Daily Baseball Update: Who's Hot 5/18

If the Season Ended Today

AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera (Tigers): 8 HR, 42 RBI, .376 AVG, 1 SB.  

On pace for (OPF): 32 HR, 170 RBI, .376 AVG, 4 SB.

NL MVP: Paul Goldschmidt (D-Backs): 12 HR, 35 RBI, .338 AVG, 4 SB.  

OPF: 46 HR, 145 RBI, .338 AVG, 15 SB.

AL Cy Young: Hisashi Iwakuma (Mariners): 5-1, 1.84 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 55 K's.

OPF: 19-4, 1.84 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 212 K's.

NL CY Young: Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers): 4-2, 1.40 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 67 K's.

OPF: 16-8, 1.40 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 271 K's.

AL Rookie: Cody Allen (Indians): 1-0, 2.33 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 24 K's.  

OPF: 4-0, 2.33 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 97 K's.

NL Rookie: Shelby Miller (Cardinals): 5-2, 1.40 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 57 K's.  

OPF: 20-8, 1.40 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 225 K's.

Who's Hot (Stats from last 7 days for hitters, 30 days for pitchers).

Paul Goldschmidt (D-Backs): 3 HR, 5 RBI, .524 AVG, 0 SB.

Goldschmidt has been tremendous in his last four games, going 10-16 (.625 AVG) with three home runs and five RBI.  It started on May 13th, when he went 2-3 with a double and a home run.  After going 1-4 on the 14th, he went 3-4 with three doubles on the 15th.  An off day set the stage for the 17th, when he went 4-5 with a double, two home runs, four RBI, and four runs scored at Marlins Park, a notorious pitchers' park.  In these last four games, his season's slugging percentage has jumped 100 points from .556 to .656 and his average rose from .304 to .338.  He's rocketed himself into early season MVP conversation as the Diamondbacks sit tied atop the West with the reigning champion Giants.

Raul Ibanez (Mariners): 4 HR, 10 RBI, .381 AVG, 0 SB.

Raul is on a power surge.  He's homered five times in his last six games, including a three run bomb on May 10th, a two runner on the 14th, a grand slam and a two runner on the 15th, and another two run homer on the 17th.  He's recorded multiple hits in three of his last four games, and has driven in multiple runs in four of his last six.  On May 15th, he was 2-5 with two home runs, one of which was a grand slam, and six RBI.

Marco Scutaro (Giants): 1 HR, 2 RBI, .481 AVG, 0 SB.

Marco Scutaro is now on a 16 game hitting streak where his average has jumped 112 points from .215 to .327.  12 of the 16 games have yielded multiple hits, and four of those yielded three hits.  He's doubled five times during the streak, tripled twice, and hit a home run on May 12th, the 12th game of his hitting streak.  From May 7th to 14th, he posted eight straight multi-hit games, in which his averaged jumped from .261 to .315.  His on-base percentage during his hitting streak is .521, causing his season total in that department to jump from .260 to .368 in 16 games.  He's also scored a run in each of his last eight games, which puts him just ten away from Kenny Lofton's consecutive run scored streak of 18.

Jean Segura (Brewers): 2 HR, 4 RBI, .419 AVG, 6 SB.

Jean is 15-35 (.429 AVG) in his last eight games, including posting four straight multi hit games from May 10th to the 13th.  He's also stolen six bases in his last seven games, and he is now tied with Everth Cabrera for the major league lead in that category at 14.  He homered in back to back games on the 10th and 11th while recording six hits, and stole five bases in three games from the 11th to the 13th.  He also homered on the 14th and stole another base on the 16th.

Felix Hernandez (Mariners): 4-0, 0.75 ERA, 0.86 WHIP.

King Felix has not given up more than a run in any game since April 11th, effectively cutting his ERA in half, dropping it from 3.05 to 1.53.  Of these six splendid performances, his best came on May 3rd, when he tossed eight shutout innings in Toronto.  He also went eight innings on April 17th and 27th as well as May 8th.  His ERA in his past six starts is a healthy 0.82, having given up four runs in 44 innings. 

Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers): 2-0, 1.01 ERA, 0.86 WHIP.

Clayton Kershaw is also doing pretty well.  He's 2-0 with a 0.59 ERA in his past four starts, having given up just two earned runs in 30.2 innings.  His ERA has dropped from 2.14 to a league leading 1.40.  He tossed eight shutout innings on April 28th, posted back to back seven inning, one earned run starts on May 3rd and 8th, then fell one out shy of a complete game shutout against the Nationals on the 14th.  

Who's Cold

Ike Davis (Mets): 0 HR, 0 RBI, .038 AVG, 0 SB.

Yesterday, Ike Davis just snapped a 0-24 stretch with a 1-4 game.  His average had fallen from an already bad .190 to an abysmal .155 before a single in Friday's game knocked it back up to .160.  He struck out 11 times in the 0-24 slump, including four times on Thursday alone.  Even his hit yesterday, which I watched on replay, was a slow hit ground ball up the middle in which he was out in front of.

Phil Humber (Astros): 0-5, 16.94 ERA, 3.00 WHIP.

Phil Humbers immense struggles this season can be summed up in the stats above.  After everything I wrote about last week in terms of his performance (three starts with at least seven earned runs in the course of just two weeks), he went out on May 11th in a relief appearance and gave up five earned runs while recording just two outs, knocking his season numbers to 0-8 with a 9.59 ERA.  This prompted the Astros, the worst team in baseball, to designate him for assignment (basically release him) and sign Edgar Gonzalez.

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Teams followed in this update: Washington Nationals, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers

If your team is not included, please leave a comment.

HR: home runs.  RBI: runs batted in.  AVG: batting average.  SB: stolen bases.  ERA: earned run average. WHIP: walks/hits per innings pitched.  K's: strikeouts. WPCT: winning percentage

Zack Silverman