Thoughts on beanballs and bad baserunning

I guess I'll start with bad baserunning.  The last few days were just loaded with really bad baserunning by the Yanks.  I like Bret Gardner. I hope he'll be a Bernie Williams type career Yankee.  I love seeing him bunt for a base hit the other day.  But he has been a disaster on the base paths.  He's been consistently caught stealing.  He's been picked off, he's failed to advance on the Boston passed ball.  What is up with this?  Is he feeling too much pressure to do something on the bases and swinging between too agressive and too passive?  I am really frustrated with this.

Add to GGBG's problems having Posada start hitting means having him on the bases.  He is a real problem out there.  Recent examples include being out at second streching a single, being picked off second on a missed bunt (by GGBG) and jamming up the bases by just being slow.  The Friday night double by Gardner would have been a triple with almost anyone on first.  But Jorge couldn't score so Bret went back to second.

I always hate baserunning mistakes.  Usually they are rare.  Now I think I see a glut of them.

On the subject of beanballs.  I looked at the year's stats by team regarding how many times a team's players were HBP and how many times that team's pitchers hit opposing batters.  I just expected my prejudice to be confirmed.  The Yanks get hit a lot and they rarely hit opponents.

I got a surprise.  The Yanks are not the leaders in being hit more than they hit.  Nor are they the leaders in being hit.  The league's biggest target team is the White Sox!  They were hit a league leading 40 times(YTD through Friday). Add to this the fact they hit opponents the least of any team, 14.  and the have a differential of 26.  This is way more than the second place Yanks +12 (33 and 21).  Third is a tie between Oakland and Baltimore at +7. 

On the other end of the list I expected the Boston Beantowners.  They did not disappoint hitting opponents a league leading 40 times.  Happily they do not get away with it unpunished, they got hit a respectable 26 times for a diffential of  -14 that does not lead the league.  Toronto has -16.  They hit others a solid 31 times and got hit only 15 times.  Interesting. 

It seems to me the Yanks are getting hit a lot, and really hit hard.  The recent 2 hits on Tex and the ball in Arod's hip seem really viscious.  Anyone have any historical insight?  I'm too busy to do the research, at least for a while.  Do these teams feel they can intimidate our guys?

With an older team it seems the injury risk to these big stars from these attacks is something we will have to worry about.  Depth is important to a team, but you cannot replace a Texiera or Arod.