Renteria Raging Hot in SF

What a start to the season for hitters. Although that's generally the case most every April, it seems especially apparent this year. If you look around the league, you'll see some softball like averages out there. It's a bit crazy.



Speaking of which, it's wild in San Fran right now. They're 4-0 and atop the NL West behind the strength of their bats (okay, they have some decent arms too). But this blog is about hitting and there's no shortage of that in the City by the Bay. Two games in a row the combo of Renteria and Rowand has been over the top. Edgar's game tying 2 run shot in the bottom of the 9th on Friday set the stage for his partner in crime to slip a game winner past the infield in the 13th. Renteria has a sizzling average of .688 out of the gates in 2010.



There's alot of High Fives going on across the Bay in Oakland where things aren't that much different. The hitters are saving the day. The A's had back to back walk off wins in Oakland on Wednesday and Thursday before thumping the Halos 10-4 last night. Mark Ellis is sporting a .400 average and seems to be in the mix of every rally the A's muster. NorCal never looked so good.

It's a little topsy turvy in the East as well, ok.. in the AL anyway. Who's on top? Tampa...on bottom? Boston. The Yanks are nestled in 3rd behind Toronto. Toronto? Yea man, this team is packed with hitters. Adam Lind can rake and Vernon Wells is Mr. Deep Wells so far in 2010. He's got 4 HRs already this year and his .500 average is packed with power numbers. Tampa Bay is stacked from top to bottom as well and it shouldn't surprise anybody to see them sitting in the cat bird seat.


The best hitter yesterday though was Rick Ankiel. He just couldn't do anything wrong. That's a great thing for Kansas City and exactly what they hoped for when they got Rick from St Lou. He delivered in spades yesterday going 4 for 4 and helping KC push the Red Sox into the cellar in the East. It's too bad KC's relief pitching (yuck, we hate that word) sucked so bad in the first two games.. heck, they could be 4-0. Now that would be a story!

Which Wood Bat Would That Be

I don't quite understand MLB's weird approach to the growing broken bat problem in baseball. I imagine that the only thing that will prompt anything more than a cursory "investigation" will be serious injury or worse to a player, an umpire or possibly a fan.

I don't have the statistics as to the average number of bats broken in each MLB game this year, but just from watching I can say... It's alot. Sure, they have commissioned studies on several thousand bats that have broken. These studies were expensive and involved a Harvard Statistician, a Massachusetts-Lowell mechanical engineering professor and a wood-certification company. They studied the broken bats and tried to figure out why.

Guess what? There are bat companies out there and wood types out there that don't break. Did they study those? Nope. Big Frank Thomas used a bat that broke maybe once a year. Twice at the most. Did they study that wood type or manufacturer to see what they were doing right? Nope. Seems kinda silly to look at one side of the box. Even sillier to look at that side of the box from inside the box.

Get your thinking caps on guys. MLB has got it's share of problems right now for sure. The last thing it needs is to have a pitcher irreparably harmed by a flying missile because the powers that be don't have the sense to conduct a study properly.

What's worse is this problem is not that hard to fix. Let me come back to this.

Major League Baseball rule 1.10(a) describes the specifications of a bat:

"The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2 3/4" in diameter at the thickest part, and not more than 42 inches in length. Bats shall be one piece of solid wood."

The last sentence is your problem. "Bats shall be one piece of solid wood." Why?

There are a couple of companies out there right now that have MLB approval for their bats to be used in the Minor Leagues. Brett Bros. is one of these companies. The company is owned by Hall of Famer George Brett. What makes a Brett bat different? Simple Simon, he uses several "planks" of wood (the type of wood can vary from bamboo to maple to ash) that are layered to form a billet. The woods are melded together with a special glue process. When sufficiently bonded, the billet is lathed into a particular model bat. This process makes the wood bat incredibly strong and resistant to breakage.

More importantly, it does NOT change the game. It's still a wood bat. The ball doesn't come off the barrel any different than it does with a normal "one piece" wood bat. One professional team broke nearly 50 bats a season before switching to Brett Bros. bats. Guess what, in the next two seasons the entire team broke a total of 4 bats!

