Stars of the Day: May 10

The 23-12 RoughRiders saw their Texas League South division lead shrink to 2.5 games with a 6-4 loss at Corpus Christi in spite of a big effort from Chris Davis (.326 / .363 / .570)  who extended a five-game hitting streak, going 4-4 with a double and an RBI sac fly, driving in two overall.  

In spite of his perfect evening, I'm becoming somewhat concerned about Davis as he has regressed to his Cal League numbers in one significant way:   he's striking out in more than 27% of his at-bats without drawing many walks.   Last year, Davis fanned in 32% of his at-bats for Bakersfield before cutting that down to 25% after his promotion to Frisco when he made a deliberate effort to shrink his strike zone.  

More important than the reduction in strikeout percentage, however, is the fact that he has regressed to his Bakersfield walk numbers after seeing significant improvements in those categories in Frisco last summer.

Davis' BB/K improved from 0.18 with Bakersfield to 0.48 with Frisco.    His BB/PA with Bakersfield in 2007 was 0.052, but improved immensely to 0.105 in Frisco.

This year, Davis's BB/K has regressed to 0.24 (Ryan Braun's BB/K with Milwaukee is 0.23)and his BB/PA has regressed to 0.062 (the same as Ian Kinsler).  

The MLB player with the most similar combo of BB/K and BB/PA is Houston's Hunter Pence  (0.27 / 0.058) who has regressed horribly in his second big league season (.258 / .299 / .412) after a sensational rookie season in which he hit .322 / .360 / .539 in 456 at-bats.

When Davis arrived in Frisco last summer, I had pictured an unabashed hacker who just ran into a lot of mistake pitches in the hitter-friendly Cal League, but I changed my opinion after watching him play.  

It seemed to me that, more often than not, Davis struck out not because he was hacking at balls out of the strike zone or because  his stroke was too long, but because he swings under balls from time to time trying to drive them into the stratosphere 

This year, I have seen a bit more hacking than I saw last year and he'll still miss balls because he's trying to drive them to Oklahoma.   Certainly, that could account for the regression to some degree.   And I'm not exactly down on the guy:  anybody who ranks eighth in his league in OPS, and second in both homers and RBI's certainly sort of owes it to himself to keep doing what he's doing, but I worry that this regression in statistical categories that measure plate discipline will catch up to him.

Having said that, I have enormous trust that Davis -- who I sometimes feel can do anything he wants in the batters box (if they asked him to hit  .420 with no power, he could do that) --  will make the necessary adjustments to ensure that he'll never slide into a prolonged slump. 

Oddly enough for a power hitter with these peripheral numbers, he's really not streaky.    His longest hitless streak this year is one game (and he's gone hitless just four times in 33 games). 

In Bakersfield, shortstop  Marcus Lemon (.300 / .424 / .443) doubled and tripled in a 2-4 outing as the Blaze posted an 8-2 victory over Stockton.

Julio Borbon (.325 / .375 / .427)  ran his hitting streak to 15 games with his 12th double of the year and Johnny Whittleman (.266 / .389 / .452) went deep for the fourth time this year in a 1-3 outing, drawing two walks, driving in two and scoring twice.

Whittleman, whose minor league statistical profile is very similar to Brandon Boggs', leads Bakersfield in both OBP and OPS.   He's the kind of hitter who is a pretty solid bet to explode when he gets to Frisco and sees better, more consistent pitchers on a daily basis.

John Bannister returned to Bakersfield after a month in Frisco and held the Ports to a run on two hits and six walks over the first 4.2 frames before turning the ball over to Ryan  Falcon (3-2;  2.95)  who yielded one single and fanned five in 3.2 scoreless frames to get the W.

Southpaw starter Derek Holland (2.45 ERA)  (pictured-left) was outstanding for Clinton once again, holding Peoria to two runs while scattering seven hits and two walks over 8.2 innings, punching out six along the way. 

Holland got 13 ground ball outs against just six in the air.  His G/F ratio for the season is 1.91 and he's averaging almost a strikeout per inning.    

And get this:  

RH Hitters vs. Holland:   .239 / .302 / .330

LH Hitters vs. Holland:   .222 / .317 / .333

Strong K rates, grounders aplenty, dead-even splits:   this is a special package folks.

In Oklahoma's 3-1 loss to Fresno, Bottsy went deep again, and drew another walk.  But you could have guessed that.

Rob Tejeda was solid, if not terribly efficient, allowing a run on  two hits and three walks, punching out five.  It took him 91 pitches to get through 5.1 frames.