Grandy and Tex.....Mantle and Maris???

On July 5th Curtis Granderson hit 2 HR's to give him 25 on the season. That is the name number Mark Teixeira has for the yanks this year. They are the first teammates since Mantle and Maris to hit 25 HR's each before the All-Star break. They did it in the magical season of 1961. At that time Maris had 33 HR's and Mantle had 29 HR's.

Aramis The Great

After a slow start Aramis Ramirez has been one of the hottest sluggers in baseball. He has 10 HR's in his last 15 games. He now has 15 total on the season and is only 10 away from last years total. During this stretch he also raised his avg to .300 and put himself on pace for 100 RBI's.

On The Plus Side

Ian Kinsler homered not once but twice last night. That gives him 11 for the season and passes his 2010 HR total of 9 HR's. The only other derby players that have passed their 2010 HR totals at this point are Carlos Beltran, Mitch Moreland, Carlos Santana and Brett Wallace.

I'm not a machine, I am Albert!

Looks like Pujols wasn't lying on the ESPN promo. Today he proved he was human by going on the DL. He will miss 4-6 weeks with a wrist injury. That will make the monthly derby race interesting. The current top 2 teams for the month have Pujols. That leaves the door wide open!

The Bronx Bombers

The Yankees are a team built to hit HR's. In yesterdays game they added 3 more long balls to their season total. Granderson, Teixeira and Arod were all contributors. All 3 players are in the top 10 for HR's in the AL. Granderson is tied for the MLB lead with Jose Bautista. They both have 20.

Its Good To Be Prince

Brewer 1B Prince Fielder is a big man who hits the ball a long way. It took this locomotive a while to get started but now that he has he's not slowing down. He has 17 HR's total, and had a recent stretch where he hit 6 HR's in 7 games. He's ahead of last years pace and his name appears quite a bit in the Derby Top 20. Looks like veggies work too!

1 Morse Time

National OF Michael Morse is on fire. He started the year battling for a spot in the lineup. Over the first month of the season he was batting .200 with 1 HR. As of today he is batting .306 with 10 HR's. He has 3 HR's in his last 6 games. This guys a beast.