July 11, 2005
Home Run Derby
I believe it's going to be a very low scoring home run derby tonight. According to The Bill James Baseball Handbook 2005, Detroit was the 2nd most difficult park for home runs in the AL over the 2002-2004 period with a park index of 83. This year, it has a park index of 82. The 1997 Derby in Cleveland suffered from this. The rounds went very quickly because Jacobs is a tough home run park, and ESPN wound up having to fill a lot of time.
The park does favor lefties over righties. That gives an advantage to Ortiz, Abreu, Teixeira and Choi. If I had to bet on a player tonight, I'd pick Ortiz. He hits a lot of homers away from Fenway and he's a lefty. Personally, I'm rooting for Choi, just because I'd love to see him get the attention.
Enjoy!
Well then again, maybe not so low scoring- first man up - Abreu already has 21 and he's not even done yet. True, he's one of the lefties, but it's starting off pretty big! OK, he hit another one, no two before I could even finish writing!
I read this and have to ask for Comerica itself, "How do you like me now?"
They moved in the left field fences. It ain't the Reverse Coors.
Well you were right about Abreu and Ortiz doing well (in the first round at least), so don't feel too bad about the low-scoring prediction not quite going right. Although Teixieira and Bay did their best for you on that one ;o)
Corked bat won this Derby? When Abrieu's bat BARREL disintegrated after numer 22 in the first round, didn't that look a little suspicious?