Come On. Who is making the decisions that allow these bats in Minor Leagues and not the Major Leagues. Why wouldn't you? You think George Brett is going to tarnish the tradition of baseball? No. He has made it better because he is thinking outside of that damn box.

Another company has recently decided to venture into this new concept of "assembling" a bat. This company uses a very unique approach that makes all the sense in the world. They have taken the Brett Bat concept one step further. This company is called Radial Bats. I've swung these bats and am very impressed. Time will tell if these are more durable than those made by Brett, but the concept is impressive.

Each Radial bat consists of twelve wedges that are flawlessly milled with patent pending methods. Then each wedge is perfectly aligned to provide great strength in every orientation.



The bottom line is this... MLB needs to figure out that these types of wood bats will not change the game. They don't look any different, they don't sound any different, they don't perform any different EXCEPT when it comes to breakage. They DON'T break nearly as often as what they are allowing in the Major Leagues at this time.

MLB has struck out on this one.

Watching Baseball

The technology curve has been the greatest thing that ever happened to baseball. In live games there is so much more information available to the fan... nearly any statistic, invigorating graphic scoreboards, fancy flashing rings around the stadium. It just adds so much more to the fan experience. I mean, these are just not the same arenas that our fathers and grandfathers went to watch games at. Sure, Wrigley is a bit outdated and rusty, but even Fenway is a modern marvel for watching a ballgame. No wonder those seats are hard to get into.

But, where the real change for fans has blossomed is television and online broadcasts. I realized last night while watching the Dodgers vs. Padres broadcast that there are a slew of players in the game today that rank very high all time in their statistics. Finally, a broadcast director took advantage of the historic nature of the game and began showing where a player ranked all-time in a certain category. Just a small pop-up that lasted only a second or so. But, that moment allowed a true fan to realize a little piece of history and nostalgia as the game unfolded. It was a great touch and should be used much more often.

The Online capability has really improved with MLB.tv (a spinoff of MLB.com)At this site, a fan can watch just about every game in real clear broadcast with the capability of watching as many as 4 games at a time. Or, switching throughout to catch action in any one of the games. The video quality is very high and very impressive. The cost is minimal compared to the experience a true fan receives. You should check it out.

You've got to be a Carpenter

One thing I've noticed about professional hitters... as a general rule, they are emotionless. Now, without question.. during a key moment of a stressful big moment game.. emotions are hard to hide.. passion rides high and ... occasionally, there is emotion. Sometimes for the good.. ala Alexei Ramirez' elation in yesterday's dynamic White Sox win (above). And... sometimes for the bad (after a strike out or a disputed called third strike). For the most part though, emotionless rules.

The professional hitter is concentrating on one thing.. the ball. It's intense concentration, too. Watch for yourself and figure out when the last time is that you focused on something.. anything.. so intently. Pure focus... "I am going to hit this pitch!"

Then, here comes the pitch... the professional batter does everything just right.. perfect load, perfect timing on the step.. whips the bat through the zone and.. oops, missed it. He is stoic. He doesn't stomp around.. hang his head or any other shenanigans. He just regroups... sets his focus and goes right back to work on the next pitch!

I like to use the analogy of a carpenter. Carpenters are paid to hit nails. They climb up on top of a structure.. they have their tool belt.. they have their nails. And they have their hammer. Pounding nails is what they do. Nail after nail.. whack .. whack .. whack! Hey, on occasion, they miss one. Do you think they stand up on the roof and announce to the world with some kind of antics that they missed the nail? Uh... no. They just pull another nail out and go back to work.




This is how a professional hitter approaches his at bat. He gets three strikes at the ball.. more if he "just misses one and fouls it off".. but, essentially he gets three shots at it.

He has his tools (knowledge of the game, the pitcher, the count, etc.) and he has his hammer (bat). His job is to hit nails.. hit the ball. Period. Go to work... be a carpenter at the plate.


Where as a carpenter has the little bitty nail to hit with the head of his hammer... a professional hitter has a small sweet spot (17 to 21 inches from his top hand) to hammer the baseball with. You have to concentrate to do that. You can't have emotion clouding your focus. Go to work. Hit some nails.