Robinson Cruise-Cano

Robinson Cano is on an amazing tear. He went three for four against the Orioles for the third straight game and is now batting .376. He is slugging over .600. His OPS is over 1.020. He has driven in 46 runs. He is on pace to record 241 hits. He is on pace to drive in 124 runs and score just about the same amount. He has more hits than Ichiro Suzuki. If Cano were to hit only .250 in the rest of this year's at bats, he would end up with a .297 average. He leads the league in hits and in total bases. He's been that unbelievable. If the season were to end tomorrow, he'd be the odds on favorite for MVP.

Okay, all that being said, let's look for holes. His BABIP is an amazing .381. Most stat guys figure that the norm is around .300. So Cano should settle down some. But the problem with that argument is that his BABIP over the last 365 days or in his last 161 games is .357. So to use the old expression, the guy hits them were they ain't.

Okay, maybe Cano is benefitting from playing at the new Yankee Stadium. Well in 2010, he is batting .371 at home and .368 on the road (the road figure will go up after Wednesday's 3 for 4). Of his 12 homers, he's hit six on the road and six at home. His OPS (before Wednesday's game) is 1.040 at home and 1.008 on the road. Doesn't look like there are any holes there.

Maybe he is hitting right-handed pitching really well and lefties not so much. Before Wednesday's game, he was batting .380 against right-handers compared to .350 against left-handers. Oh wait, his OPS against right-handers is .996 and against lefties, it's sitting at 1.075. Can't find a hole there.

What about his fielding? No problem there, everything is in positive numbers.

Well, Cano is lousy in the clutch right? Last year, he batted something like .220 with runners in scoring position. He is batting .355 with runners in scoring position this year with an OPS of 1.040. Uh oh, we might have found a smoking gun. In high leverage situations (stuff like at bats in tie games late in the game with the game on the line), Cano is only batting .217. There. it took the Fan awhile, but at least something negative was found.

Cano pounded out over 200 hits last year. There is no reason to believe that how he is batting is a fluke or an outlier. Robinson Cano has this much ability and right now, that ability is on absolute overdrive.