Dutchies in Major League Baseball, Friday May 29
They have been away for a while, but they are back. The players from the Netherlands, Curacao, Aruba and other Caribbean islands.
Didi Gregorius is having his ups and downs. He plays games in which he gets his basehits, but there are also games in which he goes 0 for 3 or 0 for 4. Last night in the 6-2 loss vs Oakland, he went 1 for 2 with a double, a run scored and a walk.
On the defensive side he is getting better, even though he made an unnecessary error in Thursday’s game when he tried to back flip the ball towards first base. But I think that it is his youthful enthusiasm.
Another fine shorstop is Xander Bogaerts. He knows how to handle the bat. At one point in the past few weeks he had a .286 batting average but since then his average has nose dived towards .263. This clip shows that he can flash the leather as well. So far he has committed four errors and he is sporting a .980 fielding percentage.
Pedro Strop took his third loss of the season last night. He entered the eighth inning, managed to get one out but could not get out of the inning as he gave up three runs on one hit and two walks. Thanks to the three runs given up, his ERA rose to 4.09. He keeps his opponents to a .169 batting average.
BTW, If you wonder why I put Strop in this article. He was born in the Dominican Republic but he has a mothe from Curacao.
I know that the season is still long, but so far Andrelton Simmons is hitting a lot better than he did in his previous two seasons. Last night he went 2 for 3 which made his batting average rise to .262.
He made a 6-3 double play when he fielded the ball after a tough hop.
After a long time on the DL, Kenley Jansen returned to the Dodgers two weeks ago. In his first appearance the pitched in the eighth inning an fanned four (!). In his next appearance he picked up where he had left in 2014, as a closer. Since then he has converted four of his four save opportunities and did not allow a run so far. He has struck out nine in only five innings. Hard to believe that Kenley used to be a catcher eh? He played as a catcher with team Netherlands in the 2009 World Baseball Classic when the Dutch ousted the Dominicans.