I know we're all combing through the standings trying to forecast a path to victory or a place in the money in our respective fantasy leagues. I have seen my hold on first place in my Rotowire Online Championship league slip away as my home runs have dropped off, and losing Aaron Judge, Isaac Paredes and Jorge Soler to the injured list in a matter of days will not help that matter. Dealing with injuries is part of the game, because we know certain players are simply more prone to injuries than others. Tougher to manage are dry spells for hitters and pitchers, because those are tougher to see in-season.
We're all too familiar with watching hot streaks or cold slumps at the start of the season, because everyone is starting from zero. Those hot and cold starts are magnfied at the beginning of the season. Remember when Wilmer Flores was on pace for 130 RBI? He drove in 28 runs in the first month, but his current total sits at 59 as play begins Monday almost three full months later. Luis Robert Jr. swiped 12 bases the first month of the season but has barely doubled that as he sits at 26 steals today.
Overall numbers can hide some slumps, but other times, even the overall numbers are too terrible to hide the in-season slumps. William Contreras would be an excellent example of the latter, as his .242/.342/.340 season with 6 homers, 42 runs driven in and 50
I know we're all combing through the standings trying to forecast a path to victory or a place in the money in our respective fantasy leagues. I have seen my hold on first place in my Rotowire Online Championship league slip away as my home runs have dropped off, and losing Aaron Judge, Isaac Paredes and Jorge Soler to the injured list in a matter of days will not help that matter. Dealing with injuries is part of the game, because we know certain players are simply more prone to injuries than others. Tougher to manage are dry spells for hitters and pitchers, because those are tougher to see in-season.
We're all too familiar with watching hot streaks or cold slumps at the start of the season, because everyone is starting from zero. Those hot and cold starts are magnfied at the beginning of the season. Remember when Wilmer Flores was on pace for 130 RBI? He drove in 28 runs in the first month, but his current total sits at 59 as play begins Monday almost three full months later. Luis Robert Jr. swiped 12 bases the first month of the season but has barely doubled that as he sits at 26 steals today.
Overall numbers can hide some slumps, but other times, even the overall numbers are too terrible to hide the in-season slumps. William Contreras would be an excellent example of the latter, as his .242/.342/.340 season with 6 homers, 42 runs driven in and 50 runs scored is a far cry from his offensive dominance last season. He has attempted to play through a finger injury that lingers from last season, and it shows. Contreras last homered June 15 and has now gone 32 games since hitting his last home run. The acquisition of Danny Jansen may take some pressure off Contreras playing as much as he has to date, as the club feels surgery will be the only way to correct the issue and that would end the season for Contreras. Evan Carter would be another example as his back issues have plagued him for a couple of seasons now and he last homered June 13. He has now gone 29 games without a home run while hitting .219/.312/.313 in 109 plate appearances since that date.
Alejandro Kirk has enjoyed a resurgent season at the plate in terms of batting average, hitting for a career-high average until a recent incident put him under concussion protocol. His 14 homers from 2022 do not appear to be in any danger of being usurped as Kirk had gone 27 games and 103 plate appearances since his last homer before the move into concussion protocol. Cam Smith surprised us all when he made the major-league roster, but even the Crawford Boxes have not helped the rookie, as he has just seven homers in 92 games played. Smith's last home run came on June 29th and he has hit .200/.262/.263 in his last 103 plate appearances during this dry spell over 23 games.
A more notable power dry spell is Trea Turner, who last homered June 28. Turner has been a lock for 20-plus homers each of the past four seasons, but he's been sitting at 11 home runs for over a month now. He's hit .263/.324/.337 with five steals in the 105 plate appearances since his last home run. Turner does not have to look far for inspiration, as J.T. Realmuto had gone 169 plate appearances between home runs, going a full two calendar months between homers. Realmuto enjoyed homering so much that he homered in the next game as well.
We have seen several dry spells for batters in terms of driving in runs as well. Colton Cowser (moo) has now gone 44 consecutive plate appearances and 12 games without an RBI as play begins July 28, and a .175/.250/.175 line is a big reason why. Andrew McCutchen recently ended a 15-game RBI dry spell which spanned 62 plate appearances. Ty France, once an RBI machine this season, went 18 games and 61 plate appearances between RBI earlier this month. If you wonder why the Marlins aren't scoring runs if Kyle Stowers isn't driving them in, consider that both Graham Pauley and Eric Wagaman are both regularly in the lineup and neither has driven a runner in over their last 57 and 58 plate appearances, respectively.
The other side of that coin is scoring runs, and we have seen some dry spells there too. Mark Vientos has not scored in his last 23 games played, and a .215 on-base percentage over those 79 plate appearances is not helping matters. The likes of J.P. Crawford, Carlos Santana and the aforementioned Cam Smith are each currently 40-plus plate appearances into scoreless streaks.
Stolen base dry spells are a different beast, because there are certain players we just do not expect to steal bases. Matt Olson is the current leader with a 104-game stolen base dry spell, as he has not even attempted a steal this season. Salvador Perez is right on his heels at 101 games, which isn't a surprise. However, his teammate, Jonathan India, still without a stolen base 98 games into the season is a surprise. India swiped 14 bases two seasons ago and 13 last year, but he's gone 0-for-4 this season. Trent Grisham swiped 15 bases two season ago, but he has yet to steal one with the Yankees this season in 88 games and has attempted just three steals over his two seasons with the club. Bryan Reynolds had 12 steals two seasons ago and 10 steals last season but has just three this year, with his last steal coming May 3. He has now gone 68 games since his last stolen base. Jackson Merrill swiped 16 bases last year in his fantastic rookie season but has just one this season, and that came back on May 5. He has now gone 63 games without a stolen base. Jo Adell swiped 15 bases last season before going down with an early August injury but has just three so far this season, with his last steal coming 38 games ago in mid-June.
We are all too familiar with starting pitchers having dry spells between wins, and this season is no stranger to that. Tyler Anderson won 10 games last season and won two of his first four starts this season as well. Unfortunately, he has now gone 17 consecutive games without winning another game. We just saw Justin Verlander finally end a 16-game winless streak, earning his first win of the season in hiw most recent outing. Mitch Keller went 15 consecutive outings between wins from early April through mid-June. Randy Vazquez has currently gone 12 starts without winning a game despite a 3.79 ERA. Even Tarik Skubal is not immune to this, having gone winless in each of his last four starts despite a 1.82 ERA. Dylan Cease, Chris Paddack, Shane Baz and Tyler Glasnow also each possess winless streaks of at least five games and counting.
Finally, saves are a tougher animal due to platoons and overall poor team performance. Kyle Finnegan has one save for the Nationals over the past 30 days despite being the dedicated closer for the club. Camilo Doval has just one more save than Finnegan despite being the primary closer for the Giants, as does Raisel Iglesias with Atlanta. Kenley Jansen has just three himself for the Angels over the past month as his name is hot in the trade rumors thanks to his expiring contract and the fact that Emmanuel Clase is now off the trade market due to a gambling investigation.
Simply put, dry spells do come to an end, and we should eventually get some help once again from these struggling players. The hope is that these spells end sooner rather than later, because it has to be frustrating to see some of these notable players being so unproductive on your roster as you try to solidfy your push for a championship.
