Carlos Quentin- ARI- Hot- Quentin's luck may be turning around. Heading into the weekend his BHIP was an extremely low .161. It is likely to have gone up when the next update appears on his Fantistical Player Charts. Since Friday, Quentin is riding a mini-hitting streak of 4 games in which he has gone 5-for-13 with 2 homers, 8 RBI and 5 runs scored. His Batting EYE of .60 this season is a marked improvement over his .44 in limited major league work in 2006, so there were indications that Quentin could improve.
Jorge Julio- COL- Cold- Julio had gone 2 whole appearances for his new team without giving up a run. Maybe 2 was his lucky number, as he also gave up 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 2 in 2 innings in those 2 games. Julio's lucky number certainly wasn't 3, or at least not as it pertains to his 3rd appearance, which came last night. He did not retire a batter and was charged with a run on 2 hits and a walk. It looks like Julio will have no more value in the altitude of Colorado than he did at the sea level of Florida.
Bronson Arroyo- CIN- Cold- After throwing 129 pitches in his previous start, Arroyo had nothing yesterday, departing after giving up 6 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks while striking out 2 in 2 innings. He needed 49 pitches to get out of the first inning, in which 4 runs scored. Arroyo was more efficient in the second, using only 13 pitches to give up 2 runs. Of his 62 pitches, 30 of them were balls. We'll have to see if the outing provided enough rest for Arroyo to get back to form and start his ERA going back down, after it rose from 2.64 to 3.41 yesterday.
Prince Fielder- MIL- Hot- Fielder hit 2 homers yesterday to forge a tie for the NL lead in homers with Brewers' teammate J. J. Hardy. Yes, that sentence felt as odd to write as it did to read. Two Brewers leading the league in homers? Fielder has been hot lately, hitting safely in his last 5 games, going 6-for-17. Some of his key numbers (K ratio, BB ratio, 2B ratio) are very similar to last season. The one that has jumped up and is driving his improvement in other areas is his homer ratio. If he kept the same ratio from last season, he would have 9 homers instead of 14. Turn those extra 5 homers into outs and his batting average drops from .293 to .264, very close to his .271 of 2006. Developing power is certainly not unexpected from the 23-year-old slugger and he could be arriving as one of the elite hitting talents in the game.
Andruw Jones- ATL- Stats- Looking at some of the numbers for Jones this season, there is definitely reason to worry. His batting average is way down (.212) but he is being affected by a low singles average (.193). However, this does not explain all of Jones' problems, as he has been plagued by very low BHIP numbers the past two seasons and produced at a far better clip. Where else can we look for missing hits? There are two numbers that could guide us. First is his homer percentage, which is down to 3.8% after being at 7.3% in 2006 and 8.7% in 2005. What really makes the alarm bells go off is Jones' double percentage. It has risen this season to 7.1% after being at 5.1% in 2006 and 4.1% in 2005. If Jones has lost some of his power and balls that were going over the fence are now banging off it or finding outfielders' gloves, this is exactly what you would expect to see. These are not happy trends for a player heading to free agency this offseason.
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