It’s not very common for mentors to give their players the mission of discussing the rules before starting a game, but last Sunday Dusty Baker (Houston) and Charlie Montoyo (Toronto) made an exception and let the Gurriel brothers go out and exchange lineups with referee Néstor Ceja.
Without much protocol, Lourdes Jr. and Yulieski They walked to the plate at the Rogers Center in Toronto and took the places of their respective mentors, who wanted to have a courtesy with the brothers, since they will no longer see each other for the rest of the season.
A week earlier, but at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Yulieski received his Gold Glove as the best first baseman of the 2021 season and his brother Lourdes Jr. was also on the field to accompany him in another ceremony with a lot of symbolic value.
After these encounters, the Gurriel have crossed arms in the diamond and they did not do badly in their face to face. Lourdes Jr. posted a pair of doubles, a home run and four RBIs against Houston this season, posting a .318/.360/.546 slash line, while Yulieski had eight hits and drove in three runs against the Toronto shooters .
By the way, four of Yulieski’s eight rockets against the Canadian franchise were doubles, a department that he commands in the Major Leagues along with Matt Olson, both with 11. With this production, the most mediatic of the Gurriel brothers is getting closer and closer to the mythical figure of a thousand extra-base hits for life, which has only been reached by Rafael Palmeiro, Tany Pérez, José Canseco and Orestes Miñoso, adding their careers in various professional circuits and in the Minor Leagues.
Yadiel Hernández defies modern logic
Sometimes it takes a bit of work to understand the strategies of modern baseball. The matanzaro must be thinking the same thing Jadiel Hernandezwho this Friday night was left on the bench for the Washington Nationals despite being the player with the most hits (12), the one with the best average (.545) and the seventh with the highest OPS (1,293) in all the Major Leagues since last Saturday, April 30.
The West Indian slugger was not even called up in a game that his team lost 3-0 against the Angels, with only four hits and no runs. The decision, as we said, is surprising and, at first glance, lacks logic. Not even the argument of the duel against a left-hander has much value, because Yadiel, between 2021 and 2022, bats .323/.370/.527 against pitchers with the so-called wrong hand, against whom he has achieved five home runs, ten extra-base hits and 18 RBIs in 100 appearances.
In addition, the yumurino is immersed in the best streak of his short MLB career, with five consecutive duels of two or more uncatchable. That chain is the second best in history for a Cuban player over 34 years old, only surpassed by the six straight clashes with two or more hits that Yulieski Gurriel achieved in September 2018.
Yadiel’s explosion with the wood began on April 30 in San Francisco, where he connected with two hits, a double and went through the register once. However, his best match was the next day: three rockets, two tubeyes, two scored and five RBIs.
The last time a Cuban achieved such a performance was six years ago (Kendrys Morales with Kansas), and in general it has happened very rarely.
* Cookie Rojas on July 5, 1973 (three hits, three runs scored, two doubles and five RBIs)
* Kendrys Morales on August 28, 2009 (five hits, two runs scored, two doubles and six RBIs)
* Alexei Ramírez on May 22, 2011 (four hits, two runs scored, two doubles and five RBIs)
* Yunel Escobar on August 29, 2012 (four hits, two runs scored, three doubles and five RBIs)
* Kendrys Morales June 16, 2016 (four hits, four runs scored, two doubles and five RBIs)
As a curious detail on this list, Yadiel is the oldest to achieve a match of these characteristics, at 34 years and 204 days, slightly surpassing Cookie Rojas (34 years and 121 days), the only one who had achieved it after his 34th birthday.
We return to the beginning; It’s hard to understand the strategies of modern baseball. With the level that he had been showing, leaving Yadiel Hernández on the bench without notification of injury or discomfort does not seem to be a correct move by the Nats. We’ll see when he comes back and if this sudden stop doesn’t affect his lethal offensive pace.
Abreu, again on May 4!
About two years ago, when the pandemic started, Jose Dariel Abreu It was not long before he reached the 200 major league home runs, so I decided to investigate the insides of the full return hits that the “Bad Weather Phenomenon” had hit since he signed with the White Sox. It was then that I discovered the spectacular streak that the man from Cienfuegos had been weaving every May 4…
May 4, 2014: Home run by Abreu vs. Corey Kluber (Cleveland).
May 4, 2015: Abreu and the White Sox have a day off.
May 4, 2016: Home run by Abreu vs. Clay Bucholz (Red Sox).
May 4, 2017: Home run by Abreu vs. Ian Kennedy (Royals).
May 4, 2018: Abreu home run vs. Jose Berrios (Twins).
May 4, 2019: Home run by Abreu vs. Tyler Thornburgh (Red Sox).
Unfortunately, in 2020 he did not have the opportunity to continue with the challenge because the season was delayed until the summer and there were no games in May, but when we entered 2021, already with Abreu as the brand new American League MVP, he returned to happen. On May 4, 2021, Abreu homered Jeff Hoffman (Reds) and extended his home run string to six years on this date. Surreal!
