There has always been something sexy about the 30/30 hitter. Back in the day, when you hit 30 homers and stole 30 bases, you were a rare breed of power and speed. Before the 1980's rolled along, there were only ten 30/30 seasons in history, five of which were by Bobby Bonds. Hank Aaron had a year like that. Willie Mays had two. The milestone was dampened a bit in the '80's, as there were seven 30/30 years, including the first ever 40/40 by Jose Canseco.

But since we've entered the '90's, the milestone has been devalued to the point where no one seems to care about it all that much anymore. In the 21 seasons since 1990, there have been 37 30/30 seasons, not including the multiple possibilities we could have this season. Bobby's son Barry took over the 30/30 torch in 1990, scoring the first of his five 30/30 seasons. Ron Gant went 30/30 in back to back years in 1990 and 1991, before a broken leg in 1994 changed his career forever. The introduction of baseball in Denver resulted in three of the four Blake Street Bombers (Dante Bichette, Larry Walker, and Ellis Burks) all going 30/30. Sammy Sosa even went 30/30 twice, before he became known as a home run powerhouse. no comments

The Tigers announced today that they've acquired Delmon Young from the Twins for Cole Nelson and a PTBNL. Young is the big piece of the deal, but how much does he really improve the Tigers? It's believed that Young will be taking some playing time from Magglio Ordonez in right field. This is a good move. Ordonez has a .575 OPS this season. In August, he's at .366. He looks completely done as a player at this point in time.

But what about Young? Is he really going to be a big upgrade over Ordonez? Just based on how terrible Ordonez has been, you have to think he would be. Neither player has much of a platoon split this year, and both are more effective against lefties, so there's not much to be gained from platooning them. Young has been nearly as bad as Ordonez, with a .662 OPS on the season, but as of late, he's heating up: Young's August OPS is .865 after a .754 mark in June and a .744 mark in July.

Young isn't going to guarantee a division win for the Tigers. He's not going to be the breaking point for Detroit in holding off the Indians. But he does add a nice little piece to their team that will help down the stretch.

The Diamondbacks have been on fire since the All-Star Break, and have now opened up a two game lead on the defending World Champion Giants in the NL West. This week will play a huge part in determining the division winner, due to the schedules of both teams. The Giants play four in Atlanta before going to Houston for three to close out a ten game road trip. Arizona has three games with both Philadelphia and Atlanta, before heading to Washington for a four game set next week. The team's schedules are virtual mirror images over the season's final month, as each team exclusively plays the NL West aside from one series; the Giants get the Cubs, and the Diamondbacks get the Pirates, both at home. The teams will also play six games against one another. But despite their division-heavy schedules down the stretch, I firmly believe that the road trips each team are on starting tonight will play a huge role in their season.

Think about this: the Braves are probably going to win the NL wild card. The Phillies are going to have the best record in the NL. Thus, the teams couldn't meet in the first round. One of the teams would be playing the NL West champion in the first round. If the season ended today, the Phillies would be playing the Diamondbacks. However, Arizona is only a couple of wins back of the Brewers in the overall record race, and if they were able to overtake Milwaukee, they'd play the Braves in the first round instead. So Arizona will be having a pair of possible playoff previews this week. 

As for the Giants, it's time to crap or get off the pot. Carlos Beltran was supposed to be the difference maker that pushed them over the edge. Instead, he's got a .616 OPS in 11 games and has missed time with a hand injury, while the team is 5-11 since Beltran's first game with the team on July 28th. They've lost six games in the standings to the Diamondbacks. In an attempt to rectify past mistakes and to help power the offense, the team called up Brandon Belt late last week, but it might be too little, too late. Orlando Cabrera, Cody Ross, Aaron Rowand, Eli Whiteside and Andres Torres (before going on the DL this weekend) have all struggled terribly this month, and the defending champs are starting to fade away. The pitching has been solid, with the exception of Jonathan Sanchez (nine runs in nine innings this month so far).

But for the Diamondbacks, everything has been roses lately. Despite some terrible starts from Jason Marquis (who will miss a good chunk of the rest of the season with a broken leg), Josh Collmenter, and Joe Saunders, the D-Backs offense has been clicking on all cylinders. Justin Upton has become a high-level MVP candidate with a strong month thusfar. Fill-ins Ryan Roberts and Willie Bloomquist continue their miraculously good seasons. Rookie Paul Goldschmidt is pounding the ball like he did in AA for most of the season. Arizona is succeeding despite a disappointing year from Kelly Johnson, and bad months so far from Miguel Montero and Chris Young. The Giants don't have that superstar player who can carry an offense like Arizona does with Upton.

