Michael Bourn homered last night for the first time since July 11, 2009. Bourn had gone 551 at-bats without knocking one over the fences, which is a mighty long time when you consider everything that has happened in the time since:

Not only has Stephen Strasburg signed since the night of July 11, but he’s also made big league five starts with 48 strikeouts.

Since that night the Yankees have won 99 games (losing 52) which results in a win rate of roughly 66%, or 107 over a regular season. The Orioles, meanwhile, have won only 49 games (losing 102), which results in a win rate of 32.5%, or 53 wins over a full season.

Albert Pujols hit 31 homers and Prince Fielder hit 39.

The Pirates’ starting lineup went from:
C Ryan Doumit
1B Adam LaRoche
2B Freddy Sanchez
3B Andy LaRoche
SS Jack Wilson
LF Garrett Jones
CF Andrew McCutchen
RF Delwyn Young

To:
C Ryan Doumit
1B Garrett Jones
2B Bobby Crosby
3B Pedro Alvarez
SS Ronny Cedeno
LF Jose Tabata
CF Andrew McCutchen
RF Lastings Milledge

Or seven of the nine fielding positions with new starters with three of those starters in the 2009 lineup being traded since.

Cliff Lee switched teams twice while piling up 191 innings, 164 strikeouts, 14 walks, and 12 homers allowed- his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 11.7:1.

The aforementioned notes were just some of the things I thought to look up off the top of my head. Of course the most ridiculous thing about Bourn’s streak is that it comes nowhere near touching Jason Tyner’s infamous drought. Tyner had never hit a home run, even in the little leagues, until late July of 2007, a streak that stretched over 350 major league games and 1,220 at-bats. He would then hit another homer 40 games later. When it rains, it pours.

Earlier today, Marc Normandin and I were discussing Fausto Carmona and somehow the topic of groundball-to-flyball ratio came out alongside the amount of line drives Carmona is (or rather: isn’t) giving up. The agreement was that skews his figure when compared to other pitchers with differentiating line drive rates. If that point sounds familiar, it’s because Dave Cameron wrote a similar article in early April; as you can see here.

After sifting through the leaderboards a bit I decided to write about Kevin Correia. The 29 year old Padres’ starter has made 14 starts and currently features a groundball-to-flyball ratio of 1.71; a career best. Despite that, Correia is actually giving up one of the highest ratios of liners in his career. Correia’s 48.3% groundball rate is a career high figure too, though, which could make him a victim of scorer bias. Take a look at his fliner (FB+LD) rates:

2007: 54.9%
2008: 61.8%
2009: 55.2%
2010: 51.7%

And once you create a groundball-to-fliner ratio, here’s how Correia looks:

2007: 0.82
2008: 0.62
2009: 0.81
2010: 0.93

From Dave’s thread, the wise Tom Tango suggested that he prefers GB-FB per contacted ball since the majority of pitchers will fall between a close range of line drives given up. Now how does Correia look?

2007: 4.8%
2008: 1.3%
2009: 8.8%
2010: 20.1%

That suggests that Correia has gotten better since joining San Diego in getting groundballs instead of fly balls. Using GB-FB assumes that half of the line drives are really groundballs and half are really flyballs, thus canceling out their inclusion. What if we assume that most of Correia’s liners are really fly balls; say 75%? Here’s how the GB-FB breakdown looks:

2007: -2.60%
2008: -11.28%
2009: -0.83%
2010: 8.55%

The only major change between even this and last season is an increased usage in his change-up (nearly double the amount); otherwise Correia’s increased groundball tendencies are a product of small sample size, location, or sequencing. Without becoming overly loquacious, the intent here wasn’t to find the reasoning as to why Correia is getting more grounders (although I suspect location, sequencing, and sample size all play into the equation at various amounts) but rather to see if the improvement is real or just a mirage. It looks legit through these lenses.

Overview

A torrid June has left the Mets within striking distance and pulled within a half game of first place for the first time since early May, which is pretty remarkable given their seven game deficit on May 21. The hot play has killed talks of Jerry Manuel’s pending release and even has some … well, Jon Heyman, thinking he deserves an extension.

Buy or Sell?

