Puckett's Pond » Baseball Card Series

Carlos Quentin gets Carded at Target Field

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:34:01 +0000

Carlos Quentin has been holding down the 5th spot in the Chicago White Sox batting order this season, but because of a lack of production from the 3 hitters, Quentin has been given a shot to try his hand in the third slot. Quentin is hitting just .269 in 2011 but he is slugging more than twice that at .573. While he doesn’t hit for a particularly high average (.254 career batting average) he provides a lot of power for a White Sox team that struggled to score runs early in the 2011 season. 2009 and 2010 were pretty average years for Quentin, but in 2011 he already has 17 homers through his first 65 games. He is on pace to hit 41 homers, surpassing his career high of 36 in 2008. In fact, in 2008, Carlos Quentin led the American League in HRs per AB, hitting one HR for every 13.3 ABs according to the back of his 2011 Topps Heritage Card.
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Getting Carded in Arizona

Fri, 20 May 2011 23:23:53 +0000

I’m fairly confident saying that I know less about the 2011 Arizona Diamondbacks than any other MLB team. I asked a couple of my friends if they could name anyone on the Arizona roster and all of them did better than I did. I asked the other Twins Twin and he at least identified a guy that USED to play for the Diamondbacks, Brandon Webb, even if that was two years ago. Since interleague play is so brief, and the Twins are probably NOT going to be playing the Diamondbacks in the World Series, I thought this would be a good time to profile the two players on the Diamondbacks that I have a 2011 baseball card for. (more…)

The Future is Coming

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:00:30 +0000

The season is still very young, and for the Minnesota Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays, the newness of the 2011 season helps to dissipate high levels of panic as each team was off to a sluggish start. Since starting 0-6 the Rays have been playing pretty decent baseball and now find themselves at .500 (thanks to a series against the then struggling Minnesota Twins and the slumping Chicago White Sox). The Twins, meanwhile, found their groove after leaving Tampa Bay and are only 3 games under .500 after some solid performances in the past week against Baltimore and Cleveland. The two face off tonight for the first in a three game series.

The Tampa Bay Rays have had some minor tweaks to their roster, most notable losing Evan Longoria to the DL, but through the first 22 games they’ve only brought up two guys from their Minor League system. The Twins, on the other hand, have faced plenty of adversity through their first 21 games and have already played 30 guys on their Major League team, due to a variety of reasons from ineffectiveness in the bullpen to bi-lateral leg weakness behind the plate.

Unfortunately for the Rays and the Twins these injuries have plagued both clubs where they have relatively weak depth, compared with their options in the outfield. In conjunction with my brother’s Baseball Card Series I will be showcasing a few baseball cards of my own, and today marks the first effort on that front. I’ll be profiling two MLB Rookie Cards from this year’s Topps collection, Desmond Jennings of the Tampa Bay Rays and Ben Revere of the Minnesota Twins. (more…)