Taking Their Time to Deliver

White Sox' Floyd Is Among Pitchers Who Show It Can Take Time to Deliver

Five of the top pitchers so far this season -- Scott Olsen of the Marlins, Gavin Floyd (White Sox), Ervin Santana (Angels), Edinson Vólquez (Reds) and Zack Greinke (Royals) -- were born within 12 months of one another between January 1983 and January 1984, and all five signed as teenagers between 2000 and '02.

The fact all five are enjoying breakout seasons at the age of 24 and 25 is one more reminder that pitchers drafted out of high school, or signed out of Latin American countries as teenagers, sometime take five, six or even seven years of seasoning before blossoming.

To ignore that fact is to make the mistake the Philadelphia Phillies made with Floyd, whom they drafted in the first round (fourth overall) out of Baltimore's Mount St. Joseph High in 2001, but whom they gave up on in 2006, trading him to the White Sox. This season, he is 3-1 with a 2.50 ERA and leads the majors with a .149 opponents' batting average.

"When you have those high expectations on you and you fail, people have a tendency to walk away from you. But last year [after Floyd was called up in July], I just let him pitch," White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillén said. "The biggest difference [this year] is his confidence. The stuff has always been there. But now he knows he can pitch at this level."

Floyd's next start comes today in Seattle. In his last start, he carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning against Minnesota, after having carried no-hitters into the fifth and eighth innings in previous starts.

C. GUZMÁN IS UP THERE: The list of baseball's top hitters since Sept. 1, 2005 (minimum 400 plate appearances) is topped by Chipper Jones (.337 through Thursday) -- no surprise there -- followed by Ichiro Suzuki (.331), Matt Holliday (.330) and Albert Pujols (.330). Again, no surprises.

But who is this in 13th place on the list -- ahead of Miguel Cabrera, Chase Utley, Michael Young and Hanley Ramírez? Why, it's none other than Cristian Guzmán.

True, we picked that date because that was the start of the hot streak that ended Guzmán's otherwise miserable 2005 season, and we picked 400 plate appearances because Guzmán only last week passed that threshold, having missed all of 2006 and most of 2007 because of injuries.

But 400 plate appearances, even stretched across parts of four seasons, is a fairly representative sample. So give Guzmán some credit. When he has been healthy, he has been a very productive hitter for a long time now.