Category Archives: Kenley Jansen

For Dodgers, Friday the 13th Just As Terrifying As You’d Expect it To Be

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On Friday the 13th, it was a cold, dreary, rainy night in Southern California, enough so that there was a real question about whether we’d see the first Dodger Stadium rainout in twelve years. With that kind of backdrop, you had to expect that we’d see something bizarre and… oh, you better believe that we did. And then some.

Here’s how out of control this game got, okay? This was my original opening paragraph:

Aaron Harang allowed a leadoff single to Cameron Maybin, and then proceeded to strike out each of the next nine batters. Aaron Effing Harang! The nine consecutive strikeouts topped Johnny Podres’ eight to set a new Dodger record and fell one short of tying Tom Seaver’s ten in a row for the big league record. Podres won some of the biggest games in franchise history. Seaver was a no-doubter Hall of Famer. Aaron Harang is Aaron Harang. Can’t predict baseball, indeed. Harang was touched in the fourth for three runs, including a Will Venable homer which broke the streak, but came back to whiff four more to tie his career high with 13 in his 6 1/3 innings of work. After a disappointing debut as a Dodger in the only loss of the season so far, it was an amazing turnaround for the veteran Harang.

Yet with everything that came after, that already feels like it was weeks ago, does it not?

Anyway, the Dodger offense would get itself going in the bottom of the third, thanks to the hustle of the law firm of Ellis & Ellis. With two outs, Justin Sellers at third, and A.J. Ellis at second, Mark Ellis bounced to second baseman Orlando Hudson. Though a tough play, it was a makable one, but Ellis flew down the line to beat the throw. That alone prevented the inning from ending as Sellers scored easily, but unbeknownst to everyone except third base coach Tim Wallach, A.J. Ellis never stopped running hard and scored from second on the infield hit, narrowing beating the throw from Yonder Alonso. After walks to Matt Kemp & Juan Rivera, Andre Ethier sent a broken-bat flare to center to score two, meaning the Dodgers had scored four runs in the inning on two hits that combined went about 150 feet.

Of course, none of that would have happened if not for Padre shortstop Jason Bartlett botching A.J. Ellis‘ grounder in the first place, which might have led to a scoreless inning since both of the two batters behind him made outs, and it’s here where we really have to point out just how atrociously bad the Padres have looked. They’ve committed the most errors in baseball – as this sequence shows, even one can lead to huge problems – and not to take anything away from Harang, but while he was obviously very good, he was hardly showing Stephen Strasburg-level stuff out there. As Eric Stephen noted, the Dodgers have scored six unearned runs off Clayton Richard alone this season, which is just absurd. If the Dodgers might be better than we thought – and it looks like they might be – the Padres also look like they’re going to be really, really bad this year. Everyone keeps saying things like, “oh, I wish the Dodgers could just play the Padres & Pirates all season;” I’m almost ready to say the opposite, because now I want to know how this club measures up against some real competition.

The Dodgers doubled their offense in the 4th on run-scoring hits by A.J. Ellis & Tony Gwynn before Matt Kemp blasted a massive homer, his third of the season. Though it seemed like gravy at the time, it became crucial once Todd Coffey & Scott Elbert tried to pitch the top of the seventh with both hands around their necks, slicing the lead to two. Josh Lindblom, proving once again how much he belongs on this team, pitched a scoreless eighth, before Kenley Jansen calmly shut down the Padres (with Javy Guerra unavailable) for his first save of the year…

…which is what I had written and ready to publish before Jansen had to go and give up a game-tying dinger to Chase Headley. We can talk about Jansen separately – though I have to admit I was somewhat shocked by the amount of vitriol towards him on Twitter, because how in the hell can you be anti-Jansen right now? – but he managed to escape with the tie intact.

In the bottom of the 9th, the Pads brought in their own flamethrower, Andrew Cashner. Dee Gordon, hitting for Jansen, struck out. Gwynn grounded out, leaving the Dodgers with two out and none on.

