Lunch Time Link Dump

• 33 Games in 31 Days, including 2 double headers. The good news: No more 10pm West Coast start times! Take a breather now because baseball is non-stop until the season ends. Playoff magic number is right around 16.

• With so much free time on his hands due to his DL trip, Jimmy Rollins has been very active on the internets lately. He keeps his status updated on Facebook, engages his fans on Twitter, and hocks a crap load of merchandise on his own webpage. Now of course the money probably all goes to charity, but damn Jimmy Rollins' fans must have some deep pockets (they do, I know one). $750 for a game used bat? $1,250 for a batting practice jersey? Cmon Jimmy, your contract situation isn't that bad! Someone will give you at least $40M guaranteed this offseason. No need to sell cheesy t-shirts with your face plastered on them! The show will go on!

• Of all the stories in baseball, the one that is most surprising, and perhaps most overlooked is just how pathetic of a season Adam Dunn is having in Chicago. I was never a big fan of his in Cincinnati or Washington. His swing is a bigger hack than even Ryan Howard's. But his ability to draw a walk and consistent 40HR/100RBI approach made his value relatively close to the 4yr-$56M that the White Sox paid him. But dear god, who in their right mind could have predicted that he'd only have 60 hits in 400+ ABs? The Flagrant Fan puts it into historical context. No one in the history of Major League Baseball has ever had a season in which they batted under .170 for the season and only twice has someone batted under .180. Dunn would need to have an MVP caliber final 5 weeks just to see his BA creep over the mendoza line. Even Dan Uggla feels bad for Dunn. 

• Matt Gelb wrote a couple of awesome articles on Vance Worley over the past few days (lots of free time with all that rain, I suppose!). Includes the story behind his Oakleys, the origin of the mohawk, and plenty of details about his journey to the majors.

• Equally hard hitting journalism is this Philly.com piece on baseball socks! In all honesty, though, Michael Vitez is spot on with his analysis of the changes in footwear in baseball over the past 30 years or so. The long socks look is all but dead. Most baseball purists will tell you that they love the high socks look, and while I agree, stirrups were just stupid. I remember having to wear those over regular socks in little league and I never understood the purpose. They dryrot easily and they're always falling down. Then they tried to replicate the look by just having regular socks with a colored stripe on the side. Who do they think they were kidding? And, I'm sorry but the ones that the Phillies wore with the liberty bell on the side were super cheesy. Did stirrups ever serve a purpose?Am I missing something here?

• Quietly having one of the greatest seasons of any player in recent memory, Curtis Granderson is putting himself in position to be a virtual lock for AL MVP. Back in 2007 when Granderson became the 3rd player to ever hit 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 homeruns, and steal 20 bases. When Jimmy Rollins got his 20th triple on the final day of the season, he used his stats to earn himself an MVP award. Granderson finished a disappointing 10th that year in AL voting! Today, he leads all of baseball in runs scored, RBI, and HRs. His batting average has hovered around .280 most of the season and the speed is still there. And he's putting up all these numbers while being something like the 11th highest paid player on his team. That's less money than Raul Ibanez.