Short Hops: The beasts within

The first-place Rays hit the midway point at 49-32  — the best ledger ever at that stage by a team that had the worst record in the Majors the year before.

What makes that even more improbable is that they don’t have a hitter among the AL’s top 10 in batting, doubles, extra-base hits, hits, OPS, RBIs, total bases or walks; nor a pitcher in the top 10 in ERA or strikeouts.

Carlos Pena and B.J. Upton hit 70 homers in 2007, and they’re on pace to finish with fewer than half that many. Carl Crawford is 40 points off his batting average of the last three seasons. Potential star Rocco Baldelli hasn’t played a game. Ace Scott Kazmir missed a month. Both last year’s and this year’s closer, Al Reyes and Troy Percival, respectively, have been on the DL twice.

Manager Joe Maddon says it’s been an “anonymous” first half. “There’s no one guy having a killer season,” he says, “which makes it more appealing to me that we’re at this juncture, knowing somebody’s going to turn into a beast in the second half.”

JOHNSONBALL? DAVEYMETRICS?

So Billy Beane didn’t invent “Moneyball” after all. So says Davey Johnson.

Best known for managing the Mets to the 1986 World Series title, the skipper of the USA Olympic Team would like you to know that he, not the A’s general manager, was the pioneer for applying advanced statistical analysis to appraise baseball performance.

“I was the first guy using computers in baseball studying statistics,” Johnson recently stated. “If you go into the leading hitting categories and you look at the leaders in offense — and basically I taught Billy Beane this — on-base percentage, slugging percentage, walks and strikeouts...that tells you that this guy can hit breaking balls as well as fastballs, and he knows the strike zone. Those kinds of guys can succeed anywhere.”

In 1997, Johnson was fired by the Orioles on the same day he was named AL Manager of the Year because uppity owner Peter Angelos considered him too sassy. Snooty Marge Schott axed him after two division titles in Cincinnati because he lived with a lady to whom he was not married.

“Davey wasn’t a politician,” says former Mets star Keith Hernandez. Still isn’t.

HIT AND RUN

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

Lance Berkman now has a better career OPS (.983) than Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial or Alex Rodriguez.

A peculiar coincidence in Carlos Delgado’s 9-RBI insurrection against the Yankees on Friday: With the same swing that broke Dave Kingman’s Mets record for ribs in a game, Delgado passed Kong for 34th on the all-time home run list.

Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera has struck out 14 times in 14 career at-bats. That makes him the only player in history with than many Ks in fewer than 20 ABs. He did, however, get down a sac in 2006.

Mark Ellis owns the highest road batting average in the AL (.339) — and the lowest at home (.193).

The margin between the NL hitting leader (Chipper Jones at .394) and the AL leader (Joe Mauer at .323) is an absurd 71 points — the exact difference between the career batting averages of Manny Ramirez and Jose Molina.

QUOTABLES

“You have to ask him. And he’s going to have some stupid answer, some dumbass answer.” — Fired Mariners GM Bill Bavasi, asked why dour, uncoachable Eric Bedard couldn’t seem to get deeper into in his starts.