And then Cashner fell apart. Mark Ellis walked. Kemp walked, his third of the game (and the season). Even  James Loney walked, and James Loney is awful. With the bases loaded, Bud Black brought in lefty Joe Thatcher to face Andre Ethier.

Four pitches later, SHRIMP. And the Dodgers, improbably, are 7-1. What I would have given to have heard Vin Scully call what had to have been one of the most memorable games in years.

Oh, and Jansen got the win. Not Harang. Not Lindblom. Jansen. He’s 2-0. Wins are stupid.

******

But back to A.J. Ellis for a second. When he came to the plate in the fourth inning, I could hear through the PA system that his walkup song was off the new Foo Fighters record, which I totally dig. That alone was cool enough, because most guys come out to one of the same five indistinguishable hip-hop songs. Then I realized exactly which Foo Fighters song it was…

It’s called “Walk”. Of course it is. I love this man, and I was going to post this bit even before we saw how the game eventually ended.

MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Relievers, Part 4

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Kenley Jansen (K+)
2.85 ERA, 1.74 FIP, 16.10 K/9, 4.36 BB/9

Let’s start with the obvious: that 16.10 K/9 isn’t a typo. At 23, Jansen set a new MLB record for the highest K/9 rate ever, minimum 50 innings pitched. For someone in just his second full year of pitching after being converted from catching, that’s simply stunning.

Of course, there’s a lot more to Jansen’s year than simply whiffing every batter he saw, especially when it started out so poorly in his season debut:

Particularly troubling was Jansen’s disastrous sixth inning. After issuing a walk to Brandon Belt, his outing went RBI double, popout, walk, single (which could have easily been an error on Aaron Miles), RBI single, RBI single, strikeout, strikeout. It took him 42 pitches to get three outs, and he walks away with an ERA of 54. As I noted on Twitter at the time, because relievers generally don’t throw a ton of innings, it’ll take him weeks – if not months – to get that ERA down to a more palatable number, so even if he’s totally perfect from here on out, people will still see that high ERA on their TV graphics and think that he’s lousy. Hooray, ineffective statistics!

That’s exactly what happened, because thanks to that game and another disaster on April 19, Jansen’s ERA didn’t sink below 5 until July. Despite that, he still had a 22/8 K/BB in 13.1 innings through the first month of the season, making his demotion to the minors on May 1 somewhat shocking:

Since allowing four earned runs to the Giants on April 2, Jansen’s pitched in 12.1 innings over 10 games. In that time, he’s struck out 20 against 6 walks, allowing a line of .196/.288/.391. He did have a meltdown on April 19 against the Braves, giving up five earned runs in the 9th inning of a game that the Dodgers were already losing, but has been excellent in the three games since: 9 strikeouts and 2 walks in 4.2 innings, without a hit.

Yet Lance Cormier, who’s pitched just once in the last two weeks, and only once has made it through an appearance without giving up a run, remains. I assume that this falls under Ned Colletti’s usual m.o. of keeping control over as many players as possible, and I guess it’s not the worst thing in the world for Jansen to get more experience in a lower-pressure environment, but with the bullpen struggling as much as it has been, it certainly seems like an odd choice to send down the guy who’s striking out 14.85 men per nine innings. That’s the highest rate of anyone in baseball this year with at least 13 innings pitched, and it’s the 8th best seasonal rate in major league history (obviously, in a tiny sample size).

Jansen will be back soon, and Cormier, most likely, won’t be. So this isn’t a fatal, crushing mistake. It’s just an unexpected choice to look at your bullpen full of guys who don’t miss bats – like Matt Guerrier, Cormier, and lately Jonathan Broxton – and send down the one guy who really does.

