Vernon Wells' home-run drought is a big problem...not his only one.....

........and that's not his only statistic to be out of sync, sadly.

He is now without a home run in his last 121 at-bats. It’s his longest power drought since 2002. So far in 2009, he has five long balls and a batting average of .254. That's nine points below the AL average.

However, 43 of his 79 hits have come on the road where he's hitting .328 so far this season. In his career against Kevin Millwood, Thursday night's starter for Texas, he is 3 for 16 (.188) with one home run and two RBI.

In his last 5 games, he went 4 for 18 (.222) with a double, a triple and 3 RBI. In the previous five games (all at home) he went 1 for 15 (.067) with a double and 2 RBI. Overall, in his last 10 games, he is 5 for 33 (.152) with two doubles, a triple and 5 RBI.

He hasn't homered since May 6 (a three-run drive in the second inning to make it 7-0) when we won 13-1 in LA against the Angels! Since then, he played 31 games! In his last 121 at-bats, he hasn't homered and has collected just 27 hits for a .223 average!

On the good side, he's struck out just once in his last five games. He has just one stolen base and three walks in his last 10 games. Before going 2 for 5 on Tuesday night, he had gone 9 straight full games without having a multi-hit performance and had gone 7 straight games without an extra-base hit.

For the year so far, he has 22 walks but 26 strikeouts. Only 22 of his 62 hits so far in 2009 have been for extra bases. Still, he had just 29 walks and four steals all year in 2008. He had 10 steals in all of 2007 too.  

This year, he's hitting .295 with the bases empty but just .213 with runners on and .159 with RISP. it's just a bit better at .206 with RISP and two outs and at .200 (1 for 5 and 3 RBI) with the bases loaded. He has had just 1 game in 2009 batting out the cleanup spot (he was batting 5th but entered as a pinch runner and didn't have an at-bat!).

Time for a change as far as lineup positioning?

All year, he is 1 for 6 as a DH. The rest of the time he's played in CF.

Two of his 5 homers have been solo efforts, two more have come with a man on 3rd and less than 2 outs.

With none on and none out, he's hitting .317 this year. Yet the number drops to .274 with none on and 1 or 2 outs. It drops to .254 with men on and two outs. It gets to .250 with a man on the 3rd and less than 2 outs (3 for 12 but 14 RBI and 2 walks).

Only 1 of his 5 homers has been hit with 2 strikes. To put it another way, all of his 5 homers have come with a 1-2 count or earlier in the count.

Only 15 of his 62 hits (and 3 of his 15 doubles) have come with 2 strikes so far in 2009.  Interestingly, he's hit both of his 2009 triples with 2 strikes. Yet, he's had only 6 RBI with 2 outs all year! That's reason to worry?

With an 0-2 count, he's 5 for 17 (.294) this year with a double and an RBI. Not bad but why has he had just 17 such situations out of 244 at-bats this year? Too much hurry!

He's put the first pitch in play in 37 of his at-bats with just 8 hits (.216) but that includes 3 doubles and a solo homer.

The other counts show just bad news though: 4 for 22 on an 0-1 count, 2 for 23 on an 1-2 count, 6 for 27 on a 2-2 count, 2 for 12 on a 3-2 count!

When he's ahead or even, things can look better: 9 for 29 on a 1-0 count, 15 for 37 (.405) on a 1-1 count, 4 for 15 on a 2-0 count, 5 for 19 on a 2-1 count, 2 for 5 on a 3-1 count.  

Yes, I'm at least a bit concerned. Comments and thoughts, folks? Best wishes, tonight's a tough one, as usual.