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Apr 15 2008

Carlos Pena can hit Home Runs … and nothing else

Posted by: Richie Rich in 2008 MLB, Rays, Stats

Carlos Pena of the Tampa Bay RaysLast season, Carlos Pena hit 46 Home Runs for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and was the AL Comeback Player of the Year and the AL winner of Home Run Derby’s Andre Dawson Award. 

This season, he’s leading the Tampa Bay Rays and all of the Major Leagues with six Home Runs.  Making Home Run Derby players happy everywhere.

But hitting Home Runs is all that he’s doing in 2008.  It’s been all or nothing for Pena.

Through 4/15, Pena is batting a sub-Mendoza .196 with a decent slugging percentage (.549) and OPS (.908) - but only thanks to those Home Runs.

But take away those Dingers …

  G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB HBP K BA OBP SLG OPS
With HR 14 51 13 10 0 0 6 13 9 4 19 .196 .359 .549 .908
W/O HR 14 45 7 4 0 0 0 1 9 4 19 .089 .293 .089 .382
2007 148 490 99 138 29 1 46 121 103 10 142 .282 .411 .627 1.038

… and Pena hits like a gir- scratch that, he hits like a pitcher. 
.089 / .293 / .089 with no extra base hits.

Holy Cow!  Twelve of Pena’s thirteen RBI have come via the Home Run.  And that one RBI came when he drew a walk with the bases loaded. 

Thirteen RBI, and not one of them has touched the ground (6 HR and one Bases Loaded Walk).  I’m not sure if anyone’s ever done that to start a season.  Someone get Jayson Stark’s Useless Info Department on the case.

Mind you, Pena can do something besides hit Home Runs in 2008.  He can also get hit by pitches.  He’s tied for the MLB lead in HBP (4) with David Eckstein.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm and is filed under 2008 MLB, Rays, Stats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

BallHype: hype it up!

4 Responses to “Carlos Pena can hit Home Runs … and nothing else”
  1. B says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 5:19 am

    Wow! One question - how did he lose 7 runs scored?

  2. Richie Rich says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 8:54 am

    Oops. I fixed that.
    It should have been a loss of six runs.

  3. Matt Bishoff says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

    His numbers will come around.

    Even though he isn’t hitting well outside of the power numbers, he is still drawing a lot of walks.
    As soon as he starts hitting a few more line drives this should all even out.

  4. TGIF Reading: Why ask why? | umpbump.com says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am

    [...] Home Run Derby, why can Carlos Pena only hit home [...]

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