Although the offense has had some great moments to start the year, Franmil Reyes has had a difficult start to the 2022 season.
Through the first seven games of the year, Reyes is hitting .188 with only six hits. What is even more concerning about this is over his twenty-eight at-bats, ten of those have been strikeouts and his whiff percentage is sitting at 43.1 percent. These numbers are certainly not ideal, especially for the team's designated hitter.
Even in past years when the offense has struggled, fans could always count on Franmil to hit a monster home run to give it a boost. But that seems to be far from the case this year. Reyes has looked uncomfortable and unbalanced at the plate, relying too much on his power to make plays happen. Take last night’s strikeout to Doval in the bottom of the ninth as an example:
Doval throws a slider that ends up just about in the middle of the zone. However, the pitch has Reyes absolutely lost. He swings halfway and his feet put him in no position to make solid contact even if he continued through it.
This has been the theme of Reyes’ at-bats the entire season. Look at this strikeout from Monday’s game against the Royals:
It’s the slider again that gets Reyes. Even though he decides to swing through it this time, he is once again unbalanced and in no position to make contact. He leans his entire body into the pitch to try to make contact, even though the ball was in the zone.
Seeing Franmil struggle this much has certainly been eye-opening and concerning. The silver lining is that when Reyes has struggled in the past, he’s been able to get out of slumps. Last year in the month of August, he hit .207 and then bounced right back in September with six home runs and 20 RBI.
Let's hope that this slump doesn't last too much longer. With the way Straw, Kwan, and Ramirez have been able to get on base this year, if Franmil can get his bat going fans could be seeing more high-scoring games in the future.
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