Rays with RISP in June(10th-30th) and why there was no offense

by Transplanted on Jul 1, 2010 7:26 PM EDT

It felt good to finish off a dreaded June with a win over the Red Sox with a solid offensive showing and a good start from Garza. But it still left the team with a 11-14 June record and a 6-11 stretch from June 10th(day after they last won back to back games) and the 30th. So why did they struggled to score any runs? It begins and ends with RISP, which the Rays put on a clinic of "What Not To Do". When you're an average BA team with good OBP and power, you can ride it out, but the Rays are not hitting very much lately and the HRs are few and far between lately(and not often of the multi-R variety).

Lets look at how the main Rays hitters performed in the 6-11 stretch of June 10th to 30th.

First off, I did not include the Pitchers, Navarro or Hank Blalock because they're irrelevant going forward since they won't bat with the team any. Kelly Shoppach, Matt Joyce, Gabe Kapler, and Willy Aybar are also not featured due to lack of playing time or playing time going forward.

Player	June BA	June OBP	June SLG	June 10-30th RISP BA	Season BA	Season OBP	Season SLG
Jaso	.213	.368	.311	.091(1-11)	.270	.398	.388
Crawford	.296	.380	.481	.167(2-12)	.310	.373	.488
Longoria	.235	.336	.347	.217 (5-23)	.294	.371	.503
Pena	.256	.364	.556	.200(4-20)	.202	.321	.419
Upton	.239	.350	.386	.167(3-18)	.226	.320	.402
Zobrist	.273	.394	.341	.353(6-17)	.293	.376	.411
Bartlett	.189	.244	.324	.250(3-12)	.224	.313	.329
Rodriguez	.295	.326	.500	.200(3-15)	.260	.299	.416
Brignac	.219	.296	.266	.571(4-7)	.273	.339	.384
Team	.250	.347	.392	.210(35-167)	.254	.338	.403

So, what can we tell from this chart? The Rays basically hit at an incredibly bad rate. This along with that fact there there was little power in the month of June(as if we didn't hit enough HRs). You could make the case Longoria hit the worst in June. Even though he doesn't have the worst overall numbers, given what we expect of him and that he's our best hitter, he was a disaster in June. As Longoria goes, so does the Rays offense, and that was ever so true in June 2010.

Now lets compare the above to the Rays numbers when hitting with RISP for the whole season:

Player	Season BA RISP	Season OBP RISP	Season SLG RISP
Jaso	.304	.468	.565
Crawford	.358	.403	.522
Longoria	.278	.360	.402
Pena	.217	.382	.410
Upton	.203	.320	.344
Zobrist	.271	.352	.329
Bartlett	.321	.373	.528
Rodriguez	.318	.354	.523
Brignac	.319	.418	.340

The Team total for the year is .264/.360/.393.

The Rays' RISP is actually still above the season BA, and they have a great OBP with RISP, but very little power right now. They only have 17HRs with RISP, but 39 2Bs. The Doubles are nice, but you'd like to see a few more big flys here & there to put up a big inning without having to have 6 batters hit. Pena has 4 of his HRs with RISP, but the next highest is 2 by Jaso & Upton. Otherwise everyone has 0 or 1-including Longoria.

The Rays offensive woes are easily defined, but why do they keep occurring is the biggest question. There's not logical reason why Longoria or Zobrist have had so few XBHs or why they have so many BBs and a reasonable amount of Ks, but still have trouble.

This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.

Tweet Comment 4 comments | 0 recs |