After watching all of the games up to this point there have been a couple things that have stuck out to me concerning Carl Crawford and Jonny Gomes. Crawford has yet to show patience at the plate while JFG has continued a trend from last season.
Crawford has had 27 at-bats thus far in the season. In these at-bats he has put the first pitch in play five times. Even more discouraging, CC has swung at the first pitch 14 times. This means that 51.85% of his at-bats he has swung at the first pitch. With his speed and the capable hitters that surround him, Carl needs to show much more patience at the plate. He needs to be doing whatever he can to get on base. So far he is averaging a measly 2.9 pitches per plate attempt. The lowest of this figure for any other everyday starter on the team is 3.6 P/PA. Obviously, we are only six games into the season and it is far too early to read into any statistics. However, CC has hit poorly so far and I think it is due to his approach at the plate.
Gomes has no doubt shown his ability to crush homers . He has also shown the ability to do this with nobody on. Last season, Gomes hit 11 of his 17 homeruns with nobody on base. Looking closely at the numbers you can see a large discrepancy between his numbers with bases empty and with runners on base. In 182 PA last season with runners on base, Gomes hit to an OPS of .683 while only getting on base at a rate of .297. In 212 PA last season with the bases empty, he hit to an OPS of .865 with an OBP . 344. What can explain the difference between his numbers with or without men on base? I think it comes partially down to his extremely intense attitude. When runners are on base, I notice that Gomes try to swing extra hard and it ends up being counterproductive.
These are a couple things that I have noticed. Has anyone else picked up on the vibe of these trends?