Baseball Tidbits

The hottest team is housed in our nations capitol. The Nationals are 9 - 1over their last ten games and have evened their season record at 37 - 37. Their three best offensive players could not be guessed by 99% of baseball fans.  Michael Morse (145), Laynce Nix  (126 OPS+) and Danny Espinosa  (116 OPS+).  Ryan Zimmerman only has 73 plate appearances so I did not include him. Overall the Nationals have six players with over 100 plate appearances with an OPS+ over 100. Ryan Zimmerman will soon make it eight.  Michael Morse might be the best kept secret in baseball. Some TBLA members campaigned for him to become a Dodger and solve our LF problem this past winter. If only that had come to pass.

The Brewers put a move on the Cardinals even before Pujols got hurt. With the big three of Zack Greinke, Yovani Gallardo, and Shaun Marcum doing good work, they are a team to be reckoned with. Some may look at Greinke's 4.77 ERA and think he is struggling but his xFIP of 1.84 along with a 11.93 K/Rate supplemented by a 1.34 BB/rate tell us the real story. Grienke is dealing and the Brewers are surging. Prince Fielder has the second best wRC in June at .266 trailing only Paul Konerko who has an unreal .305.

Best hitting SS in baseball in June is JJ Hardy who has slugged seven home runs to augment his .730 slug%.

Phillies continue to dominate pitching. Doc is the overall best pitcher in baseball so far this year, but his teammates Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee have been the 1st / 3rd best pitchers in June.

Michael Pineda and Alexi Ogando continue to fight for ROY pitching honors, with Zach Britton tagging along in case they struggle.

The Giants have FOUR starting pitchers in the top 11 of WAR. That is even after Bumgarner gave up eight earned runs in one inning this week.

Jered Weaver is number one in WAR in the AL. Kershaw is number three in the NL. They meet this Sunday. Might want to bet the under.