Baseball Notes

Prince Fielder has missed one game in the last four years. Say what you want about his size and the concern for his future health but Prince plays and plays hard everyday. The Giants have said that Tim Lincecum will be one of their Big Three starters in the playoffs. This seems remarkable. No one loves Timmy more than me. His hair, his cockiness, his extra long stride in his pitching motion, but the numbers are clear whatever has been wrong with Lincecum is still wrong with him. Barry Zito has been very strong in the second half of the year and while that in itself might seem like a remarkable statement it seems like a stretch to start Tim over Zito in this case. I might well be wrong but those 28 homeruns that B J Upton has hit this year, a remarkable number when one considers the time lost to injury, should have a flashing Danger sign posted next to them. This would hopefully alert suitors to the unliklihood of these numbers being duplicated once he has signed a long term free agent deal this winter. While it is possible he has finally put it altogether as a Red Sox fan who remembers the 5 homeruns hit in a playoff series against us in 2008 it seems the future never comes for BJ Upton. He is going to get very wealthy and disapoint someone very badly. On opening day in Japan Yoenis Cespedes hit a homerun for the A's but despite his huge power numbers the general consensus was that he had a huge swing with huge holes in it that major league pitchers would use to negate his talents. While Cespedes has struck out a great deal this year his numbers have shown that this is a potential superstar. Raw power, full out effort, and from everything I have read a fantastic wanting to learn attitude mean that the Athletics might well have stolen this player with their free agent signing. How meaningless has the RBI become in baseball circles these days and are those new school thinkers right. I am afraid they are. Case in point, Hunter Pence, who by all accounts has had an off year has 104 Runs Batted In.