While I was listening to WEEI’s Baseball Show on Sunday a caller was talking about Dwight Evans and how come he isn’t a Hall of Famer. So I decided to take a look at some statistics and see how they support it.

When you go to the baseballreference.com and look up Dwight Evans one of the things they give you is the pages for similar hitters and for players who were comparable at the same age. With Evans being a rightfielder I compared him to outfielder’s, mostly right fielder’s, who are Hall members.

Dwight Evans:
20 years, 2606 G, 8996 AB, 1470 R, 2446 H, 483 2B, 73 3B, 385 HR, 1384 RBI, 1391 BB, 1697 K, .272 BA, .370 OBP, .470 SLG, averaged 24 HR, 86 RBI, 3 All-Star games, 8 Gold Gloves. 157 A, 59 E, .987 FLD as an OF.

The players we will look at when comparing Dwight will be:

Al Kaline:
22 years, 2834 G, 10116 AB, 1622 R, 3007 H, 498 2B, 75 3B, 399 HR,
1583 RBI, 1277 BB, 1020 K, .297 BA, .376 OBP, .480 SLG, averaged 23 HR, 90 RBI,
15 All-Star games, 10 Gold Gloves, 1 Batting Title. 170 A, 73 E, .986 FLD as an OF.

Billy Williams:
18 years, 2488 G, 9350 AB, 1410 R, 2711 H, 434 2B, 88 3B, 426 HR, 1475 RBI, 1045 BB, 1046 K, .290 BA, .361 OBP, .492 SLG, averaged 28 HR, 96 RBI, 6 All-Star games, 0 Gold Gloves, 1 Batting Title. 143 A, 101 E,
.973 FLD as an OF.

Carl Yastrzemski:
23 years, 3308 G, 11988 AB, 1816 R, 3419 H, 646 2B, 59 3B, 452 HR,
1844 RBI, 1845 BB, 1393 K, .285 BA, .379 OBP, .462 SLG, averaged 22 HR, 90 RBI, 18 All-star games, 7 Gold Gloves, 1 MVP, 1 Triple Crown, Batting Titles. 195 A, 82 E, .981 FLD as an OF.

Dave Winfield:
22 years, 2973 G, 11003 AB, 1669 R, 3110 H, 540 2B, 88 3B, 465 HR,
1833 RBI, 1216 BB, 1686 K, .283 BA, .353 OBP, .475 SLG, averaged 25 HR, 100 RBI, 12 All-Star teams, 7 Gold Gloves. 166 A, 95 E, .982 FLD as an OF.

Reggie Jackson:
21 years, 2820 G, 9864 AB, 1551 R, 2584 H, 463 2B, 49 3B, 563 HR, 1702 RBI, 1375 BB, 2597 K, .262 BA, .356 OBP, .490 SLG, averaged 32 HR, 98 RBI, 14 All-Star games, 1 MVP, 2 WS MVPs. 133 A, 142 E, .976 FLD as an OF.

Roberto Clemente:
18 years, 2433 G, 9454 AB, 1416 R, 3000 H, 440 2B, 166 3B, 240 HR,
1305 RBI, 621 BB, 1230 K, .317 BA, .359 OBP, .475 SLG, averaged 16 HR,
87 RBI, 12 All-Star teams, 1 MVP, 1 WS MVP, 12 Gold Gloves, 4 Batting Titles. 266 A, 140 E, .973 FLD as an OF.

As you can see Dwight’s numbers stand up pretty damn well. The player he was most compared to during his career, especially in the 1980’s, was Dave Winfield. Winfield played a few more years but in the 1980’s he and Evans were neck and neck stats wise. Evans also had more extra base hits in the 80’s than any other player in the decade. More than Winfield, Andre Dawson, Jack Clark, Dale Murphy or any of the other feared power guys that pop into your mind.

When compared to the Hall of Famers above he more than holds his own. He is only lacking in All-Star game appearances and he never won a batting title or a MVP. Defensively he is stacked against two of the best right fielders of all time, Kaline and Clemente. When you look at his numbers they are better than the Hall members for fielding percentage as an outfielder and he had by far the fewest amount of errors while playing in one of the toughest right fields in all of baseball.

My opinion is that Dwight Evans deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and the fact that one-year he got only six votes is a joke. The voters get all tangled up in where the numbers stand all-time when in fact they need to select Hall of Fame members based on how they performed within the era in which they played. They need to be compared to the players the played against or players who played at nearly the same time and not some ghost who came 50, 60 or 75 years before them.

Manny Ramirez drove in 3 runs on 2 hits, including his 2nd homer in as many days, as the Red Sox went on to sweep Barry Bonds’ Giants team by the score of 9-5. The Sox bullpen was pretty good not giving up any runs in 3 2/3 innings as they held the lead for Tim Wakefield’s 7th win of the season.

Dave Roberts led off the first inning again for the Giants and received his third hero’s welcome in 3 days. This time he didn’t get on base as he flew out to Manny in left. Wake then got Randy Winn and Ray Durham to ground out to end the inning.