The reality is that the Mets don’t have a ton to sell that would’ve made sense from their perspective. They have morphed into buyers, and boy could they use some help. Luis Castillo has a .277 SLG, but he gets on base at a moderately acceptable rate. Jeff Francoeur is really quite poor; it’s not a matter of whether the Mets could find an upgrade over him, but whether they’ll even try. The good news is that Carlos Beltran is on his way back. Obviously Beltran’s performance might not be up to par immediately, which just makes the pending decision between Angel Pagan and Francoeur more important. It really is peculiar that Omar Minaya can craftily build a bullpen out of castoffs and filler on the cheap, and yet struggles to find suitable positional players at similarly low costs.

There are numerous rumors about Cliff Lee and Fausto Carmona, too, although the Mets’ rotation hasn’t done too shoddy after Oliver Perez’s banishment.

On The Farm

Fernando Martinez’s star is dimming by the season. Jenrry Mejia is in the minors, where he belongs for now. Wilmer Flores, Jeurys Familia, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Juan Urbina represent some of the untapped rawness in the system. Brad Holt was recently demoted, which probably diminishes his value a bit. Ruben Tejada probably needs more time in the minors, but he could eventually be the starting second baseman here. If, that is, Reese Havens doesn’t take the job by then; Havens continues to hit and could force his way to the majors by season’s end, depending on just how aggressive the Mets are with him compared to their international signings. Jon Niese is also a popular name in trade rumors, although he may only project as a middle of the rotation starter.

Budget

It’s really hard to say. The Mets’ payroll is considerably lower than it was in 2009 or 2008, but the Wilpons may or may not have money issues, which complicates any kind of perspective addition.

The Red Sox’s disabled list is getting awfully cramped. Josh Beckett has surpassed a month on the table with a lower back strain; Jacoby Ellsbury will pass that plateau this week with fractured ribs; Jeremy Hermida has fractured ribs as well; Mike Lowell’s strained right hip has kept him down since earlier this week; and Jed Lowrie/Junichi Tazawa have missed the entire regular season .

Add at least one more name to the tally, as Dustin Pedroia was placed on the 15-day DL with a fracture in his left foot. Clearly this one hurts the most. Pedroia is one of the best players in baseball. Not only that, but he was in the midst of perhaps his finest season yet. The early timetable on his return suggests that he’ll miss quite a bit more than the 15 days, which leaves Boston in an uncomfortable position of having Bill Hall man second base while they search around for a potential replacement. As a matter of fact, Boston just acquired Eric Patterson via trade. And well, he’s not replacing Pedroia, and he may not even be able to suitably replace Hall.

As if matters couldn’t get any worse, Clay Buchholz left his start tonight against San Francisco after one inning on the hill. He suffered a leg injury on the basepaths, which prompted Boston to strain their bullpen. Buchholz grabbed his hamstring which may be the culprit and there’s no word on the severity, nor, obviously, on his status moving forward.

Boston has climbed back into the playoff hunt after a hellacious April, but those fortunes could turn once more if they continue encountering an injury bug with the vengeance of an angst-filled Cthulhu.

Entering today’s game against the San Diego Padres the Rays had somehow managed to keep outfielder Matt Joyce in the minors in spite of carrying three catchers and the ever fruitless Hank Blalock hanging on the 25 man roster. In more than 155 minor league plate appearances Joyce this year Joyce had a line of .314/.458/.545. Simply put: there nothing left for him to prove.

Almost as if a sign from a higher power, Carl Crawford left the game early with shoulder soreness; hours later Dioner Navarro would be optioned down and Joyce promoted. Obviously Crawford isn’t the player the Rays would like Joyce to replace, but the brevity between Crawford’s removal and Navarro’s demotion seems like a pretty clear indication that they aren’t too worried about the injury, otherwise they could’ve used Sean Rodriguez and Blalock in the outfield through the weekend before placing Crawford on the disabled list if the injury worsened. That didn’t happen, which suggests Crawford won’t miss but a game or two at most.

Joyce himself was placed on the disabled list on opening day and the chief concern with him right now is whether he can throw or not. Of course that worry is alleviated as a designated hitter; and to be clear: Joyce is going to outhit Blalock. He immediately becomes the Rays’ best option for right field or DH against right-handed pitching. This could lead to an interesting conflict with Sean Rodriguez though. Most days against righties the Rays will field Ben Zobrist, John Jaso (at catcher or DH), Reid Brignac, and Jason Bartlett; that can’t happen now without Joyce being the DH, and it means that Rodriguez won’t find his way onto the field unless Bartlett sits.

