Friday Fastballs

Here's a few random thoughts and things as we head into the first weekend of June baseball.

First, today's trivia...


Who leads the big leagues in total bases this year?


Casper Wells of the Detroit Tigers hit a 3-run HR off the ChiSox Mark Buehrle tonight, continuing the team's streak of at least one extra base hit in every game for the Tigers, the only team in the big leagues to have done that this season.

Here's today's Happy, Happy Birthdays...

The Orioles Jim Gentile, in 1934, the ChiSox Steve Lyons,and the Mets Barry Lyons, not related,  in 1960...a very good year.


Carl Everett of the Red Sox was born in 1971, as was the Devil Rays Aaron Ledesma, and current Blue Jays catcher Jose Molina of the famed Molina brothers was born on this June day in 1975.


My struggles with picking correctly continues on my daily baseball picks on the FOX Sports Baseball Hot Streak.


Tonight I need at least one hit from the Dodgers Matt Kemp to end a personal 2 pick losing streak.


The past two pick failures were the Brewers Jonathan Lucroy, and Asdrubal Cabrera of the Indians, who both failed to get at least one hit for me.


The loss of Buster Posey, the talented Rookie of the Year catcher for the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants is a bad break, indeed.

The saddest part of the injury, however, is the response to the play at the plate that injured the Giants star catcher by their General Manager, Brian  Sabean.

 Sabean went on local radio, a full eight days after the injury, and blasted the Florida Marlins Scott Cousins, the player who crashed into Posey, saying,

“If I never hear from Cousins again and he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we'll all be happy,”

For a big league GM to say that about a player is way out of line, and he should personally apologize to Cousins, the Marlins, and baseball as a whole.

We can debate for hours about that play, and weather Cousins went out of his way to hit Posey, heck, some of Posey's Giants team thought the play was legal.

Cousins has even apologized for the play, something he did not need to do.

I think a fine is in order for GM Sabean, and I hope Commissioner Bud Selig sees it that way to.

What's going on with the 3 HR games in big league baseball?

Yesterday's 3 HR barrage from the Giants Aubrey Huff against the St. Louis Cardinals make him the 6th player in 22 days to go yard three times in a single game.

On May 21st we found out that Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter was diagnosed with four small malignant tumors on his brain.

As expected, there has been an out pouring of sentiment toward Carter, and several baseball fans have asked that the Mets honor Carter with a retirement of the #8 he wore for the team.

Over on Yahoo Sports, Big League Stew talks about the need for the Mets to honor Carter now, and I couldn't agree more.

I was very surprised that Carter's #8 wasn't already retired, after all, he was the glue that formed that 1986 Mets World Series Championship, and, oh, yeah, he's a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Fans, don't forget to go to MLB.com and vote for this year's All-Star Game.

Voting runs through June 30th, and you may vote up to 25 times.

My annual post of my All-Star Game picks will come in a week, or two, but I've already voted a few times.

Matt Kemp, Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, and Asdrubal Cabrera are some of my choices so far.

I always vote a few times over the course of a month and a half, making sure to give credit to deserving players over that time span.

Being baseball fans, there is always a moment during the season when we look at the stats of players, and wonder what's going on as that player struggles at the plate, in the field, and on the mound.

Over at S.I.com Joe Sheehan looks at the under performing players so far in the 2011 baseball year.

Note...aforementioned Aubry Huff of the Giants must have read this article before hitting his three dingers yesterday.

Today's Trivia Answer...Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays has133 total bases as of June 3rd.

Have a great weekend, and, as always, enjoy the ball games.