I started watching baseball when I was four or five years old, back in 1994 or 1995. I remember sitting in front of the television and appreciating the stars of the time like demigods. Later, I was able to observe many of these great figures live and direct on my first visits to the stadium. Among my favorites were Linares, Kindelán, “El Duque”, Vargas, Javier Méndez, Germán, Lazo, Contreras, Ibar or Pacheco, who, despite having them closer, still seemed like real superheroes to me.
But at a certain point along the way, some began to get lost. Added to the early retirement of many of them was another variable: leaving the country for the most dissimilar reasons. Thus, from one day to the next, “El Duque” disappeared, Contreras disappeared…
Boy after all, I didn’t really understand what was happening, but I was very happy to hear, after time, that these stars were beginning to make the grade in the Major Leagues. In those days, American baseball was something like a sacred temple for me, and a Cuban who shone there, a Cuban who put on an altar.
Later, journalism gave me the opportunity to get into the game. The players that he previously saw as superior beings were now within reach, he could talk with them, get to know them, discover them, lower them from the pedestal to a more earthly plane. To me, they were still superheroes, but flesh and blood.
In this group are the Gurriel brothers, Yoennis Céspedes, Alfredo Despaigne, José Dariel Abreu, Aroldis Chapman, Aledmys Díaz, Luis Robert Moirán, Yoan Moncada, Yasmany Tomás or José Adolis García, just to mention a few.
Of all of them, I am particularly happy with the explosion of Adolis, one of the most serious and committed players I have ever met. “El Bombi”, as they call him, has taken advantage of his opportunity in the Major Leagues and has settled in the Texas Rangers, ninth in which he is highly appreciated and in which he leads in extra-base hits (101), doubles (46), triples (six ), home runs (49), RBIs (152), runs scored (133) and stolen bases (31) between 2021 and 2022.
As if that were not enough, this week the Avilanian became the ninth player in Rangers history with more than one season of at least 15 stolen bases and 15 home runs. Last Wednesday, at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Adolis got his fifteenth scam of the course —he already has 18 home runs— and joined an exclusive group that includes Ian Kinsler, Rubén Sierra, Toby Harrah, Nelson Cruz, Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Oddibe McDowell and Chuck Hinton.
Among Cubans, only José Canseco (seven times), Yasiel Puig (three), Orestes Miñoso (two) and José Cardenal (two) achieved more than one season with at least 15 steals and 15 home runs.
Yordan Alvarez=30
On this Friday night, Yordan Álvarez hooked a noble fastball (85 miles) from left-hander Tommy Milone and sent it flying all over the right field of Minute Maid Park. The ball traveled 384 feet and became the thirtieth home run of the player from Las Tunas this season, which could end with more than 55 homers, according to projections by Baseball Reference.
This is the second campaign in a row of 30 homers for Yordan, the seventh Cuban with at least two seasons of said figures. The group of West Indians who have hit 30 full-round hits the most is led by Rafael Palmeiro (ten), followed by José Canseco (eight), José Abreu (five), Yoennis Céspedes (two), Kendrys Morales (two) and Tany Pérez. (two). Of all of them, only Kendrys did not make it in back-to-back contests.
Álvarez has hit these 30 homers in 84 games, something that no Astros player had previously achieved. Jeff Bagwell, a Cooperstown Hall of Famer and one of Houston’s legends, hit 27 home runs in his first 84 games in 1994 and 1999, seasons he finished with 39 and 42 homers.
Lance Berkman, a man with more than 300 homers in an Astros jersey, hit 29 balls over the bounds in his first 84 games of 2002, a contest that ended with 42 homers for him.
With his performance this course, Yordan is outdoing himself. In 2019, his rookie season, the man from Las Tunas hit 27 homers in his first 84 games (356 appearances and 302 official at-bats), and last year in the same period (351 trips to the plate and 314 at-bats) he hit 18. Nobody knows Its limits.