Another interesting development is what this means for Blalock. Reserve outfield Gabe Kapler’s time on the disabled list is drawing to a close. With Rodriguez making strides, both Blalock and Kapler fall into the redundancy zone, yet Kapler is the better player; the one who offers defensive value and is capable of pinch running. There was little buzz about Blalock this off-season (he chose between minor league offers from the two teams within the state of Florida) and the buzz for Blalock around his opt-out date never evolved into a trade. With the way he’s struggled in the majors, it seems unlikely he’s going to find himself in a better position anytime soon.

At some point you just have to feel like everything that can go wrong for the Pirates will go wrong- like last night. Paul Maholm is generally a decent enough pitcher. Through his first 14 starts this season he held a 4.20 FIP and a sub-4 ERA. If a pitcher’s beauty is defined by his FIP, then Maholm isn’t pretty anymore. Here’s how his first inning went last night (note that this was also Maholm’s only inning):

Elvis Andrus walked on four pitches
Michael Young homered
Ian Kinsler grounded out
Vladimir Guerrero walked on four pitches
David Murphy singled
Justin Smoak reached on a fielder’s choice
Matt Treanor flied out

What unfolded above resulted in a 2-0 deficit, which is bad but not completely insufferable. Maholm took the mound in the second down by a lone run and walked Julio Borbon on five pitches. The Rangers would catch a break on an error by Neil Walker. They would then singled in five consecutive plate appearances- 6-1 just like that. Dana Eveland would relieve Maholm and give up another run before escaping the inning.

All told Maholm racked up a -.439 WPA, a 2010 worst for the category. A quick glance through his game logs suggest Wednesday’s disaster is among the five or six worst starts of his career. The last time Maholm was this bad came in late May 2009 against the Cubs. He lasted four innings, allowing seven earned runs, walking three, and striking out two. For comparison, Maholm went one inning last night, allowed five earned, walked four, and struck nobody out. In both games he allowed only one home run and a hit for each run (unearned and earned alike).

About a month ago, Matthew Carruth wrote up Jose Lopez’s odd season. Summarizing his accomplishments to date with:

It’s not all cheery news however. While Lopez may pace the entire league in defensive rankings at the moment, he also trails the entire league in hitting value. Seriously. According to wRAA, Jose Lopez has been the least valuable hitter in baseball. We have all heard the term ‘all glove, no bat’ before, but this is insane.

June has nary treated Lopez the Batter with any more kindness than April and May did. Yet that .280 monthly wOBA is actually a season best, as insane as that sounds. Lopez’ .127 ISO is nearly higher than his first two month’s wOBA added together. He’s no longer walking (only one the entire month; his 10th of the season, not so good for a guy who wanted to walk at least 50 times this year) but he’s also sharply cut his strike outs down too.

There’s something else weird about Lopez’s season, too: he’s hitting better at home than on the road. Most of that has to do with an elevated BABIP, but anytime you hear of a right-handed batter who plays his home games in Safeco Field the expectation is robbery via ballpark. Not the case here. And to his credit, Lopez is mauling left-handed pitchers with an above average wOBA; the issues has been righties. Another tally to Lopez’s credit is that he’s playing pretty impressive defense at third base to date despite only changing positions in the spring.

Chone Figgins isn’t fairing too much better than Lopez, but with his contract and history of success he’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Meanwhile Lopez is in the final season of a four year extension with a $4.5 million club option for 2011. If Lopez’s BABIP induced woes continue, his likely exit will probably be through the declining of that option (which would mean a quarter of a million buyout) and hitting the free agent market rather than a trade. That seemed positively unlikely just three months ago.

Greg Dobbs was designated for assignment today. Let’s take a look at him.

Dobbs broke into the majors in 2005 as a 25-year-old with the Seattle Mariners, he’d eventually find his way to Philadelphia and in 2007 he received enough playing him time to hit 10 homers with a .335 wOBA in more than 350 plate appearances. The next year he’d be restricted to mostly pinch hitting, a role he’s since been confined to, and he’d post a .354 wOBA with nine homers. Generally speaking, you don’t expect a player to hit more home runs the less time he sees, but Dobbs did that. In 2009 everything seemed to fall apart and in 2010 he’s got a higher on-base percentage (.222) than wOBA (.218) in 73 plate appearances.

