Last Friday night, Nelson Cruz faced off against Felix Hernandez, and in the second inning this happened to a baseball:

Perhaps you might prefer:

According to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, the dinger had an apex of 41 feet. Apex is defined as “the highest point reached by the ball in flight above field level.” By the numbers, Cruz’s homer stands as the lowest homer of the 2014 season, that wasn’t of the inside-the-park variety. The last time there was a lower home run: June 25, 2011, when Carlos Peguero hit a homer with a 39-foot apex. Also, on May 16 of that same year, Peguero hit another homer with a 39-foot apex.

Technically, according to his FanGraphs player page, Cruz this year has 29 homers and 131 fly balls. Hence, he has a HR/FB of 22.1%. But some home runs are different from others, and this was an absolute, hands-down line drive. The difference that makes with regard to our understanding of Cruz, Hernandez, and the sport: not anything at all. But, holy crap, Nelson Cruz.

Last year, then-Washington outfield prospect Billy Burns produced the most stolen-base runs among every minor-league player in the whole minor leagues — about 12 of them, it would appear, using the major-league linear-weight values for stolen bases and caught stealings*.

*Caughts stealing?

Now employed by the Oakland franchise — and, indeed, having been promoted to that organization’s parent club just yesterday — the 24-year-old Burns once again appears atop (or very nearly atop) the minor-league leaderboard for stolen-base runs.

Regard, the top-10 basestealers by that measure, through yesterday:

Notably, two other players appear here after having appeared among last year’s top-10 list, as well: both Terrance Gore and Jose Peraza — of Kansas City and Atlanta, respectively.

As for Burns himself, Oakland manager Bob Melvin has stated that he’ll likely start in center field against lefties — this, according to MLB.com Jane Lee.

Yesterday, I saw a nifty little tidbit in my Twitter timeline. It basically sums up the dominance of Clayton Kershaw about as well as any statistic I can think of.

Clayton Kershaw has a higher OBP than he has allowed. Let that sink in for a minute. #Dodgers #LAD

— Jonathan C. Mitchell (@FigureFilbert) July 27, 2014

It’s true. Opponents are hitting .189/.220/.288 against Kershaw this year. Kershaw is hitting .194/.237/.194 when he steps up to the plate to do the thing he’s not paid to do. Yes, he gives up a few more extra base hits than he hits himself, but just in terms of getting hits or out avoidance, opposing hitters against Kershaw have been worse than Kershaw against opposing pitchers.

And this is actually a bad year for Kershaw at the plate. Over the last four years, spanning 295 plate appearances, he has hit .202/.245/.231. Over those same four years, opponents have hit .202/.252/.298 against Kershaw.

For four years, Kershaw has posted the same batting average and on base percentage as he’s allowed actual professional hitters to put up against him. Yeah. This guy is ridiculous.

With a view towards collecting the sort of hot internet clicks that’ll keep him employed into the near future, the author has purposely attached a half-divisive title to this short weblog post. That having been said, one notes that nothing about its (i.e. the headline’s) contents is actually incorrect.

Regard, by way of illustration, the pitching leaderboard below — which leaderboard features the top-10 qualified starters of the last 30 days by park-adjusted xFIP.

Of note regarding that leaderboard is how it features Cleveland right-hander Josh Tomlin. Over five starts, beginning with June 28th, Tomlin pitched like one who would prevent runs at a rate about 40% better than league average. He didn’t do that, of course, but his fielding-independent numbers indicate that such a performance wouldn’t have been a surprise.

If and when he does begin preventing runs at an above-average rate, Josh Tomlin will likely be doing that for Triple-A Columbus after having been demoted over the weekend.

The Mariners just traded for Kendrys Morales, because their offense stinks, and he is one of the few available hitters they could acquire at the moment. Of course, Morales has been awful himself since joining the Twins, which may or may not be related to the fact that he sat out the first two months of the season. However, you will see it noted that Morales is “coming around”, and that he just finished a 12 game hitting streak, so perhaps the rust is wearing off.

Let’s take note of what he actually did during that streak, though. During those 12 games, he hit .292, which is good. He drew two walks, which is bad. He didn’t hit any home runs, which is also bad, given that the only he’s paid to do is hit. His overall line during the streak? .292/.314/.417, good for a 100 wRC+. In other words, during Morales’ “hot streak”, he was exactly a league average hitter.

And when you’re a Designated Hitter who also is one of the game’s very worst worst baserunners, hitting at a league average rate makes you pretty much useless. The Mariners are going need Morales to keep “coming around”, because even during his 12 game hitting streak, he wasn’t any good.

Last week, Tom Verducci wrote a story at Sports Illustrated suggesting that perhaps Major League Baseball should consider some kind of “illegal defense” rule to reduce the effects of shifting, which has grown significantly in popularity over the last few years. In the article, Verducci notes that shifting has disproportionately hurt left-handed hitters, and is part of why offense is down so much over the last few years.

But I’m not actually sure that is true. Sure, shifting hurts some players, but just for fun, take a look at the league batting average on balls in play for each of the last 30 years.

The rate of hits on balls that defenders could theoretically turn into outs is about the same now as it was for most of the 1990s, when home runs were plentiful and every team could score five runs per game. In fact, as shifts have become more prevalent over the last few years, the overall rate of hits on balls in play has gone up, not down.

Offense isn’t down across Major League Baseball because fewer in-play balls are getting past defenders. Offense is down in Major League Baseball because the league average strikeout rate is 20.3 percent, the highest it has ever been. If we want to change some the game to bring offense back to baseball, the strike zone is the first place to start.