On 2nd Thought....

Player	TEAM	POS	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	TB	BB	SO	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
Mark Reynolds	BAL	3B	70	230	36	52	52	0	13	37	105	42	74	4	0	0.349	0.457	0.226
Alex Rodriguez	NYY	3B	67	253	47	74	74	0	13	44	128	30	56	4	1	0.374	0.506	0.292
Adrian Beltre	TEX	3B	75	290	40	76	76	0	12	53	129	17	26	0	1	0.31	0.445	0.262
Kevin Youklis	BOS	3B	68	243	45	67	67	1	11	53	123	41	59	1	0	0.393	0.506	0.276
Dan Valencia	MIN	3B	69	253	23	56	56	0	7	33	90	21	39	2	4	0.281	0.356	0.221
Evan Longoria	TB	3B	46	160	25	37	37	0	6	23	65	21	27	1	1	0.332	0.406	0.231

Mark Reynolds leads AL 3rd basemen in Home Runs, Walks and Stolen Bases. He is 3rd in On Base Percentage and Slugging. He is 4th in Runs, RBI and Total Bases. 5th in Hits and Doubles.

WRT to Mark Reynolds offensive production, should I?
	STFU
	Make snide observations, he's a rally killer
	Complain about his fielding, he's a rally starter there
	Present
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What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

Oriole pitchers are hitting .444 in interleague play.

I'd give Mark Reynolds a turn in the rotation.

Joyce to the world

Matt Joyce is among the AL leaders in WAR -- virtually on par with anyone in baseball not named Jose Bautista -- and he's doing it all with one hand. Well, against pitchers of one hand, anyway. Joyce is raking righties. For the year, he is batting .397/.455/.690 against RHP. Some of this is luck, as his BABIP is .443, but Joyce has a career OPS+ of .929 vs. RHP.

Now, the question: Will Joyce ever be able to hit lefties, or should he be platoon only? In his career, he has 658 PAs vs. RHP and 84 PAs vs. LHP. His career line against southpaws is .167/.274/.264.

Joyce won't turn 27 until August, so he is just entering his prime years. If he could hit for power against lefties, which he hasn't in his limited chances so far, it would probably be worth letting him go to the plate. He certainly will not get better by sitting the bench. On the other hand, the opportunities against RHP are plentiful, so he is a valuable weapon. Maybe it's better not to mess up his head with trying to hit lefties.

When Chase Utley came up, it was thought he wouldn't be able to hit lefties. After a year or two of some struggles, he started to mash them. I guess part of it depends if you have a suitable platoon partner. Otherwise, I guess it's best to give Joyce his chances and find out.

Cruzin

I was in Florida for a weekend of business during the winter, but stayed down an extra day to catch a spring training game. I saw the Cardinals and Marlins play. The Cardinals catcher for much of the game was Tony Cruz, who was destined to start the year at Triple-A. Yesterday, though, he got the call to start in the bigs. He responded by going 3-for-5. I just happened to flip on the game when he came to the plate for his first at-bat, and singled.

The following notes are from MLB.com. I took these photos with a camera I'd bought in December and was just messing around with at the spring game.

Cardinals catcher Tony Cruz went 3-for-5 vs. the Padres on Tuesday with a double and two singles in his Major League debut. He was the first Cards player with three or more hits in his debut since Terry Pendleton on July 18, 1984, and only the fifth to do it since 1919. The others: Enos Slaughter ('38), Creepy Crespi ('38) and Ernie White ('40).

Cruz was the 17th catcher since 1919 to have at least three hits in his big league debut. The two most recent occurrences before Cruz's game took place last year, when Wilson Ramos went 4-for-5 on May 2 and J.P. Arencibia was 4-for-5 on Aug. 7.

Cruz's three hits were one more than the Padres' total in their 3-2 loss to the Cardinals.

Same but different

Here is the story of two pitchers, one in the AL and the other in the NL.

Entering last night, the NL pitcher was 5-2 with a 2.17 ERA. The AL pitcher was 1-5 with a 4.23 ERA.

Following were their stats in several categories, NL/AL.

K9: 4.88/4.82
BB9: 1.76/1.75
HR9: 0.41/0.88
GB%: 45.5/50.0
BABIP: .224/.312

The NL pitcher is Kyle Lohse and the AL pitcher is Jeff Francis. Looks like Lohse has been a little bit lucky and Francis has been a little unlucky. I'll be interested to see what happens moving forward.

Tribe time

The Cleveland Indians show no signs of slowing down, despite Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner -- their most productive hitters -- being injured. Asdrubal Cabrera is the only active player batting .300 (at .302) but the Tribe ranks No. 1 in the AL with a .266 team BA, thanks in part to Hafner's .345 mark. Their .761 OPS is No. 2 in the league.

Pitching wise, outside of Justin Masterson (5-2, 2.52) and Josh Tomlin (6-1, 2.41, 0.82 WHIP) the starters have been below average. The bullpen, though, has been ridiculously good outside of Chad Durbin. This is a very young staff, too. Durbin (33) is the only pitcher older than 29. Fausto Carmona, at 27, is the elder statesman among starters.

It will be interesting to see how the Indians fare the rest of the way, but they might be too young to know they're not this good. It doesn't seem like they do anything particularly well, nor do they do anything particularly poorly. That might be plenty good enough in the AL Central.

One thing is probably for sure, Tomlin is likely to tumble. He is not a high strikeout pitcher, not a high groundball pitcher, and is living off a .175 BABIP.

Ups and downs

Ex-Tiger reliever Todd Jones was nicknamed Roller Coaster for his penchant for turning saves into wild rides. He would have been the ideal closer for this year's Detroiters.

The Tigers' season so far? It looks like this: Lose 2, win, lose, win, lose, win, lose 3, win 4, lose 3 of 4, win 4, lose 7, win 10 of 11, lose 5. Their longest losing streak is 7 and longest winning streak is 7. I don't know for sure, but it would seem that having a 7-game losing streak and a 7-game win streak within the season's first 45 games has got to be rare.

Perhaps even more unusual is the fact those streaks were separated by only 4 games.

It seems likely this is the way the season will go and the Tigers will end up around .500, as they are right now at 22-23.

King Cole

Despite going 29-15 with a 3.22 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 139 ERA+ in 2007 and 2008 (Oh, yeah, and winning a World Series MVP) some Phillies fans came unglued when Hamels went 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA in 2009. There were even suggestions he should be traded.

As noted here during that season, Hamels looked to be mainly a victim of bad luck as his walk, strikeout and homer rates all were on par with the previous years.

Lo and behold, Hamels went out in 2010 and posted a career-best 3.06 ERA. He was victimized by a lack of run support, finishing 12-11. Throw in his work this year, and Hamels is 17-13 with a 3.03 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 131 ERA+ over his last 42 starts. His K rate is 9.2/9, walk rate is 2.5/9 and HR rate is 1/9.

Even still, some fans seem cool to Cole. Too bad. They're failing to recognize a heck of a pitcher. Even with his average 2009 campaign, Hamels ranks No. 13 among all MLB hurlers for WAR beginning in 2007. Those ahead of him: Halladay, Sabathia, Lincecum, Haren, Verlander, Lee, King Felix, Greinke, Beckett, Weaver, Lester, Jimenez. There are a few Cy Young winners in that group, as well as a few no-hitters.

Not bad company.