Did Sox Fall to Steroids?
By lefty
Jason Giambi hit his 29th homer of the season Sunday to power the Yankees to a 1-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox — backing the undeniably stellar performance by the "Big Unit."
Giamboid, an admitted steroids abuser, now has 29 homers in only 366 at bats. That's a very impressive figure of one homer for every 12.62 at bats. He's hitting home runs again at a pace surpassed only by that of his own MVP year in 2000. That figure is currently the best in the American League. Giamboid's teammate. A-Rod, has a ratio of 12.92. David Ortiz is at 13.79; and Mark Teixeira is hitting a home run every 14.72 at bats.
Baseball-Almanac.com calculates career Home Run percentages. Using their method of calculation, Giambi's percentage this year is 7.92, third behind the lifetime percentages of only another suspected steroids abuser, Mark MacGwire, and the legitimate record of the sultan himself, Babe Ruth.
Remember how horrible Giambi started this year? When you look at the numbers since he's gotten hot, his current stats are downright unbelievable. Unless of course that is when he started to juice up again.
If Rafael Palmeiro would abuse steroids after testifying to Congress, what makes any objectively-reasonable person question if Giambi would also take the chance. I'd love to know if Giambi has been tested and when. And I'd be curious if he'd volunteer to be tested if public pressure became too intense to deny.
Below is a list of Giomboids homer-to-at bat ratio since he came into the league in 1995. The admitted steroids user is performing at his best power numbers in his career.
Year Homer/At Bat Ratio
1995 29.33
1996 26.80
1997 25.95
1998 20.81
1999 17.42
2000 11.86
2001 13.68
2002 13.65
2003 13.05
2004 22.00
2005 12.62
