Watching the early innings of last night’s Red Sox-Rockies games, I initially planned on writing a post about Rockies starter Jason Hammel. Once dismissed as a marginal prospect by Tampa, Hammel came into last night’s game with a lower June ERA than Ubaldo Jiminez. He then threw three shutout innings, and I went to bed.
When I got up this morning, I saw a final score of 13-11 in favor of the Red Sox and realized that something had gone terribly awry for Hammel and the Rockies.
photo credit: Eric Kilby
Dustin Pedroia hit three balls into thin air at Coors Field last night.
That something was Dustin Pedroia. The diminutive second sacker went five-for-five with three homers in the thin air of Coors Field, adding five RBI and fours runs. He even drew a base on balls in his other plate appearance, so he had about as perfect a night as a hitter could want.
Pedroia’s third homer of the game sealed it in the top of the tenth inning. That was after Jon Papelbon blew another save in the bottom of the ninth—reaffirming the point I made yesterday in my post on this site about his questionable future as the team’s closer.
But enough on that topic for today. Let’s talk some more about Pedroia, who has been turning it on lately. He is now 13 for his last 24, an average of better than .500 in a six-game stretch. In his last 13 games, he is 26 for 52 with six walks, five doubles, a triple, four homers, and 13 RBI. For the season, he has raised his average to .293 with 12-41-8 totals.
If he can keep this pace up, he would easily set a new career high for home runs and also could top his personal best for RBI. His pace of 26-89-17 and .293 is not quite as impressive as his numbers from his MVP year in 2008, when he surprised everyone by hitting .326 with 17-83-20 totals. However, he is starting to put himself in the running to be at least a top ten contender in the MVP voting.
And if the Sox can make the playoffs, you’d be hard pressed to name a player in the Sox lineup who had more to do with it. Adrian Beltre has been a great addition offensively but a disaster in the field. Pedroia is one of the best two-way second basemen in baseball.
