Death to all Flying Things...I think I love you

So, I always tell Garbs not to bring this up on the blog, but after the game tonight it needs to be said. I have an unbelievable man-crush on Frankin Gutierrez. During last year it was Evan Longoria and the work that Guti has done out in centerfield has completely won over my [baseball] heart.

It started out innocent enough. I mentioned to Garbs earlier in the season that if I had a daughter I'd let Franklin take her to the prom. The only stipulation was he was to have her home by 10:00 pm. Well, as the season went along, I extended the deadline to midnight, then the next morning. When Gutierrez started hitting the ball with authority during the NL West road trip I started to turn a bit and said I would let Guti take me to the prom. Now...full on man-crush. It's not sick or dirty...it's just right.

So what if I get made fun of for this. Guti is a beautiful, beautiful person and I will shout it out to the world so everyone can hear! Well, the best way I know how to do that is through this blog. I distinctly remember recording our last blogcast over at Garbs' and I mentioned it looked like Gutierrez was starting to come around.

Dave over at USS Mariner posted a while back about how Gutierrez should be an all-star. When you compare his glove with the recent tear he's been on I don't think you can even doubt that he should at least have been considered. Unfortunately for Guti, most fans reward offense over defense. So, until Guti starts putting the ball out of the ball park in a Josh Hamilton fashion, he might have to settle with the adoration of yours truly.

Here's what Guti has done since that San Diego series on June 16th:

.395/.500/.686

That's a batting average of .395, an on-base percentage of .500 and a slugging percentage of .686. This is very impressive and although I don't think the kid will be able to sustain his offensive production it was his defense that initially attracted me to him in the first place.

Here are Guti's defensive numbers so far:

UZR: 12.0

Remember, UZR is a measure of how many runs a player saves a team with their defense. Gutierrez has saved us 12 runs just by being out in centerfield. That's phenomenal.

For those of you who like to look at other metrics like errors, it's just not a valid statistic. If you don't believe me look at Gutierrez' throw a couple days ago against the Orioles. The throw unfortunately hit the side of the mound and bounced past the catcher for an error. Now, if it hadn't have hit the mound, the runner still would have been safe at home but the other runners wouldn't have advanced giving him an error. But regardless, Guti has only committed 3 errors this year compared to a ton of Sports Center Web Gems. That's going to be my next project, ratio of errors to web gems, cause they're both misleading. But the truth is, Guti gets it done in the field.

For those of you who prefer to look at more basic statistics, here are the numbers I used to get the batting averages, on-base percentages and slugging percentage for Franklin Gutierrez.

Games: 22

At Bats: 86

Hits: 34

Walks: 9

1B: 23

2B: 4

3B: 0

HR: 7