Ellsbury's Efficiency

Wicked Good Sports notices that Jacob Ellsbury is approaching a record:

Jacoby Ellsbury is quickly (and quietly) approaching a Major League Baseball record held by future Hall of Famer Tim Raines. At the start of his career (1979-1981), Raines was successful on his first 27 steal attempts, the longest such streak at the start of a player’s career, according to stats provided by Sean Forman and the geniuses at Baseball-Reference.com. Ellsbury, who swiped 9 bases without being caught last season, hasn’t been caught in 8 attempts this year (including 6 in the last week), putting him at 17 straight to start his career.

Usually when you hear of streaks and records they're about something more impressive, but stolen base efficiency like this is both pretty rare and pretty indicative of brains as well as speed, so it's a very good sign for Red Sox fans.