Blew right past the halfway point a few series back, so we'll do this here at the All-Star break, 90 games in instead of 81. MLB standings/leaders:
The White Sox have been nearly our equal this year, something we haven't seen very often. I scoffed at the preseason predictions calling for doom for Houston, but I'll admit I was wrong.
Our team stats:
Same old, same old. Great on offense, pretty good pitching, lousy defense. Actually while our Defensive Efficiency is bad, the Zone Rating is the best I think I've seen it on this team in forever, so it's not all terrible. Plus Dan Gregory was out for a month. With Seth Williams moved to 1B and Josh Beckett to 2B, we're better off. The hitting stats:
Great performances galore. Alexander is bidding for his 2nd MVP in 4 seasons and he's outpaced his 2040 performance so far. Luis Barela has been everything as advertised and Doug Johns continued to hit so well while playing everyday with Gregory out that he's claimed the LF job from the Mike Willis/Jose Mendez platoon. And it's not like those two haven't been good either. We're going to have a real salary crunch next year with Jimmy Leonard going into his final year of team control and projected to make $22-23M so he probably gets dealt, leaving more PT for Willis and Mendez.
Elsewhere Seth Williams has been good but not great like he was in his MVP season last year and Dave Frick has really dropped off with the bat but his defense is still valuable to us. Tony Cordova has turned the catcher job into a time-share with Kevin Morley, who hasn't hit at all so far. Cordova may end up with the bulk of the PT if Morley doesn't get it going. And Tomas Laboy has done nothing but rake when he gets his infrequent opportunities in the lineup. The pitching:
Jim Brophy looks to be joining a long line of Rays Cy Young winners barring a bad second half. Brad Jackson is his usual solid self, and rookie Greg Bookhart has pitched very well and will be even better once his high BABIP (hopefully) regresses. But Jose Mendoza has been awful on the whole this year despite some great outings, and the jury's out on Dan Anderson as a starter. There's a good chance I swing a deal for another starter given the losses of Soland and Gird for the year and the inconsistency after Brophy, Jackson and Bookhart.
The bullpen has been pretty good with Satoshi Sato probably deserving more use, and Mike Barkley has been the solid veteran closer we thought we were signing. Freddy Zamora's been good but not as dominating as last year while the revelation in the pen has been Sean Forbes, who's taken over from the inconsistent Ed Pretty as the primary RH setup man.