jacoby ellsbury is having, by any angle, a phenomenal season. now hitting .325, it seems he's really started to find power in his swing with 17 HRs (3 fewer than papi, the same as adrian gonzalez ((who needs a nickname))).
the thing that amazes me is 60 RBIs. that's good for 4th on the team, but ellsbury is the LEAD OFF batter. here are some other lead-off batter's RBI stats from the AL: gardner from the yankees has 21 (jeter has 34), kinsler from the rangers has 41, izturis from the angels has 24, jackson from the tigers has 24, ichiro from the mariners has 26, pierre from the white sox has 26. i don't know how this compares historically, but it seems pretty incredible to me. i do know the most RBIs ever for a lead off batter is 100.
Over at the Globe, Chad Finn echos your remarks and says that if Ellsbury can keep up this pace, he'll have an historically good season.
ReplyDeleteLink: http://www.boston.com/sports/touching_all_the_bases/2011/07/ellsburys_monster_season.html
The numbers he references are before the 7/25 game, namely "he's batting .317 with 16 homers, 28 stolen bases, 125 hits, and an .891 OPS"
What's been most suprising to me has been his power and his ability to lay off the high fastball, his one batting weakness coming into this season. He's almost up to a Pedroia-like level where they're can't-miss-at-bats.
Forgot to include this quote from the article above:
ReplyDelete"Ellsbury's current numbers projected over a full season come out to 27 homers, 92 RBIs, 210 hits, 121 runs, 47 steals, a .316 average, and an .886 OPS."