Is Derwood Headed to a NASCAR race?

A little over a month ago I examined three potential triple crown candidates: Josh Hamilton, Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. While Hamilton looks to be on his way to a batting title, Jose Bautista has a healthy lead in the HR race (38 to Cabrera's 31 and Hamilton's 28), and the Detroit behemoth leads the AL with 102 RBIs to Hamilton's 88. So we can probably count those two out. Votto is another story.

Back in my July 15 piece, I said if Votto wins the NL triple crown, I'll watch five minutes of a NASCAR race. That was my promise to the Offbase readers, but I thought I was safe. I certainly never thought the jerk would be so close in all three categories on August 23. I still don't think he's going to win it, so I'm raising the stakes: if Joey Votto wins the NL triple crown, I'll ATTEND a NASCAR race.

Derwood's head: "Don't press PUBLISH", don't press PUBLISH", "don't press PUBLISH..."



Votto leads the NL with a .323 average, currently five points better than Atlanta's Martin Prado. Standing in his way in the other two categories is that loser Albert Pujols, who is finally putting together a decent season for the Cardinals. Pujols has a 32-29 lead over Votto in HR (Washington's Adam Dunn is second with 31), and an 89-86 cushion in RBIs. It's basicaly Pujols vs. Votto, and with about 40 games left, I could easily see happen any of the following:

1. Pujols takes off in all three places (he's also fourth in average at .316)
2. Dunn hits a ton of home runs and leaves Pujols and Votto behind
3. Joey Votto wins the 2010 triple crown, forcing me to go Murfreesboro, TN for the Premium Select Rye Bread 500

In other words, I really want Adam Dunn to hit a lot of home runs over the next month.