Kevin Millar was asked last week to rank the biggest Red Sox hits of 2004.
“Billy Mueller’s hit off [Mariano] Rivera (on July 24),” Millar said. “David Ortiz’s hit off [Esteban] Loaiza in Game 5, the blooper into center. Mueller’s single up the middle (in Game 4) would probably be the next one. And Ortiz’s homer (in Game 4) would be the one after that.”
The conclusion: “Billy Mueller had two in the top four,” Millar said. “Nobody talks about his single up the middle. Everybody talks about [Dave Roberts’] stolen base.”
This is why the Red Sox win. This is why they won 98 games last season, then 11 in the postseason. This man hits eighth and did all that.
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Run a search on third basemen since 1996–the year Mueller broke in the majors–who have hit at least .275 with an on-base percentage of .350 or better and at least 50 home runs and 400 RBIs. Choose a minimum of 3,000 plate appearances.
The list: Mueller, Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen, Eric Chavez, Corey Koskie and Jeff Cirillo. Among that class Mueller ranks third in average (.292) and on-base percentage (.374) and sixth in home runs (72) and RBIs (416). Add “500 or fewer strikeouts” to that search and only Mueller (488) is left standing.
“And a switch-hitter, you’ve got to work harder than the other guys,” Red Sox hitting coach Ron Jackson pointed out.
Jones, next to Mueller, is the only other switch-hitter on the list. Mueller, in fact, is 16th all-time in on-base percentage among switch-hitters with at least 3,000 plate appearances, two spots behind Pete Rose (.375).
And to think, Mueller said last week, “They had me, I think in the Giants organization, as a Triple-A utility guy.”
That wasn’t said in spite, or with an air of braggadocio. Neither of those elements exist in Mueller’s makeup. Rather, Mueller was explaining why he places such emphasis on each season, not just this season, a time when he’s coming off his second knee scope in a year and is in the last year of his contract. He’ll make $2.4 million this season.
“The season’s always the same to me,” said Mueller, who turned 34 last month. “It’s going out there and competing and jumping at balls every game. That’s what I do. That’s what I enjoy doing.”
It’s as if Mueller, a Missouri native, spends all of his time in the Show Me State. With Mueller, more than anyone else in the Red Sox clubhouse, there is no separating the cliche from the truth. What he says–however lacking in imagination and excitement it may be–is what he genuinely means. And anything outside the chalk is, effectively, off limits.
“It’s not something I enjoy, talking about myself,” Mueller said. “I enjoy talking about the game of baseball.”
Millar has a name for this: Billy Ballgame.
“We love Billy for who he is, Billy Ballgame,” Millar said. “He’s a great teammate, a good person. That’s where you get mixed up.
“You don’t have to do television, you don’t have to be the funny person, to be a good guy. Same thing with Manny Ramirez. Billy Mueller chooses to prepare himself in his own way.”
Mueller had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee Feb. 7, and before that, had a similar procedure done last May, limiting him to 110 games last season.
Expected to be limited to off-field activities for a month following the most recent procedure, Mueller was hitting, running and throwing 15 days removed from the operating room.
“I think I had the three months there in the off-season that I worked so hard that once we decided that it was surgery, that I was ready pretty much to rehab,” he said.
He’s done everything asked of him and more in camp, save an appearance on Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” The Fab Five made over Millar, Johnny Damon, Jason Varitek and Doug Mirabelli but got a thanks-but-no-thanks from Mueller.
“It just wasn’t the right time for me,” he said. “Don’t take that as me not having fun. I have fun in my own space among the guys. It’s kind of like I pick my spots a little bit more than most people.”
But what about him, his enjoyment, his two clutch hits, one that breathed life into the Red Sox in July, another that kept the club breathing on what looked like a hopeless October night?
“I look at the whole year, and it’s a team thing,” he said. “That’s why it’s so special.”