Currently historic: Can Cabrera do it?

Just 30 games to go. How about that? The average team has about 30 games left now. That’s a month, kids. In a month, the regular season will be in the books.

Let’s start with an interesting bit of trivia a reader pointed out to me in email this week. Francisco Liriano has now started 20 games and has 20 decisions. That doesn’t happen much in this day and age. I did enough research to know that that isn’t any kind of record. As far as I can tell from the game logs available at Baseball-Reference (which go back “only” to 1916), it belongs to Pete Alexander, who got a decision in all 45 games he started in 1916. Still, that’s a neat Liriano stat. It will be interesting to see if it lasts the season.

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Yu Darvish likes to strike people out. The word is that it’s sort of his “thing,” if you will. It’s 2013, so he doesn’t put up innings like pitchers of the past. So, you can scoff about his raw totals if you want. Go ahead, scoff.

I will point out, however, that Darvish is striking out other batters at a very impressive rate. He’s upped it a little since last week and is back over 12 Ks per nine innings, though still in ninth place all-time. He is roughly as close to fourth as he is to 11th, so he could move up.

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Adam Wainwright upped his game a bit this week. And he now has the 21st best K/BB season ever, which is not bad. Maybe it’s not really historic, but, you know, it’s late in the season and it’s getting a little thin here.

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Um, hey there Miguel Cabrera. So, you’re um three homers off the league lead and that’s all that’s between you and the Triple Crown huh? Cool. Seriously, he could do it. He probably won’t, but Cabrera could very well win another Triple Crown. He also still leads the league all three slash stats (Sabr-Triple Crown) and is within shouting distance of slugging .700. He is leading the league in hits and is second in walks.

I loved having Mike Trout to write about here for a little bit, but this is his last week. He’s 11 hits behind Cabrera, so the whole hit/walk thing isn’t happening for him, and he’s all but officially passed Mel Ott as the best 21-year-old ever according to WAR. He’s currently tied at 19.3.

Votto. OBP lead. Four times in a row. If this is news to you, you haven’t been reading. It’s also all that’s left to track where Votto is concerned; he’s fallen off the hit pace a bit, though he will lead the league in walks.

Chris Davis slid back just a bit and is on pace for 57 homers.

Manny Machado is on pace for 55 doubles. He keeps slipping and needs one every other game to get to 60, but we’ll still keep an eye out for at least one more week.

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Last week, the Astros slowed it down and are now on pace to strike out 1,532 times. That would beat the old record, but just barely.

Baltimore is still going strong with the glove. Current error pace is 49. The Rays held steady at 58. The Yankees, however, had a rough week in the field and their one week stint here is over.

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I don’t know if we’ll see the first season to have two players top 200 strikeouts, but it’s still possible, even if the herd is thinning.

Chris Carter, 176 Ks, 219 K pace: The only thing that can stop Carter from striking out 200 times is injury or benching. He has a good shot at the record (223), but it will be close.

Mike Napoli, 160 Ks, 195 K pace: Napoli has just been getting back to it. Maybe he can K enough to make up for the ground he lost.

Chris Davis, 156 Ks, 194 K pace: Close, but still not there for Davis.

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The list is really shrinking. Looking at it, we may be down to just Todd Helton, Michael Bourn, and Alex Rodriguez soon.

Alex Rodriguez categories:
Home runs: 650, currently fifth. 10 behind Willie Mays. A-Rod is not hitting 10 more homers this year, so I’m going to let this one drop.
RBIs: 1,957, currently sixth. 35 behind Lou Gehrig. Another one that we can safely say won’t happen this year.
Hits: 2,920, currently 37th. Seven behind Al Simmons. However, Rodriguez may well pass Simmons later this week.
Total bases: 5,444, currently ninth. 91 behind Carl Yastrzemski. A stretch maybe, but still feasible.
Hit by pitch: 169, Currently 15th. Three behind Carlos Delgado.
Times on base: 4,313, Currently 27th. 26 behind Al Kaline.

Doubles:
No doubles for Todd Helton this week. At 583 he’s still tied for 17th and two away from Rafael Palmeiro.

Adrian Beltre now needs 10 doubles to reach 500. It’s probably not going to happen, but I can’t quite rule it out yet, so he survives for another week.

Stolen bases:
Juan Pierre (611) hasn’t been stealing bases lately, and it’s gotten to the point in this season where he probably can’t move up anymore this season. If he’s still around, we’ll pick him up next year. He’s 18th all-time right now.

Michael Bourn needs five steals to reach 300. That could still happen.

Showing up:
Bartolo Colon’s next start will be his 400th. He’s hurt, but it could be soon.

Thanks for reading. As always, stats are through Monday’s games.