THREE S’s

Hello Fans,

We’ve seen a ton of great action this year with the arrival of a new wave of super youngSTARS (Trout, McCutchen, and Stanton) and great individual perforMANces.  With forty games left to play in the 2012 regular season, barring some crazy prospects of a regular season ‘playoff’ to determine the actual playoff teams, let’s take a look at some of the biggest stunners, shockers, and surprises at the three-quarter mark.

STUNNERS:  Free agent to be Josh Hamilton goes 5 for 5 in Baltimore on May 8th after taking batting practice in the tunnels due to inclement weather.  He slams four bombs and a double for Texas to set the A.L. single game total base record at 18 as he single handedly beat the O’s 10 to 3…..Ichiro Suzuki is traded to the Yankees on July 23rd after a road trip with the Mariners and the future first-ballot HOFer plays right field in his Yank debut at Safeco Field, in Seattle’s away dugout…..It’s always a stunning display when someone throws a no-hitter and especially a perfect game.  Don’t buy into the mainstream media who push the fact that they are becoming common place.  23 Perfectos have been thrown.  Ever.  Yeah we were (are) spoiled this year with three, after Felix Hernandez’ last week, making this the first season with three perfects, in addition to three ‘regular’ no-no’s, but considering that around 180,000 games have been played in MLB history, that doesn’t look too ‘common’ to me.  Just sit back and enjoy the rich era as it could be a while before we see another.

SHOCKERS: The season to date put together by Cincinnati closer Aroldis Chapman.  The flame-throwing left-hander has fans of all kinds saying such things as, “You don’t see many lefties throwing that hard.”  What a right-handed world it really is folks.  That’s becasuse you don’t see many any-bodies throwing 101+ M.P.H. for an inning at a time a couple of nights per week.  In addition to that serious gas can, he has a 1.35 ERA, a 0.72 WHIP, 110 K’s, and is averaging a RIDICULOUS-SHMICULOUS 16.5 K’s per 9 innings!  (Stephen Strasburg averages 11.2 per 9.)  Sick.  Just sick.  Watch the Reds.  That’s all I can say…..Speaking of Strasburg, he may get shut down due to an innings limit in the range of 160 to 180 a year after Tommy John surgery.  Well, Tommy John made 31 starts and threw 207 innings when he came back from the same ulnar collateral ligament elbow surgery.  They named the surgery after him because no one knew if it would be successful and it was.  So if they do shut him down, that will take the cake as the season’s biggest shocker as Washington looks tough all the way with Strasburg and looks like an average playoff team without him.  Either way, Strasburg will probably LOSE the N.L. Strikeout title to, can you believe it, R.A. Dickey, the best knuckleballer since, well maybe ever.  Dickey leads Strasburg 181 K’s to 173.

SURPRISES: Nobody signs Ivan Rodriguez even afer Spring Training and the 14 time All-Star backstop officially retires on April 23rd after having caught the most games in history…..Joe Mauer is quietly hitting .318 (good for 4th in the A.L.) with an .851 OPS and already has over 400 at-bats.  What a most pleasant surprise to see the healthy return of one of MLB’s good guys and great talents after a couple years of nagging injuries…..35 year-old White Sox signal caller A.J. Pierzynski is hitting .289 with 23 HRs and 68 RBI and somehow also has three triples and caught Philip Humber’s perfect game in April…..And while I’m at it, Buster Posey is back in full force and hitting a whopping .328 with a .945 OPS for the Giants and has 19 dingers and 77 ribs to boot.  Plus, he called every pitch of Matt Cain’s perfect game.  Now THAT’S a comeback!

Perhaps 2012 is the Year of the Masked Man.

Later Fans.