It seemed like an odd choice at the time, and knowing what we do now about Cormier, looks even worse in retrospect. Of course, it lasted just five days, as Jansen was forced to return on May 6 when Hong-Chih Kuo went on the disabled list. He didn’t allow a run in his first seven outings of the month, but then he allowed three runs while blowing a save in Houston in what might have been the lowest point of the season on May 23. After another tough outing against Florida five days later, he was placed on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation.

To that point in the season, Jansen had a 6.43 ERA thanks to three disaster games, had been optioned out once and was now dealing with arm soreness. Though he’d clearly shown flashes of what he could do (35 K in 21 IP), he hadn’t quite been able to put it all together, inconsistency that we chalked up to his inexperience on the mound. That may have been so, but everything changed when he returned to the club on June 18. In 16 innings from then until the end of July, Jansen was basically unhittable, striking out 26 while allowing just three singles to the 58 batters he faced.

But after closing out a game against Colorado on July 26, we received the harrowing news that Jansen had been sent to a local hospital thanks to an irregular heartbeat; three days later, he was on the disabled list and taking blood thinners. While we initially worried about the impact this could have on his life outside of baseball, he was back with the team a month later and picked up right where he left off: in 16.2 innings after August 26, he struck out 35 of the 62 batters he faced, allowing just seven hits. Over the rest of the season after returning from his shoulder soreness on June 18, he had a 61/12 K/BB while holding opponents to a miniscule .094/.192/.104 line while becoming the team’s primary setup man.

Before the season, Jansen noted that he was doing his best to imitate his idol Mariano Rivera. It wasn’t always smooth, but Jansen arguably had a more dominating season than the great Rivera has ever had. Just 24 next season and still learning how to pitch, there’s few words for Jansen’s ascent to stardom, though there’s still a feeling that this story is one that isn’t receiving the national attention it deserves, mainly because Jansen wasn’t given the chance to rack up the saves that a contemporary like Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel has. Though Javy Guerra is almost certain to start 2012 as the closer, he’ll have to be on his game from the start to hold off Jansen.

Hong-Chih Kuo (F)
9.00 ERA, 5.06 FIP, 12.00 K/9, 7.67 BB/9

If you could have paired 2010 Kuo with 2011 Jansen, the Dodgers might have had the most dominating left/right combo in baseball history, and if you don’t buy that, just go back and remember how great Kuo was in 2010. Unfortunately, Kuo never got untracked, sidetracked by issues both physical and emotional.

It was clear that Kuo wasn’t right straight from the start, as he walked four in his first 2.2 innings and just didn’t look right doing it. On April 16, he was placed on the disabled list with back soreness, which at least allowed us the small relief of not having to worry about his arm again. (For the moment, anyway.) He returned on May 1, but after he’d struggled in his minor league rehab outings, I worried that it was too soon:

Though Blake Hawksworth was solid in contributing two scoreless innings, much more disturbing was Hong-Chih Kuo‘s seemingly premature return from the disabled list. Kuo threw 25 pitches, but just 14 for strikes while allowing four men to reach in a 9th inning he couldn’t complete. His velocity was in the low 90s, but his control was all over the place; he was finally yanked after hitting Will Venable with a big, looping curveball, one of several breaking pitches he had no command of. Mike MacDougal followed by allowing a run to score on a sacrifice fly, and two more on a Chase Headley double.

Kuo lasted just four more games before leaving the team again on May 11, a move which at the time was mostly notable for the shroud of mystery it was wrapped in, as no one associated with the team was able to publicly state the reason. We later found out that it was due to “anxiety issues”, or a relapse of the “yips” which had previously plagued him.

Kuo missed about six weeks, returning in late June, and the results were mixed; particularly troubling was a five-game stretch in late July and early August where he allowed nine earned runs while walking eight. He improved, though, slowly, since over the last two months he had an 18/7 K/BB while allowing only a .178/.302/.333 line. Unfortunately, any positive feelings that might have allowed him to carry over into 2012 disappeared when we learned the disappointing news that he would need yet another surgery on his left elbow, his fifth total.

