1) David Ortiz Back in 2010, David Ortiz got off to a wretched start, hitting just .143/.238/.286 with a single homer in 63 plate appearances during the month of April. At 34 years old, and on the heels of a season in which he'd set lows in all three slash categories (.238/.332/.462) during his time with the Red Sox, it was fair to wonder if he'd ever be the same hitter again.
As May dawned, he suddenly started hitting homers—two on May 1, one on May 5, two more on May 14, and another on May 17. On the occasion of that last one, which came against the Yankees, I checked in on his status and noted that while he had lifted his line to .235/.301/.500, his strikeout-to-walk ratio stood at a very uncharacteristic 38-to-10 through 113 PA. He was striking out at an alarming rate of 34.9 percent—nearly double what he'd done as a Red Sock from 2003-2009 (18.0) percent. Calling upon the work of Russell Carleton, which held that strikeout rate stabilizes at the 150 PA ...
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