Coach compliments rebound 33 games without home runs, 223 billion hitters?
Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward said in an interview after a 7-4 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on the 17th (Korea Standard Time), “Thanks to Simien’s ball count fight and increasing the number of Syndergaard’s pitches, I was able to score six points in the first inning.”
Texas gave up three runs first in the top of the first inning, but then tied up five hits, two walks and two errors in the bottom of the first inning to turn the tables on six points, and eventually kept the lead until the end. As the driving force behind the victory, Marcus Simien picked up a walk from Angels starter Noah Syndergaard in his first at-bat after a neck-and-neck race to 11 pitches.
In the local area, it was said that Simien received Woodward’s praise for the first time this season when he moved to Texas. Simien is having the worst time since his debut. He signed a seven-year, $175 million (about 223 billion won) FA contract last winter and has a batting average of 0.162, 8 RBIs and 12 points in 33 games he has played so far. There is no home run yet. He walked 10 times in 143 at-bats and struck out 25.
Out of 172 batters who have filled the regulation at-bats so far, his batting average is 167th and his OPS is 171st. It’s embarrassing to say that he can’t afford to pay his ransom. For Woodward, the reality that he has no choice but to use him as a main player will be painful.
From the Philadelphia Phillies on the 4th to the first game of the doubleheader against the New York Yankees on the 9th, Simien seemed to find a sense by hitting two hits in three consecutive games. However, he fell back to the abyss after being silent with no hits in six consecutive games against the Boston Red Sox on the 15th. He scored one hit in four at-bats against Boston on the 16th and one hit in three at-bats, one walk and one run against the Angels on the same day, so Woodward may have been grateful.
Simien spent his career high with the Toronto Blue Jays last year. He batted .265, 45 home runs, and 102 RBIs in all 162 games, ranking third in the American League MVP voting. He set the record for the most home runs by second baseman in history, and second baseman Gold Glove and Silver Slugger also dominated.
After last year’s season and offseason, he became a completely different hitter in less than six months. Shimien’s sluggishness is due to psychological aspects, considering that he has no injuries. In fact, few players are good from the first season, considering that they have moved to another team for a large sum of money. Still, this level of sluggishness is very unusual 안전놀이터
Although it is difficult to compare directly, Choo recorded a batting average of 0.333, four home runs, 19 runs, 11 RBIs, and OPS 0.987 in his first 33 games in 2014 when he moved to Texas after signing a seven-year, $130 million FA contract. I was told “Good to have you here”.
Some say that Shimien has surpassed the level of sluggishness. It is similar to LA Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger’s sudden drop after winning the 2019 National League MVP. Bellinger threw a shock at the end of the season with a batting average of 0.165 and 10 home runs last year. This season, his batting average is not much better than 0.202 as of this day.
It remains to be seen whether Woodward’s praise will help Simien