Short Hops: Birthday basher

BIRTHDAY BASHER

Most of us would be happy with a stupid t-shirt. Among Chipper Jones’ recent birthday presents were an autographed guitar from Rascal Flatts and a Dale Earnhardt video box set. His best gifts always seem to be to himself, however. This year (April 24, when he turned 36), it was three hits (including a homer) and a win over the Marlins. Jones is now 18-for-36 with four jacks on his birthday throughout his career. It’s as manager Bobby Cox says of the season’s hottest hitter, “Every day has been his birthday.”

WIN, LOSE...BUT MOSTLY DRAW

Let’s say that, some season, a pitcher makes 32 starts and compiles a 3.65 ERA; how many wins would you expect said pitcher to have? Since World War II, there have been 227 players to start 30 to 34 times with an ERA between 3.55 and 3.75 in a season. The median number of victories for those pitchers is 14, with 33 of them winning 17 or more. Then there’s the unfortunate case of Jeremy Guthrie.

The Orioles righty has made 32 starts in his career with a 3.65 ERA — and SIX wins to show for it. (Brandon Webb has that many already this season.) Had Guthrie compiled his stats over a single season, his half-dozen Ws would be the fewest since 1910 for a pitcher with that many starts and an ERA that low. His 19 no-decisions, in which he’s posted a fine 3.38 ERA, have been particularly excruciating. In only one has he allowed more than three earned runs.

There have been, however, at least two pitchers in baseball history with similarly appalling providence over an extended period. Jerry Koosman’s famine lasted two years; for the 1977 and ’78 Mets, he went 11-35 despite a 3.62 ERA. And then there was a fellow named Jack Nabors, whose 3.74 ERA for the 1916 A’s couldn’t insulate him from a 1-20 ledger. While Nabors was dropping his last 19 decisions for a pathetic 36-117 squad, his teammates scored two or fewer runs in 14 of his starts.

HIT AND RUN

Short Hops’ recurring installment of slapdash observation and imprudent opinion:

Roy Halladay is the first pitcher to throw four straight complete games in April since Tom Candiotti in 1988, and the first since Randy Johnson in ’99 to lose three CGs in a row in any month. Whereas Doc gave up 10 runs in his defeats, Unit allowed only four amidst a stretch in which the Diamondbacks lost 1-0, 2-0, 1-0 and 2-0, successively, in his starts.

Though it may very well be true, we’re tired of hearing that Hanley Ramirez is the best all-around player in baseball. No one posited that judgment until Peter Gammons put it out there about two weeks ago. Since then, it’s become corporate policy for every ESPN broadcaster to claim the opinion as his own on every edition of SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight.

The biggest hit to date for country singer Mindy McCready, the alleged long-term object of Roger Clemens’ affections, has been her 1996 smash, “Guys Do It All the Time.” Heh.

QUOTABLES

“I ended up on third base, and I wish I could have called a TV timeout.” — Plodding, flu-ridden 35-year-old Phillies catcher Chris Coste after having to sprint all the way to third in his first at-bat last Friday.