1, 4, 3, 3, 4, 1, 5, 0, 1, 3.
That's the number of runs we've scored over the past ten games. A total of 25 runs: 2.5 per game! Alex Rios and Lyle Overbay have OBPs near .400, and Stairs and Rolen are off to hot starts. Everyone else stinks. Most worrying is our utter lack of power (and that applies to Rios, Overbay and Stairs too). I'm not sure there's a more frustrating offensive recipe than combining a decent base presence with a complete absence of extra-base hits. When Aaron Hill is driving the ball better than Vernon Wells, we have a serious problem. Part of our futility can be ascribed to bad luck with men on base, but not all of it. I'm not sure that our offensive ceiling was ever as high as I'd hoped. Take a look at the numbers: is there anyone, other than Lind, who you're willing to bet will significantly improve?
The lineup obviously looks better with Rolen and Lind than it did a week ago, but we still need another bat. I don't ever want to see Marco Scutaro start at 1B again.
If only we had Troy Tulowitzki. Oh wait, he's hitting .156/.226/.238 in 114 PAs, and is out until the All-Star break.
2 comments:
I actually think to a very significant extent our problem has been horrible luck in "clutch" situations. Collectively, the team's RISP numbers are off the charts bad. Even if those numbers rose to the mediocre level of the team's non-clutch numbers, we'd win an awful lot of games.
And yes, I would absolutely bet that Hill and Wells will have significantly better numbers by year's end. Maybe even the midget, although God willing he never sees the field again.
Look, with our pitching the way it is, I expect us to be the favourite virtually 4 days out of every 5, almost regardless of who the opponent is. Not to say we'll play .800 ball the rest of the way out (because hey, Jesse will win a few now and then too), but things will undoubtedly improve. In fact, if Richie Cunningham can win today, I think we might be three games in to a significant win streak...
That's the spirit, Dr. K., I like your optimism. Right now, I'm in a fragile place. It wouldn't take much (maybe a comment from Canate) to pull me back to the dark side.
Look, I love Hill, but his current numbers (.263/.320/.386) are right in line with his career numbers (.285/.339/.413). At 26, he could obviously improve, but it's not certain that he will ever be what I thought he was.
As for Wells, who knows? He's playing at almost exactly the same level as he did last year (granted, this is after a long slump). The guy's as strong as an ox, and was a star before. But I'm not certain that he's going to return to that level. I'm not sure what's wrong with him.
Our pitching is spectacular, though, as you say.
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