It's going to be a hell of a race down the stretch, and it appears that it's going to come down to each team's strengths: San Francisco's pitching versus Arizona's hitting. The Diamondbacks have had the edge since the break. Will it continue over the season's final six weeks?

I’m mostly at a loss to explain Tyler Pastornicky’s AAA line of .380/.422/.430 for the Gwinnett Braves. Well, I can explain it--his BABiP is .424--but the line is just an incredibly weird one. In his 25 AAA games, he has 14 multi-hit efforts, and he’s been as ridiculously hot as Jose Constanza has been for the Atlanta Braves. That’s not that weird (guys have hot streaks), but how his OBP and SLG relate to it are. The .422 OBP is almost entirely built on his batting average after spending the rest of his minor-league career drawing walks, and after demonstrating some pop in the last year and a half, it has entirely disappeared in AAA with only 3 XBH. While the AAA performance is based on a decent amount of luck, Pastornicky is showing enough to make people believe he can be an everyday player in the majors.

Drafted in the fifth round of the 2008 draft by the Toronto Blue Jays, Pastornicky was your typical shortstop prospect. He could field, but no one knew if he would hit. He immediately showed on-base skills in his rookie ball debut, drawing 21 walks in 50 games while only striking out 21 times. In Low and High-A in 2009, he again had a poor batting average, but he continued to draw walks. If you can get on base and play a good shortstop, you’re a prospect, but scouts still wondered if Pastornicky could hit enough for those on-base skills to matter. 2010 was another similar season for Pastornicky except for one thing: power. After only 24 XBH in 2009, he 31 in 2010, and scouts wondered if this meant that he was starting to develop as a hitter. Fast forward to this season, Pastornicky has hit .316/.362/.418, and he now looks the part of an everyday shortstop and not the utility player scouts believed him to be previously.

Pastornicky could always play shortstop, and as Kevin Goldstein stated, “The former Blue Jay can play short, draws walks, and steals bases, but how much will he hit?”. Defense was never the issue, but the quality of his bat caused scouts to question his ultimate ceiling. As I mentioned, Pastornicky has on-base skills, which means he has good strike zone judgment that leads to a fair amount of walks, and if you have plate discipline from an early age, it tells scouts that he may develop more hitting skills down the road. Hitting takes hand-eye coordination and bat speed, but even if you’re a little short on the two, plate discipline can make-up for part of it. Well, Pastornicky has always had bat speed, hand-eye coordination, and plate discipline, but the other part of hitting is strength. Scouts call it, “Getting the bat knocked out of your hands.” Hitters need to be able to drive the bat through the ball, and it appears as though Pastornicky has developed that ability over the past few seasons.

While all of this seems very optimistic, Pastornicky isn’t likely to be a star, but solid everyday players are nice to have. Pastornicky will likely never have 15+ HR power, and he may never hit .300. But if he can hit .280/.340/.400, he would be a very valuable shortstop for the Braves. The question now is when the now 21-year old will be ready. Alex Gonzalez isn’t an impediment to his progress, so it’s left up to Pastornicky’s development. Pastornicky was hitting well in AA (.299/.345/.414), but that’s not “mid-season promotion” good. That seems more like “We need a shortstop next season” good. Pastornicky might be ready for 2012, but he could likely use at least another few months in AAA. With Gonzalez performing poorly at the plate and the Braves without another option, however, Pastornicky’s debut may very well come on Opening Day as he may well be the best option.

I was playing poker on a recent Saturday night with a few friends. Most of us are married with kids, so the night out was a welcome reprieve. We played outside on a new deck that a friend had built. He had been given redwood for free, so he decided to build a deck. It was a good deck. It was solid. It was also unexpected. I couldn’t figure out when he had the time to put the thing together. It takes time and patience to build a deck. Things rarely come about by happenstance. Things rarely shock us anymore. We have too much warning. We can see to far into the future.

At some point in the evening, I asked one of the guys who lived at the house, “Doesn't your brother live in Joplin?”