Of his 1,078 career plate appearances, 261 are of the pinch hit variety. That’s about a quarter of the time that Dobbs went to the plate he was in a role where offensive performance is expected to decrease by something like 10%. Suffice to say, Dobbs’ raw numbers (.312 wOBA) would be understandable if they sold him a little below his true talent level based on poor inch hitting numbers. Oddly, though, Dobbs had a slash line as a pinch hitter of .251/.314/.413 for his career; almost equal to his starter slash line of .269/.311/.418.

ZiPS has him hitting less than league average (.319 wOBA) which is really all that matters with Dobbs because defensively he’s a sub-par third baseman without much playing time elsewhere. Weak beat, weak glove, will travel isn’t the most attractive classified ad, but it’s the one Dobbs will submit while on the waiver wire. Odds are, he’s heading to Triple-A, but some team might fall in love with his 2008 and give him a shot.

It has been 10 years since Jay Payton broke into the majors on a permanent basis with the New York Mets and five seasons since he played his last game with a National League team. Further, it has been a full season since Payton last played with any Major League team in the regular season. Incredulously, not only is Payton likely on his way back into the show at some point this season, but he may have value heading into the trade deadline.

The 37-year-old has spent this season with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox along with other former major leaguers, like Brad Eldred, Nick Bierbrodt, Jimmy Gobble, and Damian Moss. Payton is actually second on the team in plate appearances, and is hitting .323/.371/.467 with three homers. He’s never been an overly impressive player, with his best season by WAR standards being a 3.7 win 2002, backed by stellar defense.

Nifty glovework is really the key for Payton- play defense at each of the outfield positions as well as hit lefties slightly above league average. He missed the 2009 season because of a shoulder injury sustained while lifting weights and signed a minor league deal this past off-season with the Rockies. He is cheap, and, when combined with the aforementioned attributes, makes for a decent if unspectacular bench option for a team heading toward the playoffs.

The Rockies themselves don’t really need him, which just intensifies the likelihood of a trade. The return on Payton isn’t going to necessitate a top prospect. Probably a player to be named later that ends up being a live arm in A-ball or cash considerations; whatever deal Payton is moved in won’t set the world ablaze, but don’t be surprised if it comes before the flurry of near-deadline moves because if Dexter Fowler isn’t cracking the Rockies’ depth chart at this point, then neither is Payton.

Daniel Bard is universally accepted as the most likely pitcher to replace Jonathan Papelbon as the Red Sox’ closer. So it’s quite a revelation when Bard, not Papelbon, leads the league in shutdowns (with 21). Those two actually combine to be the duo with the most shutdowns in baseball, barely topping the unlikely challengers in Cincinnati in the form of Arthur Rhodes and Francisco Cordero. Let’s focus on Bard, though.

The 25-year-old sends more fireballs to batters than Mario by using his upper-90s fastball more than three-fourths of the time. Both pitch classification specialists (Baseball Info Solutions, which is found on the player’s main page, and the Pitchfx tab within) have Bard throwing a change-up that sits right around 90 miles per hour. For a ridiculous comparison, consider this: Stephen Strasburg is basically matching Bard in velocity, both on fastballs and change-ups, but doing so while, in three appearances, throwing half the pitches Bard has in 35 outings.

When one compares Bard’s numbers accumulated this season to those in 2009, the decrease in walks allowed is perhaps most noticeable. It’s not because he’s throwing more pitches in the zone, though, or getting more swinging strikes. It just appears that his distribution of balls has altered, particularly on first pitches. Last year, Bard started up in the count 56% of the time; this year, he’s just shy of 61%. That’s not a radical shift, but when combined with more batters putting the ball in play earlier in counts (he’s shaved 0.2 pitches per plate appearance) the pair form a nice segue into lower walk rates.

Despite the reduction in free passes, Bard’s FIP has increased ever slightly; and yet, he’s still been the better half of the Red Sox’s end-game partnership this season cumulatively and when it matters most.