Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Bryce Harper’

We have confirmed that Tiger’s starting pitcher Doug Fister is Mormon and have added him to the list of players we track each week. Fister is in his 3rd year with Detroit, and his 5th in the majors. He was drafted in 2006 in the 7th round by the Mariners, and spent 4 years in that organization, including 2 1/2 in the majors.

However, this past week Fister struggled, giving up 7 earned runs in 5 innings for a loss. But overall this season he has been good. He is 11-7 with a 3.81 era and 1.30 WHIP.

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In a bit of a bind when forced to use Sunday’s starter on Saturday, the Phillies activated Roy Halladay from the DL rather than have him pitch another rehab game in the minors. And Halladay pitched fairly well, giving up just 2 earned runs in 6 innings while striking out 2 and earning a win. Since the Phils have still 32 games to play, Halladay could still start 5 or 6 games, bring his win-loss record into positive territory and perhaps even bring his era down below 5.00. Of course, all that assumes that he is back in his best form—a big assumption.

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Despite his team’s poor performance, Matt Lindstrom is still managing to perform well. This past week he gave up just 3 hits and one walk while striking out 5 over 4 2/3rds innings. And despite struggling a bit earlier this month, Lindstrom’s season era is just 3.26.

But all this doesn’t mean that Lindstrom will be able to stay with the White Sox, as he would like. The team is second from the bottom in the American League, and third from last overall, which has led it to make many of its players available for trade, including Lindstrom, who cleared waivers this week. But his relatively low salary should have let him be claimed off waivers if there was any interest, so perhaps he will stay with the White Sox.

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If you thought the Home Run Derby and All-Star break might leave Bryce Harper off his game for a little while, you weren’t correct. If anything, the experience has sparked Harper, making him play better. In the first full week after the break Harper was 9 for 25 (.360) with 4 runs scored and 6 rbis. AND, Harper hit his 14th and 15th home runs during the week.

The week wasn’t without a downside for the 20-year-old. He once again aggravated his left knee, took a day off and then by the end of the week aggravated the knee again. But while the knee has bothered Harper all year, he has still managed to play well, and often play brilliantly.

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Its an old story in baseball. The pitcher performs extremely well, but the team behind him doesn’t, and the pitcher ends up with a loss. That was the story for the Toronto Blue Jay’s Josh Johnson last week.
Over 5 innings Johnson pitched fairly well. He gave up 1 earned run and 7 hits while striking out 5 and walking just 2. While that perhaps isn’t a great performance, it should be sufficient to win the game. What’s missing is that the the team gave up a total of 6 runs, 5 of which were unearned, due to errors made by Johnson’s teammates.

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Sometimes just when things are going well, that’s when something goes wrong. Mitch Maier was very hot last week, hitting .571 with 2 runs, 3 rbis and 2 walks. And for the season he has also done well—he sports a .315 average with 3 home runs in 108 at bats. But halfway through the week he injured his oblique and ended up back on the DL—Maier already spent much of the season on the DL and only has half the at bats of most other players. As a result he doesn’t qualify for the stats leaders boards, but if he did he would be among the top ten in batting average, on base percentage and OPS in the International league.

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After starting the season strong, Royals’ pitcher Jeremy Guthrie has struggled, loosing ground from an era of 2.28 after his May 9th game to 4.11 at the end of this week. But this past week’s game was a quality start, despite a loss, so perhaps Guthrie will turn around his season and do better. Guthrie led the Mormon pitchers in the majors this past week with a 2.84 era, striking out 4 and giving up 6 hits and 2 walks over 6.1 innings. His performance was marred only when he was hit in the hand and taken from the game. But subsequent news reports indicate that Guthrie won’t miss his next start.

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Yankees prospect Nik Turley, who planned to attend BYU before he was drafted, seems to be improving at the AA level, but his progress seems to come in fits and starts, a strong start followed by a weaker start. This past week Turley lasted 7 innings, while not giving up a single run. He gave up 5 hits, walked 2 (a 1.00 WHIP for the game) and struck out 4. But Turley’s previous start was a 5-inning loss with a 10.80 era. Still, overall he seems to be making progress, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that he may start in AAA next year.

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Royals’ starter Jeremy Guthrie finally notched his 6th win of the season last week, after struggling through much of May and losing 3 games in a row. This game brought his season era down to a respectable 3.66, but still quite a bit above the phenomenal 2.28 era he held on May 9th after his 5th win.

Guthrie’s pitching was perhaps bested among the Mormons pitching in the majors by both Matt Lindstrom and Brandon Lyon, relievers who each pitched 3 or more innings during the week without giving up a run. Lindstrom (White Sox) is perhaps slightly more impressive, with a season era of 2.96 over 27.1 innings, but Lyon (Mets) has a 19-6 strike out-to-walk ratio, much better than Lindstrom.

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The Red Sox’s Jacoby Ellsbury wowed fans last week at the plate, and more importantly on the base paths. In four games against the Phils Ellsbury was 9 for 18 with four runs scored and 2 rbis. His heroics for the week culminated in last Thursday’s game, in which he set a new team record: 5 stolen bases in a single game. But Ellsbury’s fantastic performance came to a screeching halt that same game: his groin tightened up. He was benched for the next three games last week, against the Yankees, but not put on the DL.

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