Despite reports that Kuo may considering retirement, his agent insists that he’ll attempt to return to MLB in 2012. The surgery makes him an almost certain non-tender, shocking to think just a year after his phenomenal 2010, though that might actually make him more likely to return to the Dodgers, if his familiarity with the team’s medical staff makes him more amenable to coming back on a low guaranteed salary. I hope he does, but regardless of where he lands, I think we all just hope he can finally stay happy and healthy, after everything he’s been through.

Lance Cormier (F-)
9.88 ERA, 6.90 FIP, 4.61 K/9, 3.29 BB/9

If you’re wondering why Cormier’s card clearly displays one of the staged pictures from spring training photo day rather than game action like everyone else, it’s because Cormier was hardly ever allowed to even pitch. When he was signed, we had incredibly low expectations…

Getting back to Lance Cormier, an initial look at his baseball-reference page shows that maybe this guy isn’t so bad, as he pitched in at least 45 games in each of the last three years, with ERA of 4.02, 3.26, and 3.92. That could be useful, right?

But then I look over to the right column, and see that he’s walked less than 4.3 per 9 exactly once in his career, and for a guy who doesn’t strike out all that many, that seems brutal. It was even worse in 2010, since he actually walked more (4.9/9) than he struck out (4.4/9). Not good.

The brain doesn’t stop there, though. Seeing that K/BB mark made me think that, “hey, didn’t I write about this guy already?” Indeed I did, back on December 3, when I was looking at the players who were non-tendered by other teams:

Cormier comes up because he had a 3.92 ERA this year. He also had a 1.648 WHIP and walked four more guys than he struck out. Uh, no thanks. PASS.

Yep. Gross.

…and he still managed to under-perform them. Cormier pitched in just nine games as a Dodger, allowing earned runs in seven of them. Looking at his game log, it was clear that Don Mattingly had zero confidence in him, since he was only allowed to enter games that were completely out of hand. Only once did Cormier get a chance to pitch in a game that had anything on the line, on May 19 against the Giants after the Dodgers had come back from a 4-0 deficit to tie. Yeah, about that…

Having exhausted all his pitchers, Don Mattingly was forced to use his “break glass in case of emergency” pitcher, Lance Cormier in a tie game in the 9th. Even before this game, Cormier had been completely putrid, but at least he’d done so in the lowest of low-leverage situations. Of the seven games he’d entered before yesterday, only one ended up being even as close as a four run game. I will absolutely support Tony Jackson’s premise that Cormier’s extremely rare usage (he hadn’t pitched in eight days, and just twice since April 22 – nearly a month) contributed to his poor performance last night, but that doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t gotten the job done all season. Predictably, Cormier couldn’t get through the inning when it actually mattered, allowing two singles before a three-run blast by Cody Ross put the game away.

Honestly, the fact that Cormier lasted as long as he did counts as some sort of minor miracle, though he’ll at least be the answer to a fun trivia question: who was cut loose to make room for Rubby De La Rosa? After returning to Tampa’s AAA club, the results weren’t much better, allowing 62 hits in 47.1 innings. I think I’ll be pretty happy if this is the last time I ever have to think about Lance Cormier existing on this planet.

******

Next! Don Mattingly overcomes our doubts! Ned Colletti, doing Ned Colletti things! It’s the final review of 2011: management!

Youth In the Bullpen Is Still the Way to Go

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I hate to ever, ever use T.J. Simers as a source for anything – hell, in the same column we’re about to discuss, he says he’d choose Ian Kennedy over Clayton Kershaw for the Cy Young because “without Kennedy the Diamondbacks don’t win the division”, as though A) that makes sense or B) Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay don’t exist – but the LA Times‘ resident clownshoe did manage to elicit an interesting quote out of Ned Colletti yesterday:

He’s hoping Hiroki Kuroda returns and will look to add a veteran to the bullpen, “but not a closer,” he says. “I think we’ll go with a combination of Kenley Jensen [sic] and Javy Guerra.”

