Oddities

Round 1 of the Detroit-Minny clash goes to the Tigers in a romp. Curtis Granderson started the bashing with a HR and the Detroiters never looked back.

Anoter outstanding game from Verlander, too. There was some concern he was tipping pitches in August, when he gave up 42 hits in 27.2 innings. He's given up 12 hits in 14 IP this month. I think his last 3 wins have followed Tiger losses.

Marcus Thames is putting together one of those odd HR-RBI seasons. He's got 25 dingers and just 57 ribbies. He ranks 19th in the AL in homers (and would rank 6th in HR/AB if he had enough appearances) but is tied for 57th in RBI.

I know there are others who have strange RBI totals given the number of homers they hit. Ex-Tiger Rob Deer (32 HR-64 RBI in 1992) jumps to mind. Deer had six consecutive years of at least 21 HR and never had more than 69 RBI. Struggling to hit .200 probably had a lot to do with it.

Barry Bonds in 2003 had 45-90, so another 2 RBI/HR ratio like Deer. I've looked up some of the other obvious suspects (Mickey Tettleton, Gorman Thomas, Pete Incaviglia, Steve Kemp) and, while some got close to that ratio, none matched it. So I wonder what the lowest ratio is? At least for guys with at least 20 HR.

When I looked up Steve Kemp, it drew me to Chet Lemon (traded for each other). It's hard to believe that Chet was such a great defensive outfielder with good range, and yet couldn't steal a base to save his life. I remember that Bill James once wrote that Chet ran the bases "as if confused by their sequence."

Chet went 0-for-7 in the SB category one year. In half of his 16 seasons he was thrown out more often than successful. The other 8 times, it was about a 50-50 proposition.