This Week in Major League Baseball : The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Texas Rangers closer Frank Francisco has been so good, he’s almost perfect.

Francisco has already broken the Rangers record for most appearances without allowing a run at 14 innings.  Every other stat line for Francisco looks like it has been multiplied by 0. 

Francisco’s ERA after 14 appearances is 0, which is also his same number of blown saves.  This scoreless trend started back in 2008, when Francisco pitched his last 12 innings without giving up a run, while earning five saves.  His nine saves are tied for the most so far this season in baseball.  Opponents are hitting just .137 against 6’3” Dominican fireballer, who has been locating his splitter and working in a changeup to keep hitters off balance.  In his last six outings, Francisco has only given up three hits.

Good Streak, Bad Team

The Washington Nationals may be awful, but don’t blame third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who extended his hitting streak to 29 games.  Zimmerman went 4-for-5 for the night, including two homers to extend the longest hitting streak in the Nats brief history.

“He's a big man,” said Zimmerman of opposing team pitcher Randy Johnson.  “I've got legs and arms and everything coming at me.  His slider looks pretty good, just like it does on TV. I can see why he's been so good.”

The Bad

The new Yankee Stadium may have the same dimensions as their storied previous facility, but that doesn’t mean the ballpark plays the same.   Forty seven home runs have been lifted in the new stadium after only 13 home games.   Thirty of the home runs were hit into right field, prompting Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost to order wind pattern studies for the new $1.5 billion stadium. 

The home-run total is vastly higher than the most in the first 13 games of a season at the old Yankee Stadium, 36 in 2007, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“There were wind studies performed before,” said Trost.  “They'll be wind studies performed as we go forward, and we're just looking like you are to see whether or not it's the weather, the wind, what happens when the old building goes down.”

The Ugly

Yes, we all know Los Angeles Dodger slugger Manny Ramirez failed a drug test and was suspended by the MLB for 50 games.   Ramirez immediately claimed he was innocent, stating that his doctor unknowingly wrote him a prescription for a banned substance and Man Ram vowed he would appeal.     

However, the appeal was dropped before a scheduled Wednesday meeting after the medical records turned over allegedly included a prescription for the fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotrophin.  HCG is produced naturally in the bodies of pregnant women to help the unborn child develop.  A synthetic form of human chorionic gonadotropin is prescribed from women with ovulation problems, to young boys whose testicles haven't descended in a timely manner and to men with testicular cancer. 

Ramirez's test allegedly had a testosterone-epitestosterone ratio between 4:1 and 10:1.  Typically, a person naturally produces the hormones at a ratio of 1:1; tests of 4:1 or greater are flagged.

I used to say about Man Rams crazy long dreads, “Don’t let the long hair fool you, he’s all man underneath.”  Now I’m not so sure.