Hockey Sticks

Johnny Damon got off to a bit of a slow start for his new Tiger team, but he’s now one of the hottest hitters in baseball. According to Bill James Online, his temperature is the second-hottest (101 degrees) in the majors, tied with Kosuke Fukudome and Paul Konerko. Damon has gone 6-for-9 in his last two games, with two doubles, a triple and a home run, and he blasted a walk-off home run against the Angels yesterday.

Fukudome hit a couple of doubles yesterday and is now batting .353/.452/.662. He’s been much more of a fly ball hitter this year, resulting in five home runs already. We’ll see if he keeps that up.

The hottest hitter in baseball right now is Ryan Zimmerman (105 degrees), who has batted .556/.600/1.278 in his last six games. He went 2-for-4 yesterday after going 3-for-4 with a double and two home runs the day before. Zim is now up to .373/.418/.784 overall and is one of the key reasons the surprising Nats are in second place in the NL East.

Walk-off home runs are one of the best illustrations of WPA game graphs. Because the Tigers and Angels spent the entire game within one run of each other, the WPA line didn’t move much until the very end of their contest.