Statistics and Carlos Pena

If there is one thing I know about major league baseball, it is that statistics dominate discussions about the sport.  But statistics simply don't always serve as a good predictor of what's going to happen in any particular game.  Take yesterday's season-opening contest between the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees.  Rays fans were welcoming, after a year's absence, Carlos Pena back to the team.  Unfortunately, he had been suffering through a serious batting slump in the preseason, hitting only around .100.  To compound things, the starting pitcher for the Yankees, CC Sabathia, had thoroughly handled Pena in past games, with the Rays batter only able to muster one measly hit in more than 20 plate appearances.  And then there is the Yankees star relief pitcher, Mariano Rivera, against whom Pena had been hitless.  Sounds like a hitless game to me for Carlos, right? Wrong!

All Pena does is hit a grand slam home run against Sabathia in the first inning and then drive in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth with another hit, this time against nemesis Rivera.  So...just throw the statistics out the window, for all that they're worth!