In the comments of the Oral Roberts wrap up, bassale47 raises an interesting point that we've been looking to address...namely, what the hell is wrong with Kyle Russell? Is he pressing at the plate, trying too hard to break out of his slump?
We're not sure that's the case.
If that were the case, we think we'd be seeing a ton of strike outs as he swings at everything, and no walks because of that. Now, we have to take into account that Kyle Russell at his best still strikes out a lot, but looking at the stats for his three years as a Horn, in terms of strike outs and walks, Kyle seems to be going outside the zone less than in previous years. He's not getting many hits and only has 1 HR on the year, but is it mental?
2006 --
25 walks (13% of plate appearances), 55 Ks (29%)
2007 --
53 walks (19%), 64 Ks (23%)
2008 --
26 walks (31%), 24 Ks (24%)
Somehow Kyle has managed to keep his strikeout percentage the same as last year while dramatically improving the number of walks he takes. That doesn't seem like the mark of a player that's pressing at the plate. He's still getting on base (OBP .456) and scoring a lot of runs (17).
We don't know what's wrong with Kyle but we're not yet convinced that he's slumping becuase he's trying too hard.
Thoughts?
--40AS--