Rangers' Corey Seager bounces back from terrible April with terrific May

Shortstop Corey Seager has been one of the best hitters in the majors for a while now, but at the end of April, the Texas Rangers star had been mired in a month-long slump and relative power outage. His slash line  for the month was an unsightly .236/.319/.311 across 106 at-bats. His OPS was .631 and he had just two home runs, two doubles and eight RBI.

When the calendar turned to May, however, Seager heated up, looking more like the hitter with whom everyone is familiar. In May, he has exploded for a .287/.388/.644 triple-slash with an OPS of 1.032 in 87 at-bats. For the month, Seager has swatted 10 home runs and racked up 19 RBI. 

The star shortstop struck out 20 times during each of the time frames, but has walked three more times in May. His Batting Average on Balls in Play has actually gotten worse (.274 to .259), but that trend probably won't continue and his average still has plenty of room to improve. 

Seager's Home Runs to Flyball Ratio illustrates why his season has played out this way. During the early part of the season, he hit only 5.6% of his fly balls out of the park. In May, he's hit 33.3% of those fly balls for home runs. That is not a pace that can be maintained, but it surely means he's been squaring the ball up better. That's backed up by his Hard Hit Rate. It was 36% before May, 51.5% in May. He's clearly been seeing the ball really well this month to hit the ball hard over 50% of the time. 

As cold as he was in April, he has been that hot in May. He will likely to cool off at some point, at least on the home runs. For his career, his Fly Ball Rate is 17.1% and his Hard Hit Rate is a respectable 42.5%. While that power output is due to fall off some, his overall average should go up as his luck on ball in play evens out. 

The Rangers haven't found their footing quite yet this season sitting at 26-29 entering Wednesday's action, but having Seager producing more to his normal than he was earlier in the season could be a catalyst which helps get Texas back on track as they attempt to win back-to-back championships. The Rangers trail the Seattle Mariners by 3.5 games in the AL West and are two games better than the slowly recovering Houston Astros. The club will need Seager to be his historic self and not what he was in April. Luckily for them, Seager is heading in that direction.