Ray’s Ramblings: Did You Know?

.920: The OPS in June of Justin Upton. The younger Upton brother has crushed it in the third stanza of the season with five homers, 20 RBI, three steals and that stellar OPS. He’s back folks.

1.57: The ERA of Clayton Kershaw through 15 starts. That is the third best mark, in 15 seasons, for a pitcher through 15 outings. Roger Clemens was at 1.51 in 2005 while Tom Glavine was at 1.53 in 2002. Clemens finished the season at 1.87 in the ERA column while Glavine ended his campaign at 2.96.

5: The number of batters who have walked more than they have struck out this season: Jose Altuve (1.29 BB/K), Bryce Harper (1.16), Anthony Rizzo (1.03), Carlos Santana (1.03) and Ben Zobrist (1.19). Santana is batting .230 and Harper is at .255. It’s not common to see a rate of better than one and not see a guy hitting at least .275.

43: Homer pace this season for Evan Longoria who has gone deep 18 times in 66 games this season. Since the start of the 2008 season Longoria leads baseball in home runs by a third baseman with 223. Longoria leads the position with 751 RBI in that time. Longoria is second at third base in runs scored with 668, just two less than Adrian Beltre.

43.6: The strikeout rate for right-handed batters against Jose Fernandez. The big league average is 21.1 percent. Fernandez has a 13.17 K/9 rate this season with 118 punchouts in 80.2 innings. Only two pitchers who has ever thrown 162 innings in a season who have struck out that many batters: Randy Johnson (13.41 in 2001) and Pedro Martinez (13.2 in 1999).

68: The number of games it took Xander Bogaerts to reach 100 hits. The last time someone got there that quickly was 2007 when Ichiro Suzuki and Matt Holliday were there. Over his last 162 games Xander is batting .341 with 13 homers, 16 steals, 102 RBI and 113 runs scored. He’s also
produced a massive 233 hits.

Steven Wright continues to pitch like an all-star. Madison Bumgarner is pitching better than he has his whole career. Josh Tomlin keeps giving up home runs, so use caution with him going forward. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO.

Speaking of 162 games… here are the leaders the last calendar year in a variety of categories.

- - - means the player appeared for at least two big league teams the last calendar year.

HITTING

PITCHING

* Minimum 150 innings pitched (85 qualifiers).

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).