Bang the Drum Slowly

Joe Mauer was the lead story on ESPN's home page yesterday, with a bunch of related features. They've moved it to their baseball page. I'm not sure how long it will be there, but there's a cool breakdown of his swing, a Rob Neyer article about great young catchers in baseball history, and more. Barring a massive slump, Mauer Mania will only heat up. He's hitting .380, and has a legitimate shot at becoming the first catcher in AL history to win a batting title. Right now, the race looks like this:

Joe Mauer .380
Derek Jeter .346
Ichiro Suzuki .340

Assuming they keep up their pace of at bats, if the three guys hit at their career averages the rest of the way (JM .326/DJ .316/IS .334), the final numbers would look like this:

Joe Mauer .359
Ichiro Suzuki .338
Derek Jeter .334

If Joe hits "only" .300 the rest of the way, he'd finish at .348, and Jeter would need to hit .353 the rest of the way to pass him, while Ichiro would need to hit .360.

If Joe slumps even more, and hits .280 over the final third of the season, he'd still finish at .340. Jeter would need to hit .330 to top that, while Ichiro would need to keeping hitting at his current pace, .340.

Regardless of what happens, this is a great time to be a Twins fan. They've clawed their way back into the playoff race, they've got 2 pitchers with Cy Young-worthy stats, a catcher shooting for a batting title, and a young slugger on pace to hit the 7th-most home runs in a single Twins season (and the most of anyone not named Killibrew).

In fact, Stick and Ball Guy is tracking Morneau's place in Twins history. Talk about a franchise lacking sluggers over the years- Ron Coomer and Tim Laudner are tied for the 18th-most career home runs in a Twins uniform!