giants, the A’s dig the long ball. Through Friday, they were fifth in the majors in homers with 78, then hit four more Saturday. Khris Davis and Yonder Alonso are two off the major-league HR lead, each with 16.
Brandon Belt has 10 for the Giants, the only club in the majors last season without a 20-home-run hitter.
Must be the hands: When Willie Mays hung out with Washington players Wednesday in the visiting clubhouse at AT&T Park, he greeted them with firm handshakes and joked with Ryan Zimmerman to get a manicure.
“He can’t see that well, but he can feel,” Baker said. “Back in the day, your hand strength was more important than arm and back strength. He had big ol’ hands. Huge hands. He used to get on me about trying to increase my hand strength.
“I’m on these guys about hand strength. I’m on my son (Darren) about hand strength. That’s what starts and stops the bat. How strong your hands are, the more control you have.” History lesson: Mays lit up the room with his presence and dialogue. The players were born long after the Say Hey Kid’s final game in 1973, and some aren’t exactly up on their baseball history.
Mays spoke with one Dominican-born player who admitted he hadn’t heard of Juan Marichal. Baker said another player, not on his current team, once asked if Mays “was even that good.”
Baker had to assure the player: Yes, he was. Unforgettable: White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson said he’s retiring after next season, ending a 34-year career behind the microphone on Chicago’s South Side. His career as a general manager was over long ago.
In fact, it lasted all of one year and was about as fruitful as Jerry Coleman’s one year as manager.
Coleman’s 42-year Hall of Fame broadcasting career with the Padres — he won the Ford C. Frick Award in 2005 — was interrupted so he could manage in 1980. The Padres finished last.
Similarly, Harrelson was Chicago’s GM in 1986, and all he did was trade rookie Bobby Bonilla to Pittsburgh and fire Tony La Russa and assistant GM Dave Dombrowski. All rose to prominence elsewhere.
Bonilla became a six-time All-Star. La Russa went to Oakland and later the Hall of Fame. Dombrowski built three pennant-winning teams, one that won a World Series, the 1997 Marlins.
His third baseman that year was Bonilla.
Canseco and Donaldson: One of Jose Canseco’s most epic home runs came at Skydome in the 1989 A’s-Blue Jays playoffs, a fifth-deck shot that teammate Billy Beane, after the game, called a “home run of biblical proportion.”
Well, former A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson reached the fifth deck Tuesday at what’s now called the Rogers Centre and seemed to be in awe of his accomplishment, saying, “It’s hard to really give a great explanation of it because there’s really nothing that’s similar to it that I’ve experienced.”
Twenty home runs have sailed into the fifth deck since the stadium opened, and Canseco hit three, including the first. The second came in 1996 by fellow Bash Brother Mark McGwire. Donaldson had seen replays of the Canseco and McGwire blasts and now is in their company. Around the majors: The Red Sox are so confident with Pablo Sandoval as their third baseman that they’re rumored to be interested in White Sox third baseman Todd Frazier. For now, the plan is for Sandoval — despite the fact he’s a switchhitter — to platoon with Deven Marrero . ... What a mess baseball would have been if Bryce Harper were seriously hurt in the Hunter Strickland brawl. Imagine both Harper and Mike Trout, two of the game’s most prominent faces, shelved long term. Trout could miss a couple of months with a torn thumb ligament, the result of a headfirst slide . ... Baker played his final two seasons in Oakland and said of the A’s ballpark pursuit, “I’d like to see them build it downtown.” ... No one can convince this generation of players not to slide headfirst, which risks hand, finger and wrist injuries. Neither Angels manager Mike Scioscia nor GM Billy Eppler plans to try to change Trout’s mind so that he’d slide feet first. With his headfirst slides, Trout has been a master at missing tags, instinctively maneuvering safely to the base. This time, it backfired, and the debate about which way to slide has returned. … By the way, whatever happened to the wonderfully effective hook slide? Old-timers swear by it.