Extra Bases: Ups and Downs of Two Top Picks

When Reynolds and Humber were drafted, they were considered potential top starters, not future fill-ins. The Rockies drafted Reynolds second over all in 2006. The Mets picked Humber third in 2004, and he has since bounced to four other organizations.

Humber, 28, beat Tampa Bay on April 9, allowing one run in six innings. It was his first victory as a starter in his major league career, which included one start for the Mets, who traded him to Minnesota as part of the Johan Santana deal in 2008. Humber worked 13 games in relief for the Twins, pitched eight games for Kansas City last season, and was the property of the Oakland Athletics for a month this winter before Chicago claimed him off waivers.

“It’s been a great experience for me over here,” Humber said last week. “They’ve really shown a lot of confidence in me. They’ve given me an opportunity to prove what I can do, and that’s all you can ask for as a player.”

Humber had reconstructive elbow surgery with the Mets in 2005, but he made his debut for them the next season. Yet he said he did not mesh with the pitching coach Rick Peterson, and spent much of the next few seasons poring over video, trying to add velocity. Humber acknowledged that stunted his development.

“It can be good to look at what you’ve done in the past and try to keep repeating it, but every time I’d have a bullpen session, I was doing something totally different,” he said. “It was a mess.”

Now, Humber said, he has focused on the simple things: staying tall over the rubber, not rushing his delivery. On Friday against the Los Angeles Angels, he allowed two earned runs over five innings in a 4-3 loss to Jered Weaver, who led the American League in strikeouts last season and was chosen nine picks later in 2004.

“I used to be like, ‘I’m not living up to expectations,’?” Humber said. “You hear people talk about being a bust, and when you hear that, things start to creep in, like, ‘I’m not as good as what I was before.’ But now, it doesn’t even matter to me. I’m just a guy that’s trying to carve out a career, and I still feel like I have good stuff.”

Reynolds, 25, said his draft position — eight spots ahead of Tim Lincecum — never affected his expectations, which are higher than anybody else’s. He was 2-8 with an 8.13 earned run average for the Rockies in 2008, then pitched once the next season as he struggled to locate the source of a shoulder problem.

“That was the most demoralizing thing, just not even knowing what was wrong, so you don’t know how to fix it,” Reynolds said. “For a while, I didn’t know if I was ever going to be throwing pain-free again.”

After October 2009 surgery on his rhomboid, the muscle under the shoulder blade, Reynolds spent most of last season at Class AA, where his E.R.A. was 5.22. But after his strong spring training, the Rockies chose him to replace Jimenez, who has a cracked cuticle on his right thumb.

“I don’t know how long it’ll be — I don’t know when Ubaldo’s coming back — but I’m enjoying it now,” Reynolds said early last week. “It means a lot more this time around, given all the stuff I’ve been through.”

Alas, after Reynolds beat the Mets on Thursday, he was returned to the minors.

Statistics Across Eras

Debating the legacy of players who used steroids offers few clear answers. Every era has had factors that affected competition.

In an On Baseball column last week, I compared the effects of the steroid era to the segregation era before 1947. Perhaps a more nuanced historical parallel is the dead-ball era in the early 20th century. Players hit more than three times as many home runs a game in 1921 as they had three years earlier.

Similarly, home run totals at the height of the steroid era rose: the six highest single-season totals came from 1998 to 2001 by three players strongly connected to steroids: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds.

The exclusion of players of color was deplorable, but statistical norms stayed relatively unchanged after Jackie Robinson’s debut. The game was undoubtedly enhanced by the addition of so many talented players, but the enhancement led to a better quality of play, not skewed records.

Unbreakables?

Alex Rodriguez’s strong start is a reminder that Barry Bonds’s career home run record, 762, will probably not last long. Although home run records have been subject to frequent change, other hitting milestones seem relatively stable.

Carl Yastrzemski, the Hall of Fame left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, remains the last player to win the Triple Crown, leading the A.L. in batting average, runs batted in and home runs (tied with Harmon Killebrew) in 1967.

“Usually, somebody wins two of the three categories,” Yastrzemski said after throwing out the first pitch at the Red Sox’ home opener. “The third one makes it more difficult. There’s always somebody that pops up and has more home runs or something like that. So you just never know.”

Indeed, a player has led his league in two of the three categories 46 times since Yastrzemski’s feat, including Albert Pujols in the National League last season.

Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game hitting streak, in 1941, has also been safe, with Pete Rose coming closest, at 44, in 1978. Garrett Wittels of Florida International University finished last season with a 56-game hitting streak, but it was snapped in his first game this season — two games short of Robin Ventura’s N.C.A.A. Division I record from 1987.

Ventura, who said he was not rooting for or against Wittels, learned in a 16-year major league career that duplicating the streak was impossible. Now serving on an advisory board for the Capital One Cup, honoring the top men’s and women’s college sports programs, Ventura said DiMaggio’s mark would never be broken.

“With pitching the way it is — specialty guys, closer and setup guys — you’re not going to have a chance to get four at-bats against one guy,” Ventura said. “On one night, you might face four different guys. I’m still amazed DiMaggio got to 56. I’m amazed now when somebody gets to 30.”

He should be. Ventura’s 58-game hitting streak at Oklahoma State did not translate to the majors, where his longest streak was 15 games.