He comes up to the plate and you wonder if he would even meet the height requirement for rides at Six Flags.
There is nothing imposing about him at all. You would think he is a high school kid and will likely have to show ID at the liquor store until he is 40.
But when he swings the bat, everything changes.
Try throwing a fastball by him and he will find a way to smoke it somewhere for a base hit or more.
Throw him an off-speed pitch and he will fight it off and place it where a fielder cannot get to it.
Dustin Pedroia gives encouragement to all young baseball players growing up that have a dream about playing the game.
He is not the biggest or the strongest, but he gets more out of his talent and physical limitations than almost any other player does in baseball.
Since the beginning of June, Pedroia his hitting a blistering .380. For the year (as of Sunday), he is hitting .327 is on pace for 200 hits. His OPS (on base plus slugging) put him among the top second basemen in the sport.
Before the season started, the raging debate was whether he or Robinson Cano of the Yankees was the better second baseman in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.
Based on the results, Pedroia has grown a sizeable lead in this race despite not having one-fourth of Cano’s natural talent. While Cano continues to coast and drift, Pedroia continues to rise and thrive. Seemingly getting better everyday with each at bat and firmly entrenching his career as a Red Sox.
You would think that because of his height, he would be overmatched at the plate, but he never is. His long, looping swing look like something you would see in 16-inch softball as opposed to the major leagues. Yet, it works for him. It has worked for him since he was in high school, at Arizona State, and now in Boston.
Going into Sunday afternoon’s game with the White Sox, Pedroia had gotten a hit in his last nine plate appearances (9 for 9) to continue his torrid pace.
As he continues to produce and lead the Red sox on to the playoffs, more attention is set to be made of their diminutive second baseman.
He is a great baseball story, one that all can be happy for.
Replay is here!
On Thursday, Major League Baseball officially instituted the use of instant replay in all ballparks.
As I said months ago, this is a long time coming. Never before has a game that had the technology to correct errors, be so stubborn not to use it.
The parameters are only for home runs now, but make no mistake that with each passing controversy with a play that is not a home run, more and more calls for expanding the boundaries for replay will increase.
And why not?
If a runner is safe at first base and is called out, why is that not reviewable?
If an outfielder is ruled to have caught the ball and a replay shows that he trapped the ball and the opposing believes the same, why is that not reviewable?
The biggest joke in baseball umpiring is the term “judgment call”. Right now, umpiring is a joke to begin with. All one has to do is watch the fluctuating strike zone on a nightly basis to see the problem.
Of course, you could not check every disputed call. But why not use the NFL’s “challenge rule” and allow the manager to dispute two calls per game. Because there are no timeouts you can take away, it is very difficult to come up with a penalty for being wrong and wasting several minutes of our time.
The ultimate penalty would be taking away an out, but baseball would never in a million years install that.
Could you imagine if there were two outs and two men on base and a runner was ruled out on a bang-bang play at first, the manager challenges the play and loses?
Inning over.
All signs point to this coming into play at some point in these last few weeks of the season and in the playoffs.
What baseball chooses to do to expand on this is anyone’s guess.
Random Baseball Thoughts
This may be going underreported, but the Milwaukee Brewers are working CC Sabathia into the ground.
After his complete game, one hit, eleven-strikeout performance against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Sabathia has improved to 9-0 with a 1.43 ERA and 6 complete games in his 11 starts since joining the club.
However, take a look at his pitch counts in these last ten starts:
117, 96, 130, 114, 103, 109, 124, 106, 110, 122
In several of these games, he could have been taken out with the Brewers having a sound lead.
He is on pace to again throw over 250 innings going into the playoffs.
While this may earn CC a few more million in his next contract, the Brewers ought to take a cue from the playoffs last year to see that the innings pitched caught up with him when October came around.
If Sabathia has postseason problems, do not blame it on him. Rather a team that will likely not resign him is simply getting everything (and I mean everything) out him that they can.
How are the Los Angeles Dodgers under .500?
The Tampa Bay Rays are dismissing the notion of “Oh, we were injured so we had no chance” excuse.
Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford and Troy Percival have all gone down with injuries and the Rays continue to win. They are on pace to win 100 games.
It is perhaps the best team story to happen in baseball since the 1969 New York Mets.
Speaking of the Mets…it is unbelievable that they have lost nine games when leading after eight innings.
This has never happened in the history of baseball to a very good team, and without Billy Wagner (who knew Mets fans would miss him?), the number only seems to go up.
I would have said the NL East race would be over if they had just won those games and then I forget that they blew a seven game in September to the Phillies.
By the way, does anyone find it to be a coincidence that both Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado’s performances mysteriously spiked up the moment Willie Randolph was fired?
Delgado is now playing like an MVP caliber player. Have you seen his great defense lately? I do not know what has happened.
It sure seems as if those two went all “Vince Carter” on the Mets, but the fans seemingly do not care because now the team is winning and they are the main contributors.
Does it seem that outside of Brad Lidge, the average age of the Philadelphia Phillies relievers is 65?
Is AARP available?
AJ Burnett is the biggest tease in baseball unless he is facing the Yankees.
If you took those starts away, his ERA would hover over 5.00.
Obviously, someone is hitting this guy.
The downfall of Justin Verlander this season is a mystery.
The Chicago Cubs may be the playing like the best team in baseball, but come October, they are going to find out how much different the games are.
As a lineup that concentrates a lot of drawing walks and working the count, that all goes out of the window the moment a good pitcher is on the mound that happens to throw strikes.
This is why the Arizona Diamondbacks are a tricky first round opponent if they meet up.
Getting through the National League playoffs is going to be more difficult that any of their fans know.
You mean to say the Mets would not feel confident if they showed up in Wrigley Field for the NLCS and they have Johan Santana lined up to pitch in Game 1, followed up by Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez, with Pedro Martinez waiting?
If the Cubs were to fall in either round, it would not be an upset. Cubs fans will treat it as such, but it will not be.
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