We’ve got quite a few alumni in the Majors at the moment, as you know, so let’s take a minute to see where they all are.

Jeremy Guthrie is having what might be his most unfortunate season ever, and his win-loss record reflects nothing more than his bad luck. (He’s 3-13.) Despite that record, he has a fairly respectable 4.45 ERA and 1.35 WHIP. If anything, Guthrie’s season in Baltimore is proof that wins should be thrown out the window as a measure of a pitcher’s true success. Typically, Guthrie pitches extremely well, but gets no run support. He then is tagged with a loss. Basically, Guthrie would have had at least ten wins on any other team. It’s just that he’s on the Orioles.

Jed Lowrie is alive. He’s been out with a shoulder strain inflicted upon him in a collision with Carl Crawford which took away his ability to swing for some time. He’s healing and should be able to pick up a bat soon, but whether or not he’ll be able to swing as well prior to the injury for some time remains to be answered. These things take time to heal, after all. Remember how his mono gave his wrist time to fully recover.

Cord Phelps finally made his Major League debut, and he’s played 19 games so far in Cleveland this season. Unfortunately, he’s only batting .196 in those games (full triple slash /196/.315/.326). My guess is he’ll be back in AAA to get some more seasoning if that’s all he can put out at the moment.

Sam Fuld has come back down to earth in the hitting department, batting .241 on the year. Amazingly, this still puts him in ninth place on the team in terms of average. Huh. At any rate, however, his defense is what keeps him in that starting lineup, although nobody seems to be immediately knocking on the door and trying to push their way in. Oh, and he almost got to pitch earlier this month, but that ended up not working out. Oh, well.

Carlos Quentin is batting a respectable .260 and has driven in 55 men for the White Sox so far this season. Whether or not he has learned to smile is another question entirely, but at the very least he’s been a consistent force for Chicago this year. We know what to expect from Carlos at this point.

Greg Reynolds seems to have disappeared. Before he did so, however, he went 3-0 with a 5.16 ERA. He’s only been in six games, though, and three of those were games he started. Write your epitaphs now.

Jason Castro is still recovering from his injuries. He can be expected to play next season, of course. At the moment, it doesn’t look like he’ll be back in time for September, but he’s young and might heal a little faster than expected.

Drew Storen has 25 saves on the season and has become the anchor in the Nationals’ bullpen this year. He’s 5-2 with a 2.42 ERA in 46 appearances. He’s only blown three saves total this year, so he’s pretty good. Yeah. We knew he’d be good, though.

And finally, John Mayberry Jr. has actually been acquitting himself fairly well for the Phillies, who play in a town with pretty high standards. He’s batting .243 in the 54 games he’s started, although his future with the team is uncertain as he doesn’t fully fill the team’s needs and is just a stand-in out in right field. Let’s send him to Boston so he and Jed can be together again.

Have a player you want to know about? Shoot me a line in the comments section and I’ll do some of my patented research to pull up some info for you!

Genius.

I'm the one in the Stanford stuff; my best friend is in the Mets shirt.

And you know what’s really awesome? The Nationals are actually really good with their fans in terms of promotionals and stuff. Seriously, I literally bumped into the photographer when I was walking over and she didn’t even get mad at me. True story.

Anyhow, as I mentioned in my last post here, the Nationals were doing a promotional for the folks who were signed up for Nationals Text Alerts. I signed up solely for this and then proceeded to undertake StorenQuest 2011, in which I determined I would both meet him and spend some time at a couple of Smithsonians. My best friend (the one not in the Stanford stuff in the picture) and I even managed to hit up Crumbs in Union Station for some cupcakes.

We ended up getting to the ballpark in time – only the first 75 people there got to take pictures with Storen. And despite the fact that I did sort of collide with the photographer, Drew was totally awesome and friendly – his reputation as being great with fans stands intact.

Also, he said he liked my Stanford stuff. So there’s that. I was flattered. Of course, I also wore it specifically because he was going to be there today.

Basically, it was all-around awesome and Drew Storen is awesome and you ought to try and meet players if you can because…yeah. It’s fun.

Drew Storen and I actually have a hobby in common - we both enjoy drawing.

I’ve got a bit of an opportunity to have a really exciting Stanford-related moment on Saturday. My best friend and I are going into D.C. for the day to visit museums and hit up Nationals Park (the second time this week, I might add) and, well, Drew Storen’s doing a pregame signing/photo opportunity the same day. The Nats just haven’t announced where yet.

If you want to get in on the fun, text ‘Nationals’ to 29292, and that’ll sign you up for Nationals text updates. Storen himself tweeted today that if you want to find out where he’ll be pregame tomorrow, you should do it, because that’s how they’re going to notify the fans.

So, of course, I did it, even though I don’t watch the Nationals on a regular basis because Drew Storen is personally one of my favorite people to ever play baseball, and I’d absolutely love to let him know that. Well, that and I’d have an excuse to wear my Stanford baseball stuff on Saturday.

Basically, I’m going to try and tell him that he’s awesome. So we’ll see how that goes. Maybe I can even get him to sign the hard copy of the drawing on the right. It’s in my sketchbook. I’d be flattered as hell.

This, of course, means I have to speak to him. Let’s just hope I can do it without getting tongue-tied or sounding creepy.

StorenQuest ’11 is ON.

For more on Stuff Drew Storen Likes, read this article written when he was still with the Harrisburg Senators.