Last night, Josh Hamilton and his teammates went up against Felix Hernandez in Seattle. Hamilton came to bat four times, seeing 13 pitches in the process. He swung at eight of them. Here are the pitch locations for when Josh Hamilton decided to swing the bat last night:

One of those eight pitches is within the box that PITCHF/x defines as the strike zone, and two others are close enough that they fall well within the margin for error, and very well might have been called strikes had he not swung at them. The other five, though? There’s a slider up and way off the plate outside, two change-ups down off the plate outside, a change-up in the dirt, and a slider at his ankles.

Now, here are the pitches that Hamilton let pass.

One curveball on the outer half that was taken for a called strike, and then four pitches that weren’t particularly close that Hamilton wisely let go by, all of which were called balls.

Between these two graphs, you can see the 13 pitches that Felix Hernandez threw Josh Hamilton last night. Two of them are within the strike zone. Two of them are close to the strike zone. Josh Hamilton saw four pitches worth swinging at last night. He swung eight times. This is Josh Hamilton.

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During the first month of the season, you seemingly couldn’t watch a game without seeing a pitcher throwing at reduced velocity to what he’d shown in the past. Between Tim Lincecum, CC Sabathia, Felix Hernandez, Justin Masterson, and Roy Halladay, MLB had a long and distinguished list of starters who weren’t throwing as hard as they had in prior years. However, April is known for the lowest temperatures of the season, and colder weather is historically associated with lower pitch speeds, so there were reasons to think that many of these pitchers would find their fastballs again as we got closer to summer.

And, as expected, many of the reduced velocity guys in April have been throwing harder in the first three weeks of May. Because we’re still called FanGraphs, let’s illustrate these gains with graphs.

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When Lance Berkman had to be helped off the field on Saturday, he feared his knee issue was serious. Today’s MRI will give an official confirmation, but early word is that he’s suffered a torn ACL and is done for the season. His comments about that possibility yesterday indicated that this might be a career ending injury for Berkman:

“If I’ve re-torn my ACL or something like that, I’d certainly get it fixed but you don’t know how psychologically you’re going to come back from something like that,” Berkman said. “I’m not talking from the standpoint of being scared of hurting it again. I’m talking about doing everything it takes to come back and play again at an elite level. I think that’s a legitimate question I’m going to have to answer if, in fact, it turns out to be something more serious than we hope that it is.

If this really is the end for Berkman, then the next question about his career becomes whether or not he accomplished enough to be worthy of induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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On Tuesday, Adam Jones took a 1-0 fastball from CC Sabathia in the second inning and launched it out to left field. On Wednesday, in the 15th inning, he destroyed a curveball from Nate Adcock, breaking a 3-3 tie and giving the Orioles a go-ahead run that led to their extra inning win. Yesterday, the victim was Luke Hochevar, whose 4th inning slider didn’t break far enough out of the zone, allowing Jones to deposit it over the center field wall for his third home run in as many days.

The power surge continues Jones’ strong start to the season, and his 13 home runs are now just six fewer than he had in both 2009 and 2010. The long ball barrage has raised his overall season line to .295/.345/.604, and his 159 wRC+ puts him in the top 20 in offensive performance to begin the year. Once you add in the fact that Jones is a center fielder who also runs the bases well, Jones has been a top five player in the sport so far.

While it’s still early, his strong start is evoking memories of Matt Kemp’s breakout year last season, and the two might be a bit more similar than you think.

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On March 5th, Christian Friedrich was inducted into the annual Best Shape Of His Life club thanks to this MLB.com article from Thomas Harding:

Even worse, he had bulked up to 240 pounds by the latter part of the season, partly because of his off-base workouts and partly because he had fallen into the habit of late-night meals.

But this winter, Friedrich spent a week and a half training with Phillies standout Cliff Lee. Friedrich, who said he was floored by Lee’s physical conditioning, dropped to 205 pounds, and he hopes to be in that vicinity during the season.

A 35 pound weight loss is certainly a drastic change, but as has been often chronicled, many of these off-season workout stories turn out to have little to no impact on a player’s performance on the field. In fact, so many players are noted to report to camp in the “Best Shape Of Their Life”, the story has become something of a running joke. However, getting in better physical condition can occasionally lead to significant changes, and it’s looking like Friedrich might just be an example of why these stories keep getting written.

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As the Rangers lit up Jered Weaver and the Angels last night to extend their lead over their supposed rivals to eight games, Buster Olney asked a legitimate question on Twitter – when was the last time we saw a team that was as good as the Rangers are across the board? Below are the respective ranks in the WAR components (these are all runs above average) for the Rangers in the American League over the first six weeks of the season:

Batting: +46.3 (1st)
Fielding: +16.3 (1st)
Baserunning: -0.2 (7th)
Starting Pitching: +33.5 (3rd)
Bullpen: +15.2 (2nd)

Baseball has had its fair share of dominant teams before, but to be a top three team nearly across the board is pretty remarkable, even in a sample of just a month and a half. Josh Hamilton’s getting the attention (and deservedly so), but his teammates are pretty good themselves, and there’s a reason why the Rangers are the two time defending AL Champs, and right now, a pretty clear favorite to win the league title once again.

However, there’s an argument to be made that not only are the Rangers not the best team we’ve seen in a while, they might not even be the team playing the best baseball in 2012. Somehow, the defending World Champion St. Louis Cardinals are flying under the radar despite dominating their league in a very similar fashion.

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Josh Beckett laid an egg last night, giving up seven runs while facing only 16 batters last night, and he got booed so loudly that the word lustily doesn’t even seem to do it justice. The boos were almost certainly louder than normal due to the recent revelation that Josh Beckett went golfing after he was scratched from his last start due to a strained lat muscle. The story has become that Beckett doesn’t care, and that his struggles are simply due to an apathetic attitude that was also the cause of last year’s late season collapse.

Maybe the story should be that Josh Beckett just isn’t healthy enough to perform up to his usual standards. I know, I know, that’s not nearly as fun as assassinating someone’s character, but it’s the conclusion that best lines up with the evidence.

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