What an interesting week this has been on the injury front. For the first time this season, there have been more players coming off the DL in starting lineups than there have been players going on the DL in starting lineups. In fact, there is a lone ass hDLe this week, and its actually a bit of a stretch to call him an ass hDLe seeing how he was injured on Tuesday, May 20th and didnt start again (he did have 2 pinch hit appearances) until he was put on the DL Monday with a right hamstring injury. Our lone ass hDLe, our Highlander, is none other than Lester the Molester's own Eric Young Jr. EY Jr is obviously on Tom's team because he can steal bases, if you were paying attention yesterday, you know his 17 steals are currently tied for 3rd in the league with Jose How Many Altuves. A hamstring injury probably even further limits his already limited value even if he is activated immediately when he is eligible to come off the DL, at least for the first week or so.
The real tragedy here isnt that EY Jr went down, the tragedy is that the only replacement that Tom has on the roster is former Twin, current Phillie, Ben Revere, who has had the biggest week of his major league career. Not only is Revere on a 7 for 19 (.368) run so far this week with a pair of stolen bases, but he hit his first career home run in his 1566th career plate appearance (off lefty Boone Logan no less). Had he retired after his 1565th plate appearance, he would have had the 4th most career at bats without a home run, trailing guys named William Holbert (2396 PAs, Tom Oliver (2073) and Irvin Hall (2052).
Holbert played his last game in 1888 after debuting in 1876 as a 21 year old. He had a career .208 batting average and his OPS+ (on base plus slugging in relation to the league average. 100 is league average, 110 is 10% better than league average, 90 is 10% worse than league average) was 47 for his career and never went over 60 for any one season in his career. He was 40% worse than the average hitter that season IN HIS BEST SEASON. He hit 49 (42 2bs, 7 3bs) extra base hits of his 489 career knocks. Holy schnikes, baseball in the 1880s must have been terrible to watch.
Oliver played from 1930 to 1933 for the Boston Red Sox. He seems to have been an adequate hitter, finishing his career with a .277 average, 534 hits (101 2bs, 11 3bs) and more walks than strikeouts. The problem is that he was playing in the largest offensive era in baseball history outside of the steriod era of the late 1990s and the mid 1890s (when they moved the mound back and told people to stop throwing underhand). In his best season (his rookie year), he hit .293 (league average was .287 that year), so you can hardly say that he couldnt handle the stick. He just didnt have the power to sustain his success in the big leagues. The Sawks replaced him in centerfield in the 1934 season with the combo of Moose Solters and Carl Reynolds, both of whom they had acquired in the offseason.
Hall was a WWII era (1943-1946) middle infielder. There really isnt more than needs to be said than that. Baseball in the war was a ghost of 1930s rollicking self. The league was filled with replacement players as many of the real players had fulfilled their civic duty and enlisted in some branch of the armed forces. The league was dominated by the few stars that remained and several otherwise "never-was" players were able to do quite well for themselves. So basically, Ben Revere, playing in a relatively decent offensive era for home runs, was playing with the power hitting ability few alive have seen. I am sure there are some others who have hit home runs who went through huge droughts (Ozzie Smith once went 3+ full seasons without a HR, but even he hit 28 in his career).
So ride on Ben Revere, hang 3 lanterns in the Old North Church tower, you just left the yard by air.
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