June 29, 2022

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

There are too many strikeouts, too many bases on balls, too little running, too much posing, too many laminated cards under ballcaps.

We’ve established all that.

We’ve all pretty much agreed that the game has changed, probably not for the better, definitely not for the faster, Ken Griffey Jr., Dave Parker and Eric Davis don’t live here anymore, so don’t even bother pining for Aaron, Clemente and Mays.

In fact, let’s get over it. There are young players, coming out of several degrees of nowhere, to lend their stories to a 2022 season that feels somewhat normal all of a sudden. Give us a pitch clock in 2023 and you might actually make it a tough call on summer evenings: WNBA or MLB?

Your enjoyment of baseball shouldn’t really depend on philosophy. It should always be about the players. Like Roy Hobbs, they come and they go. Each of them has a way of putting his own unique ribbon on the game itself. This year, they’re doing it again.

– There’s Luis Arraez, 25, second baseman for Minnesota. He’s 5-foot-9 and from Venezuela, and he’s reminiscent of his countryman, Jose Altuve, with a little Tony Gwynn thrown in.

Arraez is leading the American League in on-base (.427) and batting average (.345) and, after 310 career games, is hitting .320. In 80 percent of his plate appearances he puts the ball in play, and he’s struck out only 8.8 percent of the time.

Beyond that, Arraez has had 34 at-bats in which he has worked with two strikes. He’s hitting .353 in those situations with only seven strikeouts. And he hits .432 with men in scoring positions. Maybe he was born 20 years too late. The Twins think he was made for these times.

– There’s Tony Gonsolin, 28, right-handed starter for the Dodgers. Until this year Gonsolin was being shuffled from rotation to “opener” to Oklahoma City. He also made the sad mistake, when he came in 2019, of telling someone he enjoyed cats. This captured the docile imaginations of most broadcast media, to the point where the days on which Gonsolin pitched were known as “Caturday.”

Fortunately Gonsolin has survived that narrative and provided another one. He is the first pitcher in major league history with a 9-0 record and a sub-1.60 ERA (1.58) going into July, and his 0.851 WHIP leads the National League. He and Tyler Anderson have stabilized a Dodger rotation that was missing Clayton Kershaw and is missing Walker Buehler. The batting averages against Gonsolin’s splitter and slider are both .103. This is not what was predicted at St. Mary’s College, when Corbin Burnes was the star pitcher on campus, and Gonsolin thought he’d be making money as an outfielder.

– There’s Hoby Milner, 31, left-handed reliever for Milwaukee. This is his fifth team. The Phillies signed him, made him available in the Rule 5 draft, was taken and then returned. After his first 95 big league appearances, he had neither a win or a loss, the most durable 0-0 record in MLB annals.

But Milner, in the midst of the Brewers’ overflowing bullpen, has held up his end. None of the first 13 inherited runners this season was able to score. Hoby’s dad Brian is having a marvelous time. He was a catcher, a former seventh-round pick of the Blue Jays who couldn’t stay healthy enough to stick. He played two games in 1978 and peaked at double-A Knoxville in 1982.

– There’s Jazz Chisholm, 24, second baseman for Miami. Actually it’s Jasrado Prince Hermis Arrington Chisholm, a breezy weather system from the Bahamas whose love for the game is unadulterated and, lately, sublimated. Chisholm has an .864 OPS and has slammed 14 home runs with 45 RBIs. He is hitting .366 with men in scoring position. And he approaches every inning like a trip to the ice cream store, which isn’t easy during a Marlins summer.

Chisholm and pitcher Sandy Alcantara should make the All-Star Game in Dodger Stadium, and they’ll provide an emphatic hello for a baseball public that rarely sees them. Unfortunately, since it’s the Marlins, Chisholm might live his glory years in another, fuller stadium.

– There’s Ryan Helsley, 27, right-handed reliever for St. Louis. If you see a 90 mph pitch from Helsley, it’s a changeup. He hit 103 on May 1, signaling a comeback from elbow surgery, and he retired 30 of the first 32 hitters he faced. Even now he has a 0.593 WHIP with eight hits and nine walks in 28 2/3 innings.

Helsley is a fifth-round pick from Northeastern Oklahoma, an NAIA school, and is an official member of the Cherokee tribe. He speaks the language and, in off-seasons, has been a tutor as the Cherokee school where his great-aunt teaches. And, no, he isn’t amused by the Tomahawk Chop in Atlanta.

– There’s Jeremy Pena, 24, shortstop for Houston. When a top shortstop leaves a team he often leaves a cavern, not a hole. Carlos Correa left after last season, which wasn’t unanticipated. Houston was preparing Pena, son of former major leaguer Geronimo, and through the first 55 games Pena was plus-seven in runs saved and hitting .277. A thumb injury has interrupted the story, but he returned on June 26.

Pena’s family moved from the Dominican Republic to Providence when he was eight, and, like most others on the list, he wasn’t stamped for success. He wound up at the University of Maine and became the first Black Bear to make the big leagues in 15 years.

While trumpets announce Adley Rutschman, Spencer Torkelson, Julio Rodriguez and other showbiz kids, Pena and the rest showed up largely unknown. Suddenly their teams can’t imagine life without them.