Tuesday, May 18, 2004
A Shot in the Arm
My exposure to baseball last night consisted of checking the score of the Phillies-Rockies game on the Internet (Rockies 7, Phillies 6 “Hey, nice comeback…”) and catching glimpses of the Toronto-Minnesota match-up on the two corner TVs of a bar I was at for a little while. That was it, and befitting of one of the quietest nights in the Majors this year.
I saw it flash across the bottom of the screen on ESPN this morning that Troy Glaus is going to have surgery on his shoulder and will miss two months of the season. The AP is reporting that he could actually miss the remainder of the season. And several quotes by the Anaheim brass make it clear that no one will really have an accurate idea of the recovery time until the surgery is performed on Friday.
Besides being a crippling blow to the already depleted Angels, this will cause some shifting on the American League leaderboards; here’s where Glaus ranks in some notable American League statistical categories:
OPS: 1st, 1.082, that includes a #1 ranking in SLG (.694) and an OBP of .387
Home Runs: 1st, 11
Win Shares: T-5th, 7
Add to that 28 RBI, 8 doubles and a .296 BA, and it’s easy to see without looking too hard that the face of the AL West race, along with the pool of legitimate MVP candidates, has changed a bit.
As I noted last week, the Angels have been more than just an offensive story to this point, so I don’t expect them to fall of the face of the Earth. However it’s tough to envision an Angels line-up sans Glaus that’s going to be as effective as one with him in it. At the very least, it makes the healthy return of Anderson/Salmon/Erstad even more imperative, and gives the chances of Texas and Oakland a certifiable boost.
Stat sources: ESPN.com and The Hardball Times (www.hardballtimes.com), which just posted its 2004 Win Shares section yesterday
My exposure to baseball last night consisted of checking the score of the Phillies-Rockies game on the Internet (Rockies 7, Phillies 6 “Hey, nice comeback…”) and catching glimpses of the Toronto-Minnesota match-up on the two corner TVs of a bar I was at for a little while. That was it, and befitting of one of the quietest nights in the Majors this year.
I saw it flash across the bottom of the screen on ESPN this morning that Troy Glaus is going to have surgery on his shoulder and will miss two months of the season. The AP is reporting that he could actually miss the remainder of the season. And several quotes by the Anaheim brass make it clear that no one will really have an accurate idea of the recovery time until the surgery is performed on Friday.
Besides being a crippling blow to the already depleted Angels, this will cause some shifting on the American League leaderboards; here’s where Glaus ranks in some notable American League statistical categories:
OPS: 1st, 1.082, that includes a #1 ranking in SLG (.694) and an OBP of .387
Home Runs: 1st, 11
Win Shares: T-5th, 7
Add to that 28 RBI, 8 doubles and a .296 BA, and it’s easy to see without looking too hard that the face of the AL West race, along with the pool of legitimate MVP candidates, has changed a bit.
As I noted last week, the Angels have been more than just an offensive story to this point, so I don’t expect them to fall of the face of the Earth. However it’s tough to envision an Angels line-up sans Glaus that’s going to be as effective as one with him in it. At the very least, it makes the healthy return of Anderson/Salmon/Erstad even more imperative, and gives the chances of Texas and Oakland a certifiable boost.
Stat sources: ESPN.com and The Hardball Times (www.hardballtimes.com), which just posted its 2004 Win Shares section yesterday
