I was thinking about the American League Rookie of the Year race today, trying to peg where Josh Fields sits on the list. He's nowhere near contention, but should get a few points thrown his way since he leads AL rookies in home runs with 15.
The good news is that Fields stacks up pretty well with the preseason odds-on favorite to win the ROY, Kansas City's Alex Gordon:
| |
PA |
HR |
RBI |
SB |
BB |
K |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS+ |
| J. Fields |
282 |
15 |
46 |
1 |
19 |
90 |
.245 |
.299 |
.463 |
96 |
| A. Gordon |
476 |
11 |
42 |
13 |
35 |
103 |
.246 |
.320 |
.405 |
85 |
That they're comparable says more about Gordon than Fields. Gordon is 15 months younger and doesn't strike out nearly as much, which bodes well for his future -- he just didn't hit the round sprinting like many expected he would. Still, in this light it's hard to call Fields' initial go-around thus far anything but a qualified success.
Particularly encouraging is the fact that he's currently riding a four-game hit streak. That may not seem like much, but it's the second longest of his career. Until this point, he's been an extremely volatile performer. In fact, during
one 12-game stretch this year, he had six zero-hit games, and six multi-hit games.
Over the season, Fields owns the second-lowest rate of one-hit games on the team to Alex Cintron. On the other hand, he owns the highest percentage of multi-hit games in terms of total games played. Here's how the Sox stack up in those categories (40 games minimum):
One-hit games |
Multi-hit games |
| 1. Cintron |
25.9 |
1. Fields |
30.4 |
| 2. Fields |
27.5 |
2. Erstad |
26.2 |
| 3. Thome |
31.9 |
3. Owens |
25.4 |
| 4. Crede |
32.3 |
4. Thome |
24.2 |
| 5. Terrero |
33.0 |
5. Pierzynski |
22.9 |
Fields should own the lowest one-hit game percentage, considering Cintron has two hits in 12 pinch-hit appearances this year, and Fields hasn't pinch hit once. Even so, Fields had Cintron "beat" until the Royals series, in which he ended up with one hit each game.
Basically, two different people could watch Fields on two different days and come away with vastly different impressions, so it'll be interesting to see how much recognition he gets at season's end.
At this point, I'd probably vote for
Dustin Pedroia, followed by
Brian Bannister and
Daisuke Matsuzaka. I'm surprised how well Bannister compares to Dice-K, considering that Bannister can't strike anybody out while Dice-K is fourth in the league. That, and I'm surprised how many big innings Matsuzaka allows. He's prone to let games snowball on him.
I'm not married to this ballot, though, and the final month could end up flipping the order around.
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Minor league round-up:- Charlotte 7, Norfolk 6
- Casey Rogowski went 3-for-4 with three doubles and two RBI; Thomas Collaro went 4-for-4 with a pair of RBI, and Kenny Perez drove in two as well.
- Jason Bourgeois had two hits (including a double), and Ryan Sweeney had a hit and a walk.
- Nick Masset gave up 10 hits over 6 2/3 innings, but only allowed four runs. He walked one and struck out four.
- Montgomery 6, Birmingham 1
- Kyle McCulloch didn't make it out of the third inning, giving up all six runs (five earned) on nine hits over 2 2/3 innings.
- Tim Bittner, Adam Russell, John Wesley and Fernando Hernandez held Montgomery scoreless the rest of the way.
- Chris Getz had two of the Barons' four hits and the lone RBI.
- Winston-Salem 7, Lynchburg 5
- Brian Omogrosso allowed only two runs on three hits over six innings. He walked three and struck out three.
- Maurice Gartrell went 2-for-5 with a solo homer; Paulo Orlando and C.J. Lang collected two hits each.
- Daron Roberts walked for the ninth time this season.
- Kannapolis 10, Asheville 7
- Anderson Gomes and John Shelby both had three hits including a homer.
- Sergio Miranda went 1-for-4 with two walks, but committed his 14th error.
- Michael Dubee had a wild night -- 4 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 4 BB, 6 K.