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I seem to say this about every player, but Kendrys Morales has been up and down. Or down and up. It’s almost like baseball players are people not robots.
Kendrys was just awful to start the season. On May 19th he was hitting .150/.239/.270. Most of my Twitter feed was ‘Kendrys should be released’ (and for good reason). He looked old. His swing was slow. He wasn’t able to hit breaking balls at all and rarely could get around on fastballs.
I thought it was particularly funny when the blame for his bad start fell on his new glasses. He was seeing the ball too well. One of those things that seems counterintuitive. But, I should have understood better, I got glasses in my 20’s and I did have to relearn some things, racquetball took a couple of weeks to get right again.
I still have doubts that removing the glasses was what turned things around. I’d think he would have figured out how to hit with the glasses, given time.
Anyway, since May 19th Kendrys is hitting .316/.379/.559 with 8 home runs, 15 walks and 34 strikeouts in 44 games. Hoping he continues at this rate all season is too hopeful, but it has been fun. When he is hitting like this it looks effortless for him.
In all Kendrys is hitting .246/.320/.436, that gives him a wRC+ 101, slightly better than his 97 mark last year. I’m amazed that he could bring his numbers up to where he was last year in such a short time.
Kendrys has played 83 innings at first. He’s sort of ok at the spot. I wouldn’t want to see him play there everyday, but the occasional start? He’s better than I’d be.
I am curious to see how the rest of the season goes.
Poll
For the first half I would grade Kendrys Morales an
This poll is closed
-
0%
A
(4 votes) -
2%
B+
(16 votes) -
10%
B
(71 votes) -
19%
B-
(135 votes) -
18%
C+
(133 votes) -
18%
C
(132 votes) -
10%
C-
(73 votes) -
7%
D+
(52 votes) -
4%
D
(29 votes) -
1%
D-
(13 votes) -
6%
F
(43 votes)