Already with such precedents, it is logical that last Wednesday -May 4, 2022- we were waiting with Abreu, who did not contribute to the suspense, because in his first turn of the Chicago classic between the Cubs and White Sox, the ball disappeared through left field off Kyle Hendricks’ submissions.
Abreu’s shot went 98.6 miles and traveled 364 feet to go over the fences of the old Wrigley Field, covered with dry grass at this time of year. This was his eighth home run at the home of his Chicago neighbors, whom he has punished at his home since making his MLB debut eight years ago. In that span, he has led them in 16 touchdowns in 21 games, with a high OPS of 1.009.
So far, this has been the highlight for the southerner in the 2022 campaign, which has started below his potential. Only three home runs and eight RBIs adds up to more than 100 trips to the plate, with an offensive line of .229 / .326 / .373, perhaps the worst numbers of his career at the start of a season.
Yordan Álvarez, at a historical rhythm
ESPN projections place Yordan Álvarez with the possibility of reaching 48 home runs in the 2022 season, a figure that would equal the best record for Cuban baseball players in history, held by Jorge Soler since 2019. The Houston player from Las Tunas has started the campaign at full speed, with eight home runs in his first 22 games.
But we won’t talk about Yordan’s home runs right now, we’ll spend more time on that topic in the coming weeks. In this meeting we are going to focus on the rhythm of RBIs that the West Indian has established during his first seasons in MLB, where he already has 201 RBIs since his debut in 2019.
This week, Álvarez reached the closed figure of 200 RBIs, a figure that may seem insignificant, except for the fact that he has achieved it faster than any other Cuban in history. As you read it, neither Rafael Palmeiro, nor José Canseco, nor Tany Pérez, nor Tony Oliva, nor José Abreu, nor Orestes Miñoso, no one from the Antillean army in MLB managed to boost so much in the initial stages of their careers.
Yordan reached 200 RBIs in 252 games, much earlier than Canseco (283) and Abreu (285), the others who completed the mark before 300 games. The Top-10 of the Cuban players who have reached 200 RBIs the fastest is completed by Yoennis Céspedes (319), Tony Oliva (329), Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (340), Kendrys Morales (350), Yulieski Gurriel (368), Tany Pérez (384) and Jorge Soler (405).
As if that were not enough, Álvarez is also the fastest Astros player to reach 200 RBIs. The Cuban broke the record of Lance Berkman, who got the mark in 291 games, and he did it in almost 100 games less than star Jeff Bagwell, the last Houston player who has entered the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
If we include in the comparison the generation that has put the Astros in five straight AL Finals from 2017 to date, Yordan is also superior. For example, Carlos Correa needed 301 games to get 200 RBIs, followed by Alex Bregman (341), George Springer (387) and José Altuve (599).
This is not a conclusive clue, but it is quite clear that we are facing a player who can mark an era and become, perhaps, the best Cuban hitter in the history of the Majors.
Cionel Pérez makes the cross
Cuban left-hander Cionel Pérez got his first victory of 2022 this week and the third of his career in the Majors. With the jersey of the Baltimores Orioles, the man from Matanzas scored the success against Minnesota after working two innings without allowing annotations, with a hit, a walk and a strikeout in his account.
Cionel relied mainly on his fastballs around 95 miles and the contrast with his 83 slider. Those have been his speed averages this season, in which he has had a slight increase with his slider compared to recent years.
But the most relevant data of Cionel at the moment is his chain of 12 consecutive games without allowing runs, adding the last two games of last season and the ten of the current course. This active streak is the sixth-longest in the Major Leagues, trailing only Josh Hader (), Michael Fulmer (), Louis Head (16), Taylor Rogers (15), and Aroldis Chapman (14), and tied with Ryan Helsey (Cardinals- 12) and Clay Holmes (Yankees-12).
Plus, this represents his most dominant run since making his MLB debut in 2018. Previously, Cionel had a short five-game shutout streak between 2019 and 2020, but he hadn’t come close to his current performance.
Another “Cuban Missile” in the Minors
The idea of our space is to talk about the Major Leagues, but we need to be attentive to the performance of the vast Cuban army in the Minors, because at any moment a player from those circuits could ascend to the Big Show.
One of the best placed to achieve that goal is Avilanian reliever Yennier Cano, who has been indecipherable with the St. Paul Saints, the AAA branch of the Minnesota Twins. In 11 innings of work, the speedy right-hander has not allowed earned runs, has one save, one win, 12 strikeouts and his average men on base per inning (WHIP) is 0.818.
Cano seems to be ready to make the final leap to the Majors, much more so now he has made an impact with his arsenal of slider, sinker and a powerful fastball that is around 99 miles, added to the fact that the Twins have problems in their bullpen, to the point that they are the sixth-worst team in saves this season.
At 28, the right-hander is waiting for an opportunity after a long road to reach professional baseball in the United States. Cano requested his departure from the Cuban sports movement after the 55th National Series and, after various setbacks and periods of uncertainty, settled in Argentina and then made the leap to the United States to sign with Minnesota in June 2019.
