Bret Gardner April .311 May .252 June .240 Cannot have that for a month out of your lead off hitter. Frankly, it's surprising these guys are five games above .500.
...like has been pointed out, without Ellsbury batting in front of Gardner and getting on base at a .400 clip and a major threat to steal, Gardner is no longer getting a bunch of FBs to swing at...and his numbers reflect this in his numbers since Ellsbury has been out. ...Gardner is nowhere near the leadoff hitter that Ellsbury is.
How important is Ellsbury, ESPN is still crying that Boston has not found a suitable Center Field replacement since Ells departed.
Gardner's biggest issue is that he watches too many good pitches go by. Always seems to be in a two strike situation.
^^^mess, I've also brought this up before. And if you wanna see some very telling stats concerning Gardner, here you go; ...for his career, Gardner on the first pitch; .395 .415 .623 1.039 ...for his career, Gardner with 2 strikes.....; .206 .285 .291 .576
Gardner needs to have at least a good OBP which should reflect his plate discipline and laying off bad pitches.
I once read many years ago that Boggs popped up to the infield something like only two or three times over the course of some season..... Boggs was fabulous. Great eye, made good contact very often and got hits very often. He's the kind of hitter which is poison to pitchers who have poor command and control....those type of pitchers can only make a living as pitchers by taking advantage of the never ending source of undisciplined hitters who don't follow the strike zone.
I don't know if it's possible but I'd love to know how many two strike counts guys like him usually faced during a season.
His 1988 season is crazy. 719 plate appearances and only struck out 34 times. That being said I think Mattingly struck out at a lesser rate. It's too damn bad he ended up with that back injury.
I was going to say the same thing Vic. Excellent point. Ellsbury needs to get back. The sooner the better.
...not sure but I found these; http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on...rboarding-best-and-worst-hitters-in-02-counts https://www.bsports.com/statsinsights/mlb/best-two-strike-hitters-pitchers http://www.baseballspast.com/samplepage_files/11094_master_ 2_strike_hitting.pdf ...Tony Gwynn had great 2 strike numbers (.302 .340 .401 .741) ...as far as strike outs, I know that DiMaggio only struck out something like 350 times in his whole career...Yogi was also tough to strike out. Ichiro and Prado are also hard to fan.