Néstor Cortés breaks the schemes
Nestor Cortes He has been the best Cuban starter of the season in the Major Leagues, as confirmed by his call to the All-Star Game in Los Angeles. However, the Yankees’ left-hander faced some problems in a stretch of six starts between June 8 and July 8. In that span, he worked 28.2 inningsallowed 17 runs, nine home runs and 32 hits, and posted a 5.34 ERA.
To get an idea of his downturn, Cortés began the day on June 8 with an exceptional clean average of 1.50, among the best in MLB, but that indicator shot up to 2.74 after the six aforementioned presentations, in which, curiously, , his team only lost two.
However, the southpaw has regained the magic touch in two recent outings. Before the break for the All-Star Game he already retired seven innings with only one earned against Cincinnati, and this week he showed credentials again with six scoreless innings and seven strikeouts against Baltimore. With these two quality starts, Cortés has slipped once again into the top five pitchers with the best ERA (2.48) in the American League.
Now the shooter born in the Surgidero de Batabanó cannot be considered the work of chance; His level has been solid and stable after more than 100 innings of work, in which he has 106 strikeouts, only 22 walks, an opponent average of .211 and an average of runners on base per inning (WHIP) of 1.00.
But that is not all. Do you know how many Cuban pitchers had achieved an ERA below 2.50 after 18 starts and at least 100 innings of work in a season? According to Stathead databases, the answer is four, and not just any four names. Let’s observe…
* Adolfo Luque (1923): 1.34 ERA after 141.1 innings
* Camilo Pascual (1963/1968): 2.45 at 135.2/2.40 at 116.1
* Luis Tiant (1968): 1.11 at 146.1
* Mike Cuellar (1968/1969): 1.97 at 109.2/2.25 at 128.0
Cortés has joined this exclusive list, which, as we see, had been untouchable for 53 years. And if we apply the same filter among the Yankees pitchers, we arrive at another impressive fact: the West Indian joins Luis Severino as the only Bronx Bombers pitchers who in this century have achieved an ERA below 2.50 after 18 presentations and a hundred innings worked.
Yulieski in robbery plan
We know that fans of Yulieski Gurriel they are concerned about his offensive performance this season, in which his offensive line (Average/On-Base Average/Slugging) is one of the lowest of his career: .241/.293/.392. For the same reason, the detractors — who are as many as the followers — of the Astros first baseman should walk with a smile from ear to ear.
However, Yulieski is showing signs of gradual recovery, although he still lacks consistency and constancy in results. In this month of July, for example, he exhibits an average of .288 and an OBP of .345, but in terms of run production that awakening is still not perceived, since he has only managed six RBIs and ten runs scored.
Regardless of these details, the man from Sancti Spiritus continues to beat goals and set personal records. The bottom line for him has to do with stolen bases, an area that normally goes under the radar but one that Yulieski has mastered. In Cuba, for example, he added 153 steals and was only captured 52 times without this being one of his priorities, while in the Major Leagues he accumulates 21 steals in 30 attempts.
The curious thing about the matter is that Gurriel has achieved his best record of stolen bases (six) for a season in this 2022, just when he is already 38 years old. It is quite rare for a player of that age to reach six scams in a contest, in fact, in MLB no one has achieved it since 2017 (Chase Utley) and in the last decade only five players have done it (Utley, Ichiro Suzuki, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu and Jamey Carroll).
If we look among the more than 370 Cubans who have passed through the Majors, the only one who managed at least six steals in a season after turning 38 years old was Bert Campaneris, who did it in 1980 and 1983, almost 40 years ago.
Yulieski has achieved these six cons in 92 games, so he still has a way to improve his record. And precisely, if we take the number of games played as a reference, a question arises: in this century, how many players over 38 years of age have achieved six or more stolen bases in a campaign with 92 challenges or less?
The answer is four. Only Rickey Henderson (2002), Trent Hubbard (2002), Eric Young Sr. (2005 and 2006) and Reggie Sanders (2006) had six or more steals in 92 games or fewer after turning 38. Of this short list, Henderson is the all-time stealing leader, while Young and Sanders stole more than 300 bases in their respective careers.
