July 29, 2014

Gardner’s Goners

Brett Gardner homered tonight for the only run in the Yankees game at the Rangers so far. That gives him three in two days, and six for the month. Gardner never hit more than four in a month prior to this July, and that was in June of this year! He now has 13 on the season after coming into the year with just 23 in his first six seasons. He’s doing his best to replace a little bit of the power the team lost when Robinson Cano went to the Mariners.

The teams are playing the top of the third.

4 thoughts on “Gardner’s Goners

  1. rbj

    PEDs!!
    Let the witch hunt begin. Or, more likely, he’s figured out big league pitching and the league hasn’t caught up to him yet.

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  2. David Pinto Post author

    rbj » Gardner is in his age 30 season. There is an experience curve to home runs that doesn’t seem to exist with other hits, which is why home run rates tend to decay more slowly than other types of hits. So even though batters decline physically at that age, the experience of knowing how to hit home runs balances out the loss of ability. In Gardner’s case, it just might be allowing him to hit more homers.

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  3. rbj

    Thanks David. His speed does seem to be going down and isn’t it that the legs are the first to go?

    Outliers like Rickey & Nolan (pitching with his legs) excepted.

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