About those stats.
A lot of people who love baseball are confused. Entering last weekend, hitters regained their throne as the game’s ruling party. The league batting average sat at .273, the highest at that juncture in 67 years. Runs soared, reaching 10.8 per game, an April average not seen since 1930. Home runs were up 11 percent.
With steroids and amphetamines banned, the idea that hitters were getting better seemed implausible. So naturally some folks have begun making sense of it all with a conspiracy theory.
The secret to the offensive revival? Harder baseballs. Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, a White Sox broadcaster, advanced the notion that has been slowly making the rounds. He explained it was obvious based on how little reaction time pitchers had to make plays on groundballs up the middle.
“It’s got to be something, right?” Joe Garagiola Jr., Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of operations told The Denver Post. “I mean, it just can’t be that the players are good.”
Speaking last weekend from his Phoenix office, Garagiola tilted more the way of Steve Stone than Oliver. Yes, he had heard some grumbling about the baseballs. No, he said, they weren’t being made any differently – “Nothing untoward going on,” Garagiola explained. Dr. James Sherwood is still performing the same tests on the balls and there is nothing unusual about this year’s crop, Garagiola promised.
Sherwood, working out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, uses a pitching machine and ballistic speed gates to measure the liveliness of the baseball. He cuts them up like frogs in biology class, measuring weights and circumferences of the ball as it’s unwound.
“I can’t help you with the conspiracy angle,” Garagiola said cheerfully. “I mean, do you realize the number of people that would have to be involved to pull something like that off?”
Besides, Garagiola explained, it’s not as if there’s landslide approval in the hardened ball trick. Two weeks into the season, the Washington Nationals are grousing about their ballpark robbing them of home runs and the Arizona Diamondbacks ripped the Rockies’ humidor, all but suggesting it placed parachutes on flyballs.
Get beyond the warm weather around the country, and ultimately what this April sample illustrates is how many factors favor offensive players. That home runs (8 percent) and runs (4.5 percent) sinking last season, perhaps, was an aberration, not a trend.
“Everybody wants to pinpoint one thing last year with the steroids testing. Well, there are more teams with expansion, more pitchers who normally wouldn’t be in the big leagues, smaller ballparks,” Yankees reliever Mike Myers said. “There are a lot of variables in the equation to suggest that power will still play a large factor in the game.”
Hurdle’s challenge
Evaluating Rockies manager Clint Hurdle is complicated by roster turnover and a seismic shift in philosophy from Band-Aid veterans to homegrown kids. But in Year 2 of the youth movement, a clearer report card should emerge. One of Hurdle’s biggest challenges? Evolving as a leader while not losing any of his young players.
Expectations make this season totally different than last. A year ago mistakes were tolerated as part of the growing process. This year they have consequences. It’s akin to when a girlfriend becomes a fiancée. No longer can you stay out all night with the guys and then call at 11 the next morning with no explanation. There’s a higher standard. And holding them to that is more delicate, because these are raised Rockies, players they like, not one-year free-agent mercenaries.
Hurdle chose to make a statement Thursday when he benched Matt Holliday for a baserunning mistake. Holliday was upset, as was first baseman Todd Helton. There’s nothing wrong with holding players accountable. Their response to discipline will reveal a lot about Hurdle’s ability to push the right buttons.
“I have to deliver certain messages,” Hurdle said Saturday. “I am not worried how they might react to me personally, I’m only concerned how they react on the field.”
The Clemens watch
Roger Clemens is eligible to return to the Astros on May 1. In talking to Brad Lidge during spring training, he said he believed the Rocket would come back, saying, “There’s no way you retire after the kind of year he had.” The Astros are hitting, particularly Preston Wilson and Lance Berkman, the best possible recruiting pitch to lure Clemens. In talking to a Clemens confidante, he said the pitcher has no interest in going through what he did last year when the team was shut out in eight of his starts.
But there’s another twist. If Clemens waits until June to return, the family issues that pulled him to Houston would dissipate. His kids would be out of school, allowing Dad to play for the Red Sox or Yankees.
Footnotes
Baseball executives are waiting to hear if the hopeless Marlins will start shopping starter Dontrelle Willis and slugger Miguel Cabrera. The Red Sox and Yankees would empty the farm for Willis. And Cabrera, who turns 23 this week, would attract similar attention. Cabrera’s exit could happen more quickly if he can’t adapt to old-school manager Joe Girardi. … Atlanta’s Chipper Jones called the field conditions in San Francisco “atrocious,” saying they contributed to his leg injuries. The field was wet from relentless rain, but the Braves insisted a two-day concert held before the season contributed to the problems. … Wonder how long it will be before Atlanta’s terrible starting pitching is laid at new pitching coach Roger McDowell’s doorstep? … Last week, Arizona pitcher Miguel Batista raved about how well Helton expands his zone, saying it reminded him of Vladimir Guerrero. Hurdle once said of Guerrero: “His strike zone is from his toenails to his eyeballs.” … Boston’s David Wells pitched not like a guy who wanted to be traded, but released. He wants to be shipped out West. … Kris Benson’s marriage in Baltimore has worked out well – at least on the field. With his siren wife, Anna, filing then reneging on a divorce request, Benson has been the Orioles’ best starter. … An energy drink is missing a marketing bonanza with flame-haired Tigers slugger Chris Shelton: Red Bull gives you swings. … Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo – he’s easier to recognize with his Monsters of Rock hair – homered in his first two starts, giving him two more homers than the player formerly known as Adrian Beltre. … The D-backs ceased playing Minnie Riperton’s “Loving You” during opponent at-bats after receiving a storm of complaints from Arizona players and fans.
Troy E. Renck can be reached at 303-820-5447 or trenck@denverpost.com.
