Red Sox Report: What’s Wrong With A-Gon?
Thursday, June 07, 2012
What’s wrong with A-Gon? Your guess is as good as mine!
For the second straight game Adrian Gonzalez, the Boston Red Sox $154 million man batted in the 6th spot in the line-up Thursday night. Needless to say, that’s not where the organization had envisioned him hitting when they traded for him and them signed him to that lucrative contract extension.
Gonzalez is off to the worst start of any season in his career since he became a full-time starter back in 2006 and nobody seems to know what the problem is.
With the early season struggles of the bullpen and the starting rotation, Gonzalez received a bit of a pass from the fans and the media that covers the team, but that leniency is about to come to an end.
Despite a few hiccups of late, the bullpen has been rock-solid while and the starting rotation has also shown significant signs of improvement. Not Gonzalez.
Everything is off for the left-handed slugger. His average heading into Thursday night’s game was .263 which is well below his career average of .291. His on-base percentage (.316) and his slugging percentage (.406) are also well below his career averages (.372, .508) in those categories.
Gonzalez is walking less, striking out more and seems to be showing little patience at the plate. In short, he seems lost at the moment.
Another concern is the lack of power he has shown this season. He has hit just 4 homeruns which puts him on pace to hit about 10-11 long balls this season. This, from a guy who AVERAGED over 31 homeruns per year over the last 6 seasons.
Is he hurt? We all know of his shoulder issues before joining Boston in 2011 but we were led to believe that those were a thing of the past. But you have to wonder if something is physically wrong with him because the lack of power and production seems to point in that direction.
To Gonzo’s credit, he is a polite man with a very calm demeanor about him. Furthermore, he has proven to be very selfless and all about the team by volunteering to play outfield to accommodate David Ortiz in interleague play and to keep Will Middlebrooks’ bat in the line-up which allows Kevin Youkilis at first base.
On a bright note, A-Gon did lace a 2-run double to right field in the bottom of the first inning of Boston’s game against Baltimore Thursday night. Hopefully, he can hit his way out of this horrific slump that he is in because for Boston to compete in the AL East, they are going to need a much more productive Adrian Gonzalez than the one they have seen through the first third of the season.
NOTES:
-With Daniel Bard down in Pawtucket, Diasuke Matsuzaka will make his first start for Boston this season on Saturday against the Washington Nationals. It will be his first start for Boston in over a year since undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.
Bard didn’t hide his feelings about being demoted to the minors. When he arrived in Pawtucket Thursday, he talked to the media about being sent down. “It’s not my decision. I’m just an employee here. Obviously, I’m not thrilled with it. If it was me making the decision it might have been different. But I tried to be respectful about it," Bard said. “Once I get the anger and disappointment out of the way you just have to try to make the best out of the situation.”
Bard also continued to reiterate the fact that he believes that he changed too much about his approach to pitching this spring while making the transition from reliever to starter. He also seemed to intimate that it wasn’t necessarily his decision to change his approach. “I think we came into spring training and thought ‘Okay, how do we need to change everything I do to fit the starting role?’ I don’t think we needed to change as much as we thought we did. We tweaked a lot of things mechanically trying to simplify me … trying to get the best windup that I’m comfortable with. We probably did a little too much. You can’t think and pitch at the same time. I think that’s the key to it.”
In all due respect to Bard, he appears to be coming across as a bit of a whiner and someone who isn’t necessary willing to look in the mirror when it comes to his pitching problems. Until that attitude changes, you have to wonder if he will be able to pitch his way out of his funk?
-Major League Baseball and the Players Association announced Thursday an agreement on a new drug testing program. Some of the keys to the new deal include HGH blood testing during spring training, the off-season and for reasonable cause. There will also be an increase in the number of random tests performed. Also, as a result of the Ryan Braun fiasco, there will be a modified procedure for collecting and delivering specimens to a courier.
-The Baltimore Orioles had won a franchise record 7 straight games against the Red Sox at Fenway Park heading into Thursday night’s series finale.
-There’s good news on the injury front regarding Carl Crawford. The Sox outfielder is set to begin throwing the baseball starting Friday. Crawford has been dealing with both elbow and wrist injuries this year. Crawford said the wrist is feeling “great” and is pretty much “100%.” He also said that the elbow feels a lot better but was reserving his optimism on its improvement until after he throws the ball.
Crawford has been taking batting practice and appears to be in great shape. Once he can clear the final hurdle of throwing the ball without any pain, he should be ready for a rehab assignment with the Pawsox before being activated by Boston.
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