Well I'm finally back to my full-time Gallo watch after 11 days of R&R&Ah - Rest, relaxation, and hearing that England accent over and over.
Was at Chicago Midway for 90 minutes yesterday and talked baseball to a Chicago Cubs fan who told me he hates Baez's game so much he often clicks away from the game when he's up in any sort of critical situation. In the past few days, Javier Baez has proven mortal (he can also ground out and fly out), Matt Chapman has missed a few games, and that has allowed Joey K to make it a race again!
Baez has "only" 7 strikeouts in the past 7 games, but still leads the league with 130. His pace has dipped to 209 strikeouts for the year, 14 behind Mark Reynolds' all-time record, but a mark that would still be the 8th-most in a season all-time. His previous high for a season was 167 in 2018.
Matt Chapman cooled off after his Golden Sombrero a week ago, holding onto the AL lead by the slimmest or margins with 125. He's on pace for exactly 200 strikeouts this year. After a troubling June in which he hit .277, he's really locked in on discovering his identity, and enters the last week of July hitting .176 for the month. Somewhere, Eugenio Suarez is tipping his cap. Chapman has never had more than 147 strikeouts in a year, which came in 2019, so he's going to be setting a new career best in a few more weeks.
The Rooster has been pretty fantastic lately. He has 10 strikeouts in his last 6 games and is hitting a brisk .056 in that time period. Despite the Houston bullpen being the equivalent of Three Mile Island at times, Ser Gallohad went a perfect 0-for-8 with 4 strikeouts over the weekend before a well-deserved rest day Monday to tune up for the showdown of the season: the 35-65 Rangers hosting the 31-70 Diamondbacks. Baseball at its finest, and probably the best living example of why the league should contract 2-4 teams. Joey's recent surge has him on pace for 201 strikeouts for the year, which would allow him to become just the third player in history with two 200 K seasons. Mark Reynolds has three, God bless him, and Chris Davis has two.
I have to admit, I had my doubts about Joey after he only struck out 25 times in June and hit .263, which is like a regular player batting .550. But he's already up to 26 whiffs this month and 30 seems reachable, and that .185 batting average isn't fooling anybody, sort of the opposite of Joey, who apparently is getting fooled by everybody. In his last 30 at-bats, he has 2 hits, 2 walks, and 16 strikeouts.
Some further fascinating Galloanalysis:
When the count is 2-2, he's hitting .149 with FORTY FOUR strikeouts in 67 at-bats.
When the count is 0-2, he is 2-for-30 with 25 strikeouts. Man, that is so fantastic.
Of course no great update is complete without checking in on Eugenio Suarez, sitting fourth with 121 strikeouts, on pace for 196, and down to a batting average of .172. He's currently on pace for 99 hits in 575 at-bats and it's him vs. Baez toe-to-toe the next few nights. What's even better than that? The Reds are in the wildcard race, which means there's a possibility of this train wreck being on national TV in the playoffs.
A parting note on the all-time list, Justin Upton returned to action while I was on vacation and has climbed past Curtis Granderson to sit 10th all-time in strikeouts with 1,921.
If he stays healthy, he should finish 2021 in at least 7th place all time. He's just 6 whiffs behind Reynolds right now.
Baez is one strikeout short of 900 for his career. He passed Ken Griffey Sr yesterday, accomplishing in 8 seasons what it took Old Man Griffey 19 years to accomplish. Griffey struck out 84 times in 1977, a year in which he also hit .318 with 117 runs score, so I guess that's OK.
Meanwhile the Galllo Man is just four strikeouts short of 800 for his career, and is presently tied with Bobby Higginson and Bob Watson at 796 in 581st place.
I think this is probably the first time I've thought about Bobby Higginson in 20 years. He topped 100 strikeouts twice in his career, which was a surprisingly good one, 2 seasons over 100 RBI, four seasons over 25 homers. Higginson played for the Tigers from 1995 to 2005. At no point in those 11 seasons did the Tigers ever finish with a winning record, let alone make the playoffs. They lost more than 100 games 4 times in his career, including that fantastic 43-119 campaign in 2003 where their team ERA was 5.30 and their Saves leader had FIVE for the season. The year after Higginson retired, the Tigers won 95 games and went to the World Series.