The Horse Gets Spooked

 
After starting the regular season spitting the same hot fire he was in ST, The Horse seems to have thrown a shoe over the last 2 weeks.  Before he missed his 2 games in mid-April because of the sore oblique, he was sitting at a God-like .385/.500/.821 tripleslash.  Since returning he's seen those numbers drop to a mere mortal .269/.379/.551 and we all know that centaurs of his athletic caliber don't just experience that kind of drop off for no reason, so what, exactly, is going on with him?

Friend of the blog Larry Koestler touched on the subject yesterday with his post on A-Rod's rough week at TYA and came to the conclusion that it was A-Rod's free swinging that was too blame.

"... during the past few days A-Rod chased quite a few more pitches out of the zone, and made less contact with those pitches than he had been. He also swung more often in general, taking cuts at more than half the pitches he saw, but made contact at a distinctly poorer rate (66.7%, down from his season average of 78.4%).

The weaker hacks have unsurprisingly resulted in a lousier batted ball profile, with a 0% Line Drive% during the past seven days (compared to 11.5% on the season) and 47.1% GB% (compared to 41% on the season)."

You don't need to be a genius to look at that chart and realize that The Horse has lost some of his patience and reverted to a more Cano-like approach at the plate, and the results just haven't been working for him.  So we know the cause of the dip in numbers, but what is the cause for the increased swing rate.  The way I see it, it can be only one of 3 things:

1) A-Rod is trying to adjust to the pitchers pitching him differently after his scalding hot start.

2) A-Rod is still feeling some lingering effects of the oblique tweak and his swing mechanics are off.

3) A-Rod has become a bit more antsy at the plate since returning from injury because he has been following the news about Uncle Mo getting ready for the Kentucky Derby.

Now scenarios 1 and 2 make a lot more baseball sense, but I wouldn't rule out scenario 3 as being the true root cause.  Back in early March, The Horse had to be the odds-on favorite to win the Derby, but with Uncle Mo coming back into the picture and taking back some of the action,it's not unreasonable to think that that news had a negative effect on him.  I mean, A-Rod is good, but Uncle Mo is enough to stir even the greatest of centaurs.

In any case, I don't think this is anything to worry about.  A-Rod has had some issues before and he always works them out with Dr. Long.  A little video session here, some extra BP there, and he should be right back to his usual self.

(Chart via TYA and FanGraphs)