Since returning from the D.L. on June 12th, Pat Burrell has racked up 250 plate appearances with 11 home runs and a line of .234/.332/.445. Ahoy small sample size, but in 95 August plate appearances his line is .282/.358/.506 with five home runs. Since Joe Maddon gave him private hitting lessons, Burrell is hitting .282/.356/.526 in 87 plate appearances.

Note that I do not know what Maddon told him or if it has any real effect so this is more or less trivial. The real encouraging sign is that Burrell's home runs have an average distance of 399 feet, further than last year and barely shorter than 2007. I think that means he still has power.

A 0.3 WAR season isn't what any of us wanted. He's only earned 1.3 million of that 16 mil, but if the guy's bat were toast he would be a pretty ineffective hitter, instead it's still wood and maybe we can salvage this thing next year. I wouldn't expect him to be worth his contract sum though ... and I wouldn't have expected to write that six months ago either.