Reading yesterday's post by Greg about Mark Teixeira's woes this April, left me somewhat uneasy. Specifically the stats that show he is actually worse this year than he was last year. He has only 3 hits so far, all in one game. Not to mention most of this is with AROD batting behind him, a luxury he didn't have at this point last year. The only positives are his 7 walks and the fact he is still playing great defensively at first, digging out throws and making diving catches like the one that extended CC's no-hit bid on Saturday.
However, the offensive stats are of significant concern. Everyone is confident he will break out this and return to being an elite run producer. But how confident are we? I decided to take a look at his stats on baseball reference.com to see what I could find. What I was looking for was some type of positive trend. Unfortunately what I found, I didn't like.
I reviewed his batting stats since the beginning of October last year and included his post season stats. Here's how he ended the 2009 season:
In 18 games: 67 AB / 12 Hits / .179 Batting Average
Now let's add the end of last year to what he has done so far in April (which is well below his career batting average for the month of .241):
In 26 games: 98 AB / 15 Hits / .153 Batting Average
Of more concern over these 26 games is that his run production is down. He has 2 HRs and 13 RBI and has struck out 25 times. This doesn't include going hitless again last night with 3 walks and 2 more strikeouts. Not the kind of production you would want from your number 3 hitter in the lineup.
Hopefully this trend is an aberration since it includes the first time he has played deep into the post season. We still have hopes that his other career batting averages by month will continue:
May .295; June .277; July .284; August .311; and September .313.
If it does, he should bounce back out of this slump and hit at his normal full year levels of .280 with 30 HRs and over 100 RBI.
On the bright side, the Yanks have won their first three series against probably the three top teams in the American League without any production from one of last year's top MVP candidates.
Still, for me, and surely Teixeira, April can't end soon enough!
