Four Comments on Baseball

(1)

The playoffs are upon us and it’s a shame that four wild card teams make the post-season.  To be fair, two of them will last just one game.  That only adds to the stupidity of the current system.

Under the old system (1993-2011), four teams made the playoffs in each league:  the three division winners and the team with the most wins that didn’t win a division.  If that were the case this year, we would have four worthy teams in the American League.  As of today, Boston (89 wins), Cleveland (96), and Houston (94) would be the division winners and New York (85) would be the wild card team.  Minnesota would be the second wild card team with 80 wins.  The Twins have a 3.5 game lead on the Rangers and Angels, who are both under .500.  News flash:  adding a clearly inferior team does not enhance playoff excitement.

The picture is essentially the same in the National League.  Washington (92 wins), Chicago (86), and Los Angeles (98) would win divisions and Arizona (89) would be the wild card.  The second wild card team is only slightly more credible than in the AL, Colorado has 83 wins, followed closely by Milwaukee (81) and St. Louis (81).

The single game play-in format generates bogus excitement.  It is winner-take-all, so inevitably there is interest in who wins.  But, in reality, it is just an opportunity for an inferior team to advance and water down the playoff competition.

(2)

The intentional walk is now automatic, if the defensive team’s manager so chooses, and the baseball world is nonplussed (secondary definition).[1]

(3)

One of the great things about baseball is that unusual things happen on the field of play on a regular basis.  Sometimes the unusual things are more personal.  For instance, Dovydas Neverauskas is not exactly a household name.  Well, not in the US anyway.  But in Lithuania, he probably is.  Neverauskas is the first player in the 100 plus year history of MLB to hail from that Baltic country.  But even that is small potatoes compared to Gift Ngoepe.  He is the first player not merely from his home country, South Africa, but from the entire continent.  No player born in Africa had ever played in the major leagues until Gift pulled on his cleats and played some second base for the Pirates.  Dovydas also plays for the Pirates.  That seems unusual, but it just a coincidence.

(4)

I’m going to pile a bunch of unusual into one player:  Scooter Gennett.  He was not a household name entering the season, but now he just might be.

When the season started Gennett has played in 456 games and hit 35 home runs, one every 44 at bats.  This season he has hit 27 homeruns in 133 games, one every 16 at bats.  That’s almost three times the frequency.  That is a highly unusual seasonal improvement.  In years past, people would have screamed about PEDs (performance enhancing drugs).

Along the way, Gennett has achieved extremely rare milestones.  On June 6, he hit four home runs in a single game.  That means he hit more than 10% of the home runs he had hit in 456 games (headed into the season) in one game.  That is unbelievable.  He became just only the 17th player to hit four home runs in a game.[2]    http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/rare_feats/index.jsp?feature=four_homer_game

Gennett’s unusual home run exploits were not done.  Last night he hit his fourth grand slam of the year.  Only six players have hit more in a season.   http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/higs2.shtml

And last, Gennett became only the second player to hit four grand slams in the same season in which he also had a four-homer game.  The only other player to do it:  Lou Gehrig.  I’m pretty sure that, entering the season, Gennett had never been favorably mentioned with Lou Gehrig.  Now he always will be.

[1] “Nonplussed” has long been one of my favorite words because its two main meanings are essentially antithetical.  The primary definition is “so surprised and confused that one is unsure how to react.”  The secondary definition is “not disconcerted, unperturbed.”  https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/nonplussed

[2] Subsequently J.D. Martinez hit four home runs in a game.  So now, 18 players have hit four home runs in a game.