“He was looking for bodies twenty minutes after the tornado had finished,” he said.

I hadn’t seen his brother for some time, but I knew he was living somewhere in the region. I knew he had moved to Kansas City a few years earlier. I knew he was married, had kids, and had gotten a job with a production company in Joplin. Our conversation was short. I didn’t really want to prod. I didn’t want to ruin the mood. We were having fun. There was no need to talk tragedy. We moved on. We ate sausages and drank beer. Too much processing ruins poker nights.

A few days after the poker night, I rang my friend’s brother in Joplin. He was out at a lake with his family. It had been a while since we had seen each other. We talked a little about the tragedy, about the tornado, but most of his stories were about things that had happened to other people. His family was doing well, and he had helped some in the aftermath, but he didn’t have much to add. He was being humble. He pointed me in the direction of another friend: Brandon Bellegarde. Brandon Bellegarde saw more. Brandon Bellegarde was in the thick of the madness.

“My wife stayed with our daughter and our neighbor’s children. We hopped in my truck and made it across town in about ten minutes—we were movin’ pretty quick. We pulled up on 18^th and Virginia I believe is what it is. One block off of Main Street, two blocks off of 20^th Street. We pulled up there and it was just,” he thought for a moment. “The scene was unbelievable… it was just… there were huge flames… huge fire. You could hear gas mains popping, but it sounded like, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan or anything or movies like that, but it sounded like gunshots going off in the distance just like a battle. People were walking around: bleeding, missing limbs, skin peeled off, bodies, people impaled,” he stopped.

When I was twelve, and deep in the throws of a Mickey Mantle obsession, Joplin, Missouri existed in my brain like a mythical crossroads. Mickey Mantle was, in a metaphorical sense, the Robert Johnson of baseball. He was an intensely flawed fallen person of baseball perfection. His talents were otherworldly. There’s no telling the deal he struck. Most deals with the devil are pretty good, until you read the fine print. Mickey Mantle died August 13, 1995. Mickey Mantle has now been dead in my life longer than he was alive.

I remember the trip pretty well. We stopped and ate chicken fried chicken at a small cafe. We were on our way to Branson to see family. I remember the chicken fried chicken very well. We had been eating chicken fried steak every day. We would eventually go back to the chicken fried steak, but the chicken fried chicken still sticks as a meal remembered because of a collective sense of forced nostalgia. The chicken fried chicken place was next to a baseball card shop. At least I think it was a baseball card shop. It could have been an antique store. I can't really remember the specifics of the shop. The shop didn’t resonate like the chicken fried chicken.

I do remember that the shop had a glass display case filled with varying relics related to Mickey Mantle. I was just a kid; I didn't have much money, so I could only buy two things: a coaster from his defunct hotel and a Joplin Miners minor league program. The program was in good shape. It still is. I bought it for twelve dollars. It features a picture of Mickey Mantle looking innocent, unaware of how the next fifty years would move, would shake, and would twist, would turn. He was listed as a shortstop. He wouldn’t stay a shortstop for very long.

We also visited Mickey Mantle’s Holiday Inn Motel. At the time, the motel was still standing, but it was vacant. Weeds had begun to sprout in cracked clusters throughout the parking lot. I wanted to pick through some trash. I think we just ended up taking a picture. The weeds were yellow. They had been growing for some time. I have since seen pictures of the motel. The pictures hold a certain amount of nostalgia and kitsch that makes me wish I had seen them in their original glory.

When I think about Brandon Bellegarde and the aftermath of the tornado, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the severity of the entire situation. I have seen pictures. My uncle drives a truck from Riverside to Connecticut each week. He drove through a few days after the disaster. He sent a few emails with pictures. The town was reduced to rubble. As far as I know, much of the rubble is still present. As of a couple months ago, many of the victims were beginning to fall prey to a flesh eating fungus. It's a thing I can't wrap my mind around. It’s a thing I can’t comprehend.

The reality of the situation isn’t abstract to the people who live in Joplin. “We did search and rescue that night right after the storm. My neighbor, his wife, was the one who said we gotta’ do something,” said Brandon. “Me, I was thinking I’ve got to keep my family safe. But she was like, ‘we gotta’ do something.’ It was actually her idea to go out there,” he said.