For such a short sentence, there’s a whole lot going on there, and I’m not talking about Kuroda. Let’s take the second part first, where he says they’ll stick with Guerra and Kenley Jansen (not that Simers knows who that is) in the back of the bullpen. This is unquestionably the correct decision, because Jansen has been one of the most dominating relievers we’ve seen in years – decades, perhaps – and Guerra, for all of our uncertainty about his underwhelming peripherals, has consistently gotten the job done as the closer. While Jansen fits the prototypical mold of the fireballing closer more than Guerra, I agree with Jon Weisman that using him as the fireman in the highest leverage situations is a much better use of his time than shoehorning him into the 9th inning because that’s simply what closers do, which is often not when the game is won or lost. Going out and spending big dollars on a closer just because he has “saves”, like Francisco Rodriguez, Matt Capps, or Heath Bell, is not the most efficient usage of money when you have Jansen and Guerra, and good on Colletti for recognizing that.

If that was the end of the story, we’d be sitting pretty, but unfortunately, Colletti had to add that he wants to add a veteran to the bullpen, and that’s where the problems begin. We’ve talked ad nauseum around here about the unfortunate Matt Guerrier contract and how handing out multi-year contracts to decent-ish middle relievers rarely works (particularly when, as shown in that last link, better veteran relievers were signed for less money last winter).

It’s not even that Guerrier has been bad this year, because he hasn’t, just that there’s almost no way he lives up to the money committed to him, as Chad Moriyama broke down a few weeks ago:

Guerrier was the big money free agent signing, and he was actually decently productive in 2011. Unfortunately, the only reason he clocks in at positive value is because of the deferred nature of his overall contract (4 Y/12 M), so he’ll have to get better in a hurry if he wants to continue breaking even. The more likely scenario is that it ends up being a neutral to poor overall transaction.

-

Over the course of the 2011 season, the Dodgers relief corps has proved that bullpen arms are indeed a fickle and fungible group, with production to be found from a multitude of sources, and that the most value out of the pen is commonly derived from those making the least. Sticking with cheap team controlled building blocks in the bullpen can be highly effective, and the money used to sign costly relievers can frequently be better used elsewhere.

This is especially true because relief pitching is one of the few areas that the Dodgers are relatively deep in as far as young arms on the way up. In addition to Jansen, Guerra, Guerrier, Scott Elbert, & Josh Lindblom, all proven at the big league level (we’ll have to get back to whether Hong-Chih Kuo gets tendered a contract another time), the organization is full of nearly-ready names like Shawn Tolleson, Steven Ames, & Cole St. Clair, moderately useful filler like Blake Hawksworth (if tendered) and Jon Link, plus who among us doesn’t believe that Mike MacDougal and his shiny ERA will be back? That’s a pretty full bullpen right there, and it’s not like this team doesn’t have a dozen other holes to fill in the upcoming offseason.

Now, if signing a veteran bullpen arm means another scrap-heap type like MacDougal, then fine, since for all his warts he made just $500,000 this year. Colletti does seem to be able to find at least one arm like that every year. If it means handing out another multi-year deal to one of the members of this year’s non-elite reliever free agent class – I’m looking at you, Jon Rauch, Mike Gonzalez, Jason Frasor and Chad Qualls – then we could be in trouble.

Dee Gordon Makes His Case

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When Dee Gordon was recalled in June, most of us were torn between “wow, Dee Gordon! This will be exciting!” and “this is far too soon, right?” In 30 games (26 starts) over the next two months sandwiched around a demotion and an injury , Gordon didn’t do much to change that impression, hitting just .234/.248/.270, yet providing a season’s worth of highlight-reel plays.

