The July 5, 1969For the first time in history, two Cubans had at least four hits in the same Major League game. Tony Oliva and Leo Cárdenas, of the Minnesota Twins, punished Oakland with four rockets each and established a mark that did not have a shadow until September 14, 2017when José Abreu and Yoan Moncada from Cienfuegos equaled it in a match between Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers.
48 years passed between those two meetings and not a few thought that, perhaps, it would take a long time for the event to be repeated, but Abreu and Moncada were not willing to wait that long. Last Wednesday, June 15, again against the Tigers, the Southerners of the South Chicago franchise returned to the fray and, for the second time, equaled the old mark of Oliva and Cárdenas.
In the duel in question, Moncada hit five hits —the same amount he had connected in his previous ten games—, drove in five runs and had a couple of extra-base hits in his best game of the season and one of the most productive for a Cuban player in the history.
In fact, if we check the record books, only seven players from the Island had materialized a clash of these characteristics in the Majors. The first to do so was Orestes Miñoso (Cleveland) on April 21, 1959 against Detroit, followed by Tony Oliva (Minnesota), who achieved it on June 29, 1969, against Kansas.
The others who set a similar mark were José Canseco (1994/Texas vs. Seattle), Rafael Palmeiro (1996/Baltimore vs. Seattle), Kendrys Morales (2009/Angels vs. Oakland), Yoennis Céspedes (2015/Mets vs. Colorado ) and Yasmani Grandal (2016/Dodgers vs. San Diego).
This game was a breath of fresh air for Yoan Moncada, who had an offensive line of .141/.198/.222 (Average/On-Base Average/Slugging) before starting the duel, with 29.2% of his at-bats ending with the way of strikes.
However, in the next game the Cuban had to leave early due to discomfort in the hamstring, an event that cuts off a possible recovery with the wood.
The other side of the coin is “Pito” Abreu, who had a slow start to the season (through mid-May his OPS was .584 and he was hitting .197 with just 12 RBIs and three home runs in 32 games), but has been taking rhythm little by little. From May 16 to date, the southern starter has taken a sharp turn and in 28 games he has 18 RBIs, six home runs, an OPS of 1,060 and more walks (21) than strikeouts (19).
By the way, this week Abreu was very cruel with Detroit, to the point of hitting eight rockets in 13 at-bats, with two home runs, two doubles and a 1,231 slugging percentage. This is not new, in fact the Tigers are the preferred prey of the “Bad Weather Phenomenon”, which adds 113 RBIs, 27 home runs, 43 doubles, 91 runs scored and 186 jits against them in his career.
Yordan Alvarez makes history
According to Baseball Reference databasesthe list of left-handed hitters who had hit 150 extra-base hits in their first 300 Major League games was made up of only four men: Chuck Klein, Ted Williams, Johnny Frederick and Hal Trosky, who achieved such records between the 20s and 30s of the century past.
Afterwards, true offensive monsters who made history on the left side of the plate passed through the Big Show, say Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, David Ortiz or George Brett, to name just a few. However, none of them managed to reach 150 extra-base hits in 300 games or less.
But the wait is not eternal and, after more than 80 years since Ted Williams reached 150 extra-base hits in 255 games, another mortal finally achieved that mark before 300 games. We talk about Cuban Yordan Alvarezwho appears week after week in summaries of the most relevant events in MLB.
The Astros player from Las Tunas has been a true phenomenon this season, but particularly in June He has unmercifully taken out his claws. Since the beginning of the month, Yordan leads all MLB players in average (.471), on-base percentage (.548) and OPS (1.372), and is second in RBIs (19), hits (24) and slugging ( .824). In that period, in addition, he has hit nine extra-base hits to reach and exceed 150 for life.
No player in this century had needed so little time to get the first 150 extra-base hits of his career. Not even players from the Steroids Era achieved that mark in such a short amount of time. Yordan is literally breaking barriers, so it’s no wonder some already rank him as the best hitter in baseball.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr., a matter of focus
Just a few days ago, colleague Francys Romero warned on his social networks that the Cuban outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays, Lourdes Gurriel Jr.was the Major League player who had improved the most from one year to the next in terms of chase pitches out of the zone. Somewhat impressed by the data, I went out to review the metrics and, indeed, the evidence was obvious.
The youngest of the Gurriel brothers did swing to 34.3% of the pitches outside the zone that were made in the 2021 season, but in this campaign that indicator had decreased to 26.5% after completing the duels this Friday. That represents a drop of 7.8%, the second largest in MLB, only surpassed by Ramón Laureano’s 8.7% (from 30.4 to 21.7).
The numbers make it clear that the man from Sancti Spiritus has been much more disciplined at the plate, although he has lacked stability in his performance. For example, Lourdes Jr. finished April with a good .288/.330/.438 offensive line (Average/On-Base Average/Slugging), but in May he completely plummeted, to the point that his OPS dropped to .534, the fourth lowest monthly indicator of his career since making his MLB debut four years ago.
Those numbers could have been much worse, but his patience in the box helped him deal eight walks in the midst of a notable losing streak. Only three times in his career “Yunito” had achieved at least eight bases on balls in the same month, a clear sign that all was not lost.