“When we got out there, it was non-stop. People would walk to you; you’d just help them. You’d load them in a truck. You’d unbury them from bricks, whatever. Pull them out of cars and you’d just load them in a truck and you’d take them to a center that was established. We went through the night doing that and into the next day.”

I still pull out the Joplin Miners program out from time to time. I look at it more as a good find, a commodity, but I'll never sell it. It is a memory. It is the memory of a good thing that happened: the chicken fried chicken, being twelve in Missouri. Mickey Mantle's life was a life of extremes. He could have been the greatest. He was Hobbsian in the worst sense. His dad died young. He thought he was supposed to die young too. He didn’t come across as the best husband. The game that he loved ate away at him like a flesh eating fungus. His best friend died in a car crash. Mickey died, sixteen years ago this August, when his liver gave out. These things happen. These things happen way too often, which is why I might stop driving soon, why I might stop putting electronics to my head, and why I might quit drinking. Maybe. It doesn’t really matter though, these types of things will still happen whether we like it or not. They will happen to me and mine…which is why I watch baseball, in a vein attempt to understand things that aren’t meant to be understood.

If I ever run into Darwin Barney, I am going to buy that man a beer.

It isn't that I don't respect Dan Uggla's now mercifully dead 33-game hitting streak, but I had pretty much had it up to here (for those of you who don't have access to my super sexy webcam, I'm pointing about a foot over my own head) with hearing about how improbable Uggla's streak was.  And now, thanks to this play from Darwin Barney (a play I wouldn't have to thank him for if Tyler Colvin had bothered to run full speed at any point on that play), I no longer have to.

Maybe I have high standards, but I am just not interested in accomplishments that don't figure to stand the test of time.  Almost all hitting streaks fall into this category as so few ever have a chance of getting even remotely close to DiMaggio's legendary 56-hitting streak.  As we heard time and time again, Uggla started his streak with a batting average well under .200, which is what drew national attention to his streak, but it is also what automatically precluded him from ever becoming a serious challenger to DiMaggio.  As fun as it was to watch Uggla extend his streak beyond what we all thought was possible for a player of his ilk, it was only a matter of time before it came to an end, and now it has.

With the streak over, the baseball world can return to normal and Uggla can return to just being another slugger with a disappointing batting avere, but at least it isn't quite as disappointing as it was a month ago.

Also last night: Brandon Belt hit two homers, but will still probably get inexplicably buried on the bench...  The Diamondbacks win, but lose Jason Marquis...  and finally, the Twins/Indians, Rays/Yankees, Nationals/Phillies games all got rained out.

What to watch tonight: After a rough weekend, the Angels have fallen four games back of the Texas Rangers, who just so happen to be coming to Anaheim for a four-game set starting tonight.  While the Halos have kept the race close all season long, the general public expectation has been that the Rangers will pull away sooner or later.  Well, sooner could start right now as the Angels are mired in an offensive funk while their bullpen seems to be coming apart at the seams.  To top it all off, they are sending out rookie Garrett Richards to make just his second career start against All-Star Alexi Ogando.  Watch close, kiddies, because this could be the swan song for the AL West race.  Full schedule with probable pitchers here.

It's too bad there isn't a reality show camera crew following around the North American Baseball League's Lake County Fielders this season because it really would make for some fantastic entertainment.

First the team's manager quit prior to a game, then the acting manager decides to put together a lineup consisting of all pitchers in the field and position players pitching, then the team's play-by-play guy quits on air. Three weeks later, the team is forced to postpone a game because they didn't have adequate baseballs -- no, really -- which was followed up days later by the North American Baseball League kicking them out of the league for refusing to make a trip to Maui.

All caught up? Because the latest news defies logic and/or reason.

The team announced today that they have kissed and made up with the league and will be playing out the rest of the season. With a twist.

In today's Braves-Cubs game (which I was at, by the way), the Cubs pulled off a feat that only one other team in major league history has: they walked zero times, struck out 18 times, and won the game. The Cubs only got runs in the sixth and seventh innings, thanks to a bullpen implosion from Atlanta. There was another odd quirk in the sixth inning. Braves rookie reliever Arodys Vizcaino managed to strike out three in 2/3 of an inning, thanks to a pair of wild pitches. When it rains, it pours I guess.