When Gordon returned on September 1 in the Pittsburgh makeup game, he had two hits, including a double. He had three the next day in Atlanta, a double the next night despite not getting into the game until the eighth inning, and three more in the final game against the Braves. After an ugly 0-5 on Monday in Washington, Gordon had three more hits on Tuesday – including a double against Stephen Strasburg that almost no one else in baseball could have stretched to two – and then a career-high four on Thursday afternoon. Since his return from the disabled list, Gordon is 16-31 with four doubles, and showing the usual combo of fantastic plays and botched easy plays on defense.

It’s not all gravy, of course; Gordon has drawn just two walks in 145 plate appearances. (Sidebar: let’s assume Gordon gets something like 200 plate appearances this season; only seven players since MLB integrated had that many PA without drawing more than two unintentional walks.) It’s pretty hard to have an acceptable slash line when you’re not drawing any walks, and his BABIP of 8.123 (may be slightly exaggerated) over that span isn’t likely to keep up.

All of which is a long way of saying that A) Gordon’s success has been really fun to watch this week, B) clearly he’s not going to keep it up, and C) most importantly, I think that as long as he stays healthy, there’s little chance the Dodgers won’t hand him the fulltime shortstop job headed into 2012. Why wouldn’t they? They’re not going to play Justin Sellers every day, and they already have at least two – possibly three – infield question marks.

On Twitter, realizing this, I offhandedly said, with little thought or research, to Eric Stephen of TrueBlueLA that given 500 plate appearances in 2012, Gordon’s line might look something like .275/.310/.340 with 38 steals and 31 errors. In retrospect, the steals might be too low, but considering that I saw replies from people both calling me far too optimistic and insisting he’d hit .300, I think that’s about in the sweet spot. Too high? Too low? Let’s hear your guesses.

******

Kenley Jansen, since returning from shoulder inflammation on June 18: 40 strikeouts, 10 walks, one earned run allowed, and five hits allowed (all singles) in 86 batters faced. Uh, yes please. The lack of attention he’s receiving is bordering on criminal.

******

Have fun this weekend, particularly with Clayton Kershaw looking to continue his run of domination against the Giants on Friday. (Remember what happened when he faced them in May? We bagged on Don Mattingly for choosing Juan Castro over Jerry Sands, Russ Mitchell, and Tony Gwynn to pinch-hit for Kershaw with the bases loaded, thus leading to Lance Cormier being asked to blow a tie game. Which he did. Ahhh, good times.) I’m off on a boat to an island. Chew on that for a while. See you Monday.

Kershaw, Kemp & Kenley Lead the Way

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Clayton Kershaw went 6.2 solid innings while setting a career high in pitches, and the Dodger offense finally touched Jhoulys Chacin thanks in part to some shoddy Colorado defense, but that’s not what I’m interested in tonight.

A few days ago, I tweeted that I wasn’t quite sure why Kenley Jansen was setting up for Javy Guerra, rather than vice-versa. It was sort of an off-hand remark more than anything serious, because to be honest it doesn’t really matter at this point, and Jon Weisman accurately captured the feeling that Guerra’s success has been welcome, but not totally convincing.

It was less about Guerra than Jansen, of course, because the level of domination we’ve seen from Jansen since his return from the disabled list in June has been a severely under-reported positive note of the Dodger season; if I’d had a few extra minutes today, I’d planned to write about him before the game. I wish I’d had, because with Guerra sidelined after having pitched three days in a row, Jansen was the fill-in closer tonight; seven pitches and two strikeouts later, his legend is starting to grow.

Quickly, the facts: since returning from injury, Jansen has pitched 16 scoreless innings spanning 14 games. In that time, he’s whiffed 26 against 7 walks and 3 singles. Think about that; he’s striking out nearly half the batters he’s seeing, he’s cutting down on the walks, and he’s been all but unhittable. Remember how great we thought his K/9 rate was last season? Yeah, it’s better this year; if he keeps it up, he’ll have one of the five or six best seasons in history by that metric.