And, indeed, until now, June marks a turning point in the performance of the patrolman, who is averaging .357/.390/.482 with 20 hits, five extra-base hits and seven RBIs. Although he has failed in his last eight at-bats, Lourdes Jr. went on a ten-game hitting streak between June 4-15, during which time his OPS shot up to 1.150.
Hopefully this is the definitive awakening for Gurriel, who crosses his fingers to have a good second half of the season, something he already achieved in 2021. Last year, the Antillean reached the break for the All-Star Game with ten home runs, 36 RBIs and a .710 OPS, but then he improved on all of those metrics (11 homers, 48 RBIs and an .889 OPS).
Hall of Fame airs
The last week has not been pleasant for the Tampa Bay Rays. Since last Saturday, June 11, they have lost five of the six games played, including a sweep against the Yankees, their biggest rivals in the American League East.
In the midst of the losing streak, the Cuban Randy Arozarena He hasn’t been particularly bright, save for the game on Sunday, June 12, in which he showed off his tremendous baserunning skills. The man from Pinar del Río received two hits, hit a double, scored a couple of runs, drove in another and stole two bases in a display of mischief and explosiveness.
By second time in his career Randy had two runs scored and two steals in one game after putting up a similar performance on Oct. 2, 2021 against the Yankees. His victims this time were the Twins, who tried to get him out of the way, but they ended up suffocated running after the West Indian.
So ferocious was his display that he even managed to score from third with a singular —and dangerous— slip on the rubber after a ground ball to the initial by teammate Taylor Walls.
In this inning, the Twins:
Tried to pitch Randy in (Hit him)
Tried to catch him off of 2nd (Threw it into center)
Tried to cut him down at the plate (Run scores) pic.twitter.com/FgQLH0wfqa— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) June 12, 2022
However, from his stay in Minnesota there was nothing more outstanding for Randy Arozarena than a meeting behind the scenes, away from the spotlight of the diamond. In the bowels of Target Field, the outfielder from Pinar del Río had the opportunity to meet and exchange with another illustrious son from the westernmost province of Cuba: Tony Oliva.
Mythical Twins player and one of the best West Indian players in MLB history, Oliva spent a few moments with Arozarena, who could not hide his satisfaction with the match. “What an honor to be able to meet the great Tony Oliva, a living legend of Major League Baseball. From Pinar del Río and to the world”, the Rays patrolman pointed out on his social networks.
“Thanks for the photo, I will keep it in my memories of life”, added Randy in a message accompanied by his image with Olivawho will be officially inducted into the Cooperstown Hall of Fame on July 24 at the Clark Sports Center, outside of New York.
The strange domain of Cionel Pérez
The left handed Cionel Perez has become one of the important pieces in the bullpen of Baltimore, despite the fact that some statistics indicate that he has not had a good performance. For example, the man from Matanzas is batted .274 with a high OBP of .372, a consequence of his high rate of walks per nine innings (4.95). Add to that the fact that he allows one hit per inning and his average number of runners on base per episode (WHIP) is 1.55, disastrous for a reliever.
However, Cionel has been a kind of tightrope walker, walking the tightrope all the time without falling crashing into the void, fortunately for the Orioles, to whom he has contributed four wins, one save and seven holds.
Much of his success has been based on keeping the long-range production against him to a minimum, allowing only three extra-base hits in 86 appearances. Precisely, this detail has influenced his effectiveness of 1.35 (three earned runs allowed in 20 episodes), the second best for the Orioles this season.
By the way, that Cionel earned run average qualifies as the seventh best in history for a Cuban pitcher in the first 25 games of a season. Who have been better? We leave the answer here:
* Aroldis Chapman (0.30 in his first 25 starts of 2012)
* Raisel Iglesias (0.59 in 2017)
* Tony Fossas (0.66 in 1995)
* Orlando Pena (0.75 in 1974)
* Yoan Lopez (0.86 in 2019)
* Jose Ariel Contreras (1.23 in 2010)
Yadier Molina, “The Martian”
the puerto rican Yadier Molina He has played 19 seasons in the Major Leagues, has won ten Gold Gloves and four Platinum Gloves, which clearly tells us that he has been an elite defender, probably the best catcher of all time in baseball.
“El Marciano”, as they call him, has been the leader in average caught stealing four times and, in his career, has accumulated a spectacular 40% of runners caught in fraud attempts (373 of 906). Without a doubt, we cannot remain indifferent to the defensive excellence of Molina, who has spent his entire life in the Cardinals jersey.
Of course, we have not put his name on the table for no reason. This week, Yadier Molina became the receiver with the most out has achieved in history, surpassing in the count another stellar son of Puerto Rican lands: Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.
Last Tuesday, June 14, in the duel between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, Molina led the historical list with 14,865 out as a receiver, leaving behind “Pudge”, author of 14,864 outs in 21 seasons of work in MLB. Much more relegated are Jason Kendall (13,019), Brad Ausmus (12,839) and AJ Pierzynski (12,600), who complete the Top-5 of all time.
With the road ahead for the remainder of the campaign, Molina is going to set the bar too high for his pursuers, who will surely take years to reach the number of out Puerto Rican, postulated as the first “Martian” with direct passage to Cooperstown.
