Hitchcock, the Royals, Guerrero, and Pujols

by Geoff Young on Jul 26, 2001

  • Sterling Hitchcock didn’t have a real good outing last night: 5 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO. Fastball clocked around 83-85 MPH, wavering command. Kept falling behind hitters. Although he did catch a bad break when Phil Nevin booted what should have been an inning-ending double play in the third.
  • The Royals are starting Neifi Perez at second base? I don’t mean to sound overly negative but over the past three years his numbers away from Coors Field are .250/.289/.347. This is an improvement over Carlos Febles how? The one thing Perez does extremely well, play shortstop, he doesn’t even get to do thanks to Rey Sanchez. What a bizarre organization.
  • Not to fixate on Kansas City but what’s up with Dan Reichert? He’s the AL’s answer to Matt Clement. Great stuff, poor command. Lots of walks, lots of hits, high ERA. I haven’t seen him pitch as much as I saw Clement when he was here, but it seems like these are a couple of guys who are either a pitching coach away from becoming studs at the top of the rotation or better off in the bullpen. I know Reichert’s worked out of the ‘pen before but to my knowledge there’s never been talk of moving Clement. Might not be a bad idea, though.
  • Vlad Guerrero is having a down season in Montreal. Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Then I looked it up. He’s batting .337/.405/.655. Since June he’s hitting .399/.453/.803. He’s also committed only five errors this season. Absolutely sick. But you knew that already.
  • Albert Pujols has slowed down, batting just .213/.333/.377 in July. Not surprising since he made the jump from Class A ball. His YTD numbers are still pretty impressive, at .321/.397/.587. Pujols is maintaining his solid strike zone judgment. He’ll make counteradjustments and finish the year strong. It was premature to proclaim him a future HOFer earlier in the season, and I’m still not sure which of him or Adrian Beltre I’d rather have at third, but he’s gonna be a good one. It’s just so hard to judge a guy like Pujols because there isn’t a historical precedent for his level of success after such a huge leap. But even if he slumps and ends up with "only" a 900 OPS, well, there aren’t a lot of 21-year-olds who can do that in the bigs.

Comments are closed.