Yet he seemingly hasn’t earned the respect he deserves, and I think I know why. In his first appearance of the season, he gave up four earned runs in a game the Dodgers would lose to San Francisco 10-0. Later in April, he gave up five earned runs to Atlanta, as the Dodgers lost 10-1. Despite ripping off ten consecutive scoreless innings after that, his ERA was still north of 5 through the end of May, when he was hit hard again just before being shelved with shoulder inflammation. Even now, 16 scoreless innings later, his ERA is still just 3.65, which is hardly eye-catching. The point, as you’ve surely gleaned by now, is not just that ERA for relievers is wildly unreliable due to the small sample sizes, but that people tend to gravitate to the shiny numbers they see on their TV screen – and that first impressions are far too important. If Jansen had the exact same season numbers he does now, but had been great early and hit hard more recently, I guarantee you the perception of him would be a little different.

For now, the situation is fine. Often, we know that it’s better to have your best relievers available for tougher situations before the 9th. If Guerra continues to get the job done, even when it’s not pretty, there’s really no reason to rock the boat this season to make a switch. It’s not Guerra who’s the closer of the future, though. It’s Jansen.

******

So here’s a thing, and while this is going to come off as being negative towards Jamey Carroll, it’s not intended to be. I like Jamey Carroll; I’ll be sad when he’s gone, whether that’s in three days or three months, and I need not remind you that Carroll’s job is not to drive in runs and that RBI are generally incredibly meaningless.

That said, when I stumble upon a statistical oddity like this, how can I not share it? Carroll is on pace to be one of the most ineffective hitters at driving in runs, well, ever.

Rk Player RBI PA Year Age Tm H 2B 3B HR BA OBP SLG OPS
1 Dick Howser 6 377 1965 29 CLE 72 8 2 1 .235 .354 .283 .638
2 Jamey Carroll 8 337 2011 37 LAD 86 12 4 0 .288 .360 .355 .715
3 Wayne Tolleson 9 378 1984 28 TEX 72 9 2 0 .213 .276 .251 .528
4 Elliott Maddox 10 349 1972 24 TEX 74 7 2 0 .252 .361 .289 .650
5 Don Mason 11 377 1971 26 SDP 73 12 1 2 .212 .270 .270 .540
6 Danny Murtaugh 11 375 1941 23 PHI 76 8 1 0 .219 .275 .248 .523
7 Charlie Jamieson 11 473 1918 25 PHA 84 11 2 0 .202 .297 .238 .535
8 Roy Thomas 11 339 1909 35 BSN 74 9 1 0 .263 .369 .302 .671
9 Al Burch 11 381 1906 22 STL 89 5 1 0 .266 .339 .287 .625
10 John Shelby 12 371 1989 31 LAD 63 11 1 1 .183 .237 .229 .466
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/27/2011.

That’s a list of the fewest RBI by players with at least 337 PA (which is what Carroll had entering tonight’s game) since 1901, which is essentially the beginning of time in baseball terms. What’s most interesting here is the “OPS” category on the far right, because – as would be expected – we’re looking at some dreadful years, none more so than our own John Shelby‘s nearly unfathomable 1989. But Carroll doesn’t fall into that category; after tonight’s 2-3, his line now stands at a .291/.363/.358, which is more than acceptable.

For Carroll, his lack of runs driven in looks to be something of a perfect storm. Part of it is batting position, as he’s often hit leadoff (meaning there’s no one on to start the game, or behind the pitcher otherwise) or 8th (behind the generally execrable Juan Uribe, Dioner Navarro, or Rod Barajas). He simply doesn’t get a ton of opportunities with men in scoring position. Of course, he’s not doing much with the chances he does get: just .160/.323/.160 in 63 plate appearances with RISP this year.

Anyway, most of us expect Carroll to be elsewhere by the end of the week, so this is neither here nor there, and certainly not a knock on his performance. But in a season that was lost long ago, might as well root for this record right up alongside the chase for “most left fielders”, right?