How Amazing Is Joe Mauer?

Joe Mauer came off the bench and hit yet another home run in today's 6-5 loss to the Red Sox. That gives him 11 on the year, good enough to break the top ten in the AL. There are several amazing things about this fact.

1. He missed ALL of April. That means that he's caught up to the rest of the AL - and he spotted them a whole month.
2. He's never really been a power hitter before, his career high in home runs is 13 (in 608 plate appearances, as opposed to 11 in 100 plate appearances this year). Until this season, he had averaged a home run every 46.8 at bats - this year he's averaging one every 7.36 at bats.
3. Most of the homers he has hit (seven) have gone opposite field, none of them have been dead pulls - none (he's hit two to dead center, and two to right-centerfield).
4. He's hit 5 just this week.
   

It could be said that he's gotten lucky with a few of these, as there have been a decent number of them that have just barely sneaked over the left field wall. Even if he's been lucky with the home runs, his batting line is a ridiculous .444/.530/.914 - including an otherworldy .527/.597/1.055 against righties.

I've pretty much run out of positive adjectives to describe how he's playing. This is the best I've ever seen anyone play the game. These numbers are obviously completely unsustainable, but add in the fact that he's a freaking catcher, and he's got to merit some serious MVP talk assuming he stays healthy.

Wow.