But as for the historical significance of today's game. The only other time this has happened was in 1997, when the A's beat the Mariners 4-1 despite Randy Johnson throwing a complete game with 19 strikeouts and no walks. That game featured one of Mark McGwire's final home runs as a member of the A's, but overall, Johnson's dominance was the story out of the game.

There was no big story from today's game in Atlanta. Coming into the game, most of the focus was on Dan Uggla's 33 game hitting streak and Brian McCann's return from the DL. Neither player got a hit in the game. Four players had three hit games though, including three Cubs - Darwin Barney, Aramis Ramirez, and Marlon Byrd. Michael Bourn of the Braves also had three hits, and a pair of stolen bases.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how good your command of the strike zone is. The Cubs won the game despite awful discipline and four errors in the field, thanks to 12 hits, only one of which had gone for extra bases. It was a game that the Cubs didn't deserve to win at all...yet, they did. Sometimes, when you're hot, all the balls fall in your favor.

San Francisco actually set the record a couple days ago, but with Jeff Keppinger's home run yesterday in the Giants-Marlins game*, the team has now hit 21 consecutive longballs that were of the solo variety.

* Big Time Timmy Jim went 7 scoreless with 10 K's in the 3-0 win.

The streak goes back to July 6th, when Nate Schierholtz hit his second home run of the game; the first was a two-run shot, but the second - which was a walk-off blast in the bottom of the 14th inning - came with the bases empty. Since then, 10 different batters have gone deep for the Giants - Keppinger, Brandon Belt, Chris Stewart, and Miguel Tejada once each; Schierholtz, Aaron Rowand, Cody Ross, and Eli Whiteside twice each; Aubrey Huff three times; and Pablo Sandoval six times - but each time it's been with nobody on base. The record dates all the way back to the 1914 Phillies, who had 19 straight.

This feat by San Fran isn't completely surprising, as the Giants rarely homer - their 77 is 23rd in baseball, and they're as close to 30th as they are to 21st - and don't tend to have many men on base in general (their .320 OBP is 29th). And unlike the average team, the Giants actually hit worse with men on base than with the bases empty.

Men on base: .237/.306/.334 with a homer every 75 plate appearances
Bases empty: .244/.301/.376 with a homer every 51 plate appearances

So congratulations to the Giants on making it into the record books. There's a decent enough chance they'll extend it even further - then maybe it'll stand for a full 100 years.

Also last night: Yuniesky Betancourt provided the only run in the Brewers 1-0 win over the Pirates with a solo homer; the Reds went deep 8 times as they blew out the Padres 13-1; another home run for Dan Uggla, as he extended his hitting streak to 33 (in a losing cause versus the Cubs, though); and much more.

What to watch tonight: Ryan Vogelsong (2.48 ERA) takes on Chris Volstad (5.58 ERA), which is interesting since they have identical 3.79 xFIPs; and from the battle of the V's to the battle of the M's, as Charlie Morton (3.56 ERA) takes on Shaun Marcum (3.62). Full schedule with probable pitchers here.

After tonight's 3-0 loss to the Giants, the Marlins made some personnel moves. One of them was releasing struggling veteran bench bat Wes Helms, which doesn't make much sense because they probably could have traded him to a contender for something of value. The second move for the Marlins made even less sense. They demoted budding star outfielder Logan Morrison to AAA. Back in June, we touched on Morrison's Twitter use. That is the only reason I can think of for the demotion.

This is absolutely, positively, not related to Morrison's on-field performance. He has a .791 OPS this season, including an .836 OPS in August so far, so it's not like he's slumping. On Friday, he drove on the team's first run, and scored their second in a 2/4 game. He hit third for the team tonight. He has been the Marlins second or third best player (behind Mike Stanton and maybe Gaby Sanchez) on a team trotting out awful baseball players like Alfredo Amezaga, Mike Cameron, and Greg Dobbs.

Why did he get demoted? Because the Marlins are a petty, juvenile team. Morrison called out oft-injured and slumping shortstop Hanley Ramirez earlier this week. He also tweeted about missing a meet and greet with season ticket holders today. He made the Marlins and their franchise player look like fools. So he's got to pay the penalty. It's clear that the Marlins don't really give a damn about winning games this season, if they don't want Morrison to play for them in the majors. If you have this much of a problem with him, trade the man when the season ends. But based on the Dan Uggla trade, they'd probably just get spare parts for him. Shame on you, Marlins.