Luke Scott's dismal July keeps getting worse after he went 0-for-3 with two more strikeouts against the Cubs yesterday. Scott is hitting .050/.174/.200 in 20 July at-bats and he's now gone six straight games without a hit. In fact, going back to June 23, Scott has had 12 hitless games in 14 contests and is batting only .081 over his last 37 at-bats. A look at our charts shows that Scott's EYE is down only slightly (.063 this year vs. .071 in '06) and his BB% is practically the same (12.2 this year vs. 12.4 in '06). But his K rate is worse (19.5 this year vs. 17.4 in '06) and his BHIP% sits at a horrible .162. The latter would suggest he's been unlucky (and that may be the case), but it's in line with his cup-of-coffee 2005 BHIP% of .176, which suggests that perhaps last year's BHIP% of .276 and .336 AVG were flukes and this year's stats are more in line with his true ability. His minor league numbers and last year's second half major league success suggest he's a better hitter than what he's shown, but if he doesn't get out of his funk, he's going to lose his job.
Scott Hatteberg has been on fire of late, hitting .500/.600/.650 in 20 July at-bats prior to Friday's game and was hitting .515 in his last 33 at-bats, dating back to June 28, and things looked to get even better for the Reds first sacker after manager Pete Mackanin moved Hatteberg down the sixth spot in the order. Since 2004 Hatteberg's best numbers (.309/.416/.435) have come from the six hole, especially his OBA, which is 50 points higher in the sixth spot than in his next best position in the order (#5). Hatteberg went 0-for-4 and left eight men on base on Friday hitting from the six hole, but it marked the first time he hadn't earned a hit in a game in which he started since June 20.
Dontrelle Willis had yet another horrible outing, this time going only 3 2/3 innings, in which he surrendered eight runs (only three of them were earned) on eight hits and three walks and a hit batter. More disturbing is the fact that he failed to strike out a batter for the third time in his last seven starts. Drew mentioned concern about Willis' BB rates last month and that trend has only slightly improved as he's issued free passes to seven batters in his last 13 2/3 innings (4.6 BB/9 IP), 22 in his last 41 2/3 innings (4.8 BB/9 IP) and 43 in his last 81 innings (4.8 BB/9 IP). Willis' seven wins are exactly what he should have based on the number of quality starts he has (9), but his runners stranded rate (.73) suggests a pitcher who should have a better ERA. On the other hand his XERA is only about a half run higher than his actual ERA, so he's performing about as expected.
Through the first two months of the season it looked like Ryan Zimmerman was improving his command of the strike zone, albeit by a small margin-his EYE through May was .53, which was .02 points higher than last year's mark-but he expanded his strike zone in June and walked only three times while striking out 21 times. That dropped his EYE on the year to .39 and his BB% of 6.3 is almost three points lower than it was in 2006. But last night Zim drew three free passes in six plate appearances, which boosted his EYE in July to 1.00 and edged his season mark to .44, which is still lower than we'd like it to be, but better than it was. He also drove in a run and scored twice during a 1-for-3 effort that raised his numbers to .343/.459/.543 this month.
After going 7-2 with a 2.51 ERA and a WHIP of 1.08 in 12 starts from May through June, Jeff Francis has crashed back to Earth in a big, bad, ugly way. He won last night to improve to 9-5, but it wasn't as much about his effectiveness as it was about the Brewers' inability to keep the Rockies off the scoreboard. Francis allowed six runs on seven hits and two walks in five innings and struck out seven to barely escape with the victory. That marked the second straight game that Francis had allowed six runs in only five innings. The seven whiffs were a good sign as he's improved his K rate from .56 in April and May to .96 in June and July. But he surrendered three home runs and is on a pace to allow more long balls this year than he did in '06 and he's been a little lucky, earning two more victories than he probably should have. Historically he's been much better in the second half than in the first, at least in terms of ERA and WHIP, so you might want to start shopping him around and cut bait while you still can.
