These Cleats Are Made For Walking: Blah

I’ll be honest, there isn’t much standing out to me on this fine Monday. The bottom of the walk leaderboard isn’t nearly as hilarious as it usually is, so I’ll just review the usual and mention a few new names.

  • Puig update: Miraculously, Yasiel Puig walked twice on Saturday. These were his first two unintentional walks of the year. He’s at 78 plate appearances on the season.
  • Jeff Keppinger walked two more times last week. He’s now got a total of six walks through 228 plate appearance. The White Sox are also not playing him very much anymore :(

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These Cleats Are Made For Walking: Puig Approaches

This has been a fun journey this year, keeping track of walk totals on a weekly basis. It gives me an unexplained amount of joy to check FanGraphs on Monday mornings to see who’s been impatient this past week. Yasiel Puig, an undeniable fan of CFB, has clearly taken note of this and has decided to pitch in by allowing me to use his name, Yasiel Puig, in this post.

Thanks, Yasiel Puig. Thank you for not being unintentionally walked once through your first 50 major league plate appearances.

We’ll obviously be watching Yasiel Puig, like the rest of the world, in his KeppQuest to walkless nirvana.

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Happy Darvish Day ! (Start #11)

What?

Last week, Yu Darvish had arguably his worst start of the year, giving up one run and striking out six over 6 innings against Oakland. Today, he’ll be in Arizona facing the Diamondbacks in Game 1 of a particularly strange double-header.

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Happy 29th Birthday Luke Gregerson !

Today is San Diego Padres reliever Luke Gregerson’s 29th birthday. What is interesting about Luke Gregerson ?

  • Before the 2009 season, Luke Gregerson was traded to the Padres for infielder Khalil Greene, one of the weirdest looking players of all time.
  • Luke Gregerson has a 2.81 career ERA in 298.1 innings.
  • In 2012, 70% of the pitches Luke Gregerson threw were sliders.
  • For his career, Luke Gregerson has thrown 58% sliders.
  • Luke Gregerson throws a lot of sliders.
  • Luke Gregerson throws three different sliders.
  • Luke Gregerson holds the major league record for holds in a single season, with 40 in 2010.
  • For his career, Chad Tracy is 3-3 with three home runs and 6 RBI against Luke Gregerson. That’s a 5.000 OPS.
  • For his career, David Wright is 1-7 with five strikeouts against Luke Gregerson.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Luke Gregerson:

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These Cleats Are Made For Walking: Can Somebody Notice This ?!

Okay, here we are again. It’s the seventh Monday morning of the 2013 season and oh my god Jeffrey Scott Keppinger has still not walked through ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE PLATE APPEARANCES.

There are so many ridiculous things about this that are not being talked about nearly enough.

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Happy Darvish Day ! (Start #8)

Yu Darvish will start this evening against the Houston Astros. Last time Darvish faced Houston, he was one out away from a perfect game. Since it’s Yu Darvish and since it’s Houston, we can pretty much expect the same thing. So get pumped. Here are three professional Japanese hitters that had absolutely no chance against Yu’s four-seam fastball.

Ugh, kilometers, I know. That’s 97 MPH.

Part 7: ARE THEY RELATED ?!?!?!?!?!?!?

The Best. 

Click here for Part 6. 

MICHAEL AND DELMON YOUNG

These similarly terrible baseball players joined forces this year to bring defensive incompetence to the Phillies and have looked incredibly smooth doing so. While Delmon might lack the #class that Michael possesses, he makes up for it when it comes to weak groundouts to the infield and a polarizing presence at the plate. It really is hard to deny the moral differences between these two. they both appreciate negative WAR more than any other name-sharing couple in the majors and that has to count for something.

% CHANCE THEY’RE RELATED: 61%

EVAN AND EVA LONGORIA

I’m just gonna assume that one of their birth dates is a lie and these two are quite obviously twins. I also assume that their parents names are also Eva and Evan, and that they couldn’t be happier about the immense success of their children. Evan is often embarrassed about his twin sister, and doesn’t like talking about her. Eva tries her best to stay connected but Evan, being the stubborn brother, just wants to do his own thing. I don’t blame him. God Bless the Longorias.

% CHANCE THEY’RE RELATED: 98%

GORDON AND DAVID BECKHAM

Once referred to as “a right-handed Chase Utley”, Gordon has been less than stellar in his stint as a major leaguer. Gordon might have more career homers than David, but everyone’s favorite/least favorite futbol star crushes Gordon when it comes to underwear advertisements and Being Married To A Spice Girl. The physical comp is intriguing; they’re both about 6″0 185 lbs. There is long lost brother potential here, although I’d imagine if David was Gordon’s older brother, their parents would be kind enough to tell Gordon that he at least has some financial security once he realizes he can’t hit major league pitching.

% CHANCE THEY’RE RELATED: 44%

JNFOTD: 5/2/13

It’s been months. I wanna bring this back because Jason Neighborgall’s baseball-reference page remains one of the hidden gems of the entire internet.

In 42.1 career innings, Jason Beckley Neighborgall hit 13 batters.

In 952.1 career innings (and counting), Milwaukee right-hander Yovani Gallardo has hit 12 batters.