Matt Morris, considered by many to be the ace of the Giants staff, had rough first inning and day overall. J.D. Drew led off the inning with a double to centerfield and Dustin Pedroia reached when he was hit in the lower back by a Morris fastball. Big Papi drew a walk to load up the bases for Manny. Manny got a run home as he grounded into a 6-4-3 double play with Pedroia advancing to third. Kevin Youkilis brought home Pedroia with a single giving the Sox a 2-0 lead. Mike Lowell flew out to close out the inning.

Wake allowed a single to Bonds in the second inning but that’s all the Giants could muster. His counterpart meanwhile struck out the three Sox batters he faced.

The Giants managed to get both runs back in their half of the third inning. Nate Schierholtz led off with a cueball shot that stayed fair down the third base line. He came around to score on a Omar Vizquel double to the gap in center. With Wake not paying much attention to him, Vizquel stole third while Roberts was at the plate. Roberts struck out looking but Winn hit a ball to pretty much the same spot as Vizquel, scoring Vizquel and tying the game at 2. Bonds ended the threat by flying to Wily Mo Peña in center.

Not to be outdone, the Sox broke the game open with 5 runs of their own in their half of the 3rd.

Drew led off the inning with a walk and went to second on a Pedroia infield single. Big Papi brought in the first run of the inning with a ground rule double to right. Pedroia, who had scored as well, had to return to third because of the ground rule double. Manny brought right back to the plate though with a groundout to second. Big Papi moved over to third as well. Youk brought Papi home with a single for his 2nd RBI of the day. Lowell then crushed a double that scored Youk all the way from first to put the Sox up 6-2. Wily Mo lined out but Doug Mirabelli brought Lowell home with a single, making it 7-2 Red Sox. Lugo, mired in a deep slump, ended the inning by grounding out to Vizquel.

With out 2 outs in the 4th, Pedro Feliz crushed a Wakefield offering over the Green Monster to get the Giants back within 4 runs. The Sox got that run back in their half of the 4th inning on back-to-back doubles by Big Papi and Manny.

Morris was pulled after 4 innings and his numbers weren’t all that good. He went 4 innings, giving up 9 hits, 8 runs, walked 2 and struck out 3 on 92 pitches.

Bonds finally went deep against the Red Sox and his former Pirates teammate Wakefield in the 6th inning. His 748th homer cut the Sox lead to 8-4. After Bengie Molina grounded out, Ryan Klesko worked a walk. Klesko was retired at second base when Feliz grounded into a fielder’s choice. Schierholtz chased Wake from the game with a triple that scored Feliz, cutting the lead to 8-5. Manny Delcarmen, just up from Pawtucket for an injured Brendan Donnelly, came in and got Vizquel to ground out.

Delcarmen had a rough 7th inning though as he walked Roberts and Winn to lead off the inning. He did get Durham to ground out to Youk at first but both runners advanced a base. This left Terry Francona with a huge decision to make. To pitch to Bonds or not. He decided to bring Javier Lopez to pitch to him. Lopez ended up walking Bonds on four pitches to load up the bases. Joel Piñero came in for Lopez and needed only one pitch to get Molina to ground into an inning ending double play.

Manny decided a 3 run lead wasn’t safe enough for the Red Sox. After Jonathan Sanchez got Big Papi to strikeout, Manny crushed one into the Monster seats, giving the Sox a 9-5 lead. A lead that would hold up until the end of the game.

Piñero had an easy 8th inning but Vizquel led off the 9th with a single to chase him. Hideki “Darkman” Okajima came in and got all three batters he faced to give the Sox their third victory in a row.

With the win, the Sox will have no worse than an 8 1/2 game lead in the AL East, as the Yanks play the Mets tonight at 8 PM.

The Sox now head out on a 3 city, 9 game, 11 10 day road trip to Atlanta, San Diego and Seattle. Curt Schilling takes the hill for the Sox tomorrow night. Let’s hope this road trip is a good one.

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If you were watching Friday night’s Red Sox game, you noticed Brendan Donnelly warming up to come in the game. Then you saw Joel Piñero getting loose in a hurry. At about the sametime President Remy and Don Orsillo said exactly what I was thinking, “Did Donnelly get hurt warming up?”

So I woke up yesterday morning and shot off this email to Amalie Benjamin and Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe since I didn’t see any mention in the paper.

I didn’t hear anything back during the day yesterday nor did I expect too. I figured I was wrong and said if it was anything, we’d hear about it in the Sunday paper. I didn’t see anything again this morning so I figured it was nothing.

Well sure enough, Donnelly did end up straining his forearm on Friday while he was warming up during the game and was placed on the 15 day DL. Manny Delcarmen was called up to replace him on the roster.

Here is the video of the “fight” on Saturday between Chris Young of the Padres and Derrek Lee of the Cubs. Nothing too exciting. A few missed punches and the benches cleared.

[dailymotion 4OyiNSzTotLEJgbSA]