Jul 29 2011 12:41 PM
park as an assett, building off of each other's succeess, and working the opposition almost every inning.
Among the Success:
[list][*]Walks up prodigiously, leading the league[/*:m]
[*]Jose Reyes, having the year that Willie Randolph always knew he had in him but couldn't coax out of him. Manuel, too.[/*:m]
[*]Daniel Murphy, hitting everything hard. Everything.[/*:m]
[*]Justin Turner, rapid learner.[/*:m]
[*]Ruben Tejada, knocking nobody out, but making adjustments and displaying confidence he didn't show last year.[/*:m]
[*]Lucas Duda, starting off as bad as he did his first time through the majors last year, but instead of settling into the clout-or-an-out pattern that you might come to expect from a young fringey power hitter, he remade himself as a contact hitter, won back the strike zone, and is only now finding his lost kaboomage.[/*:m]
[*]David Wright, coming off the DL like a racehorse, for whatever credit that deserves.[/*:m][/list:u]
On the Other Side of the Ledger
[list][*]More crap from Bay (though at least he's walking... and hitting once a week).[/*:m]
[*]Backslide by Pagan.[/*:m]
[*]Backslide by Thole.[/*:m]
[*]Emaus, we hardly knew ye.[/*:m]
[*]Poor Chin-lung Hu.[/*:m][/list:u]
Obviously, primary credit (and blame) rests with the batsmen themselves. (Beltran's season can be credited to him first, and doctors and rehabbers and trainers second, third, and fourth.) But it's his watch, and I've got to love what's transpired on it. The real success, along with Collins, is surviving the awful start and sticking with the program and getting the players to stick with it. Bottom line: the teams runs per game is at 4.53 (compared to 4.05 last year), despite a seemingly unlikely precipitious drop in homeruns/game from .7901 to .6476.
Dave Hudgens. For MVP.