Time for Jeter to call a team meeting.

Melky is down to a .665 OPS. I guess we have 2 headcases on the team, as we all know he ls much better then this.

Detroit is on the move in the WC and will be competition... that is if we can finish at least 2nd in the AL East.

I thought Japanese players held up pretty good physically, but Mats seems to be having lots of problems. They didn't rule out surgery on his knee, which seems to make it a done deal. If he needs surgery, I think it's minor? How long would he be out for? We have lost an important bat in our already flawed offense.

Abreu isn't terrible at .814 OPS, but I expect more, especially hitting in front of ARod/Giambi/Po. If Derek refuses to get onbase (.344 OBP), we need Bobby to pick up the slack more (.353 OBP).

Our team is 8th in the AL in walks. TERRIBLE!

Brett IS fast. When he learns MLB pitching he will be a tremendous threat to steal. While I don't see an OPS that much better then Melky, I expect a higher OBP.... and at this point, I'd sit Melky on put Brett in CF, especially against LHP (Melky as a RHB, .198 BA, .585 OPS)

We have 2 1/2 holes in the lineup with Melky, Cano and Jeter. Cano is certainly picking it up, but it's like if we don't score with our first 5, we don't score. A big part of our 'devastating lineup' was that the bottom of our order could produce runs. Not now. We are going to need 8 guys who can hit/get on base to win anything.

VERY FRUSTRATING TEAM these days.

Melky is beyond frustrating these days. It seems that when he's going good, he just tries to make solid contact and may walk into a HR or two. Then he gets a little TOO confident and thinks he's got 40 HR power and all of a sudden he's doing nothing but hitting weak ground balls. I know you can probably say that about 1/2 the hitters in the league, but his slumps are just too prolonged for him to constantly fall into.

Cano and Mats are also guilty of this, but at least they (usually) hit well, and can get around outside pitches. But Melky MUST slap outside pitches the other way, as he has shown he can do in the past.

The problem is not talent, but approach. Somehow the coaches need to do 'tough love' on Melky and make his job dependent on this.

I have to assume Gardner was not called up to be a pinch runner, OYF, though he can arrive at that if he doesn't do anything. Despite Joe G's line about Betemit being his DH, I'd expect to see Damon doing that a bit, and both Melky and Gardner in the OF. I hope you are right and Melky sits vs lefties at least till we see if Gardner can or cannot hit in the majors (spring doesn't count).

I was talking up/worrying about the Tigers a long way back. Central is way easier to play in, they have their bullpen back. The irony is they STILL have major injury issues (Ordonez, obviously).

Two final words: Brian Fuentes. Maybe, Cash? Think about it?

in light of what oyf said about melky needing to hit the other way, which i mostly concur with, here are some splits for melky based on where he hits the ball, (batting average; slugging; babip).
i don't necessarily know what to make of this, but by and large he doesn't have much success hitting the ball back up the middle, and when he does manage to pull the ball both as a rhb and lhb he hits and with fairly decent power.
i think it still boils down to him needing to get a better understanding of the strike zone and cutting down his strikeouts.

2008 ba slg babip
rhb
pulled 348 565 318
middle 143 224 122
opposite 273 273 273

lhb
pulled 429 881 351
middle 261 284 258
opposite 333 333 323

2007 ba slg babip
rhb
pulled 407 667 385
middle 250 303 247
opposite 241 241 241

lhb
pulled 321 641 270
middle 335 451 324
opposite 295 361 274

2006 ba slg babip
rhb
pulled 250 250 238
middle 310 431 298
opposite 371 457 371

lhb
pulled 420 860 356
middle 304 374 300
opposite 299 403 299

What I see when I watch them isn't so much that they don't walk (they don't) but that they seem to have a very rudimentary approach at the plate. Its not about taking the first pitch, or taking x number of pitches to work the count, its about trying to get a good pitch to hit and spoiling anything else you get. You watch hitters like Damon, A-Rod and Giambi. Not only do they have great eyes but they foul balls off and wait for something they like, and when they get to two strikes they become more defensive. I've seen A-Rod for example swing with 1 strike if the ball is where he wants it and sometimes he gets fooled and just lets it go by.

Cano and Melky on the other hand seem to come up and say, well, we'll take a strike or two, then swing away so we're working the count. That's not really the idea. What's so frustrating about it is that Cano could so easily be that hitter. He has such great bat control and hand-eye coordination that he could hit very well with two strikes on him. I wonder if anyone has tried to explain that to these guys. Then again, Melky is still sliding headfirst into first base, so who knows.

Moreover, he has averaged this season 3.74 P/PA, which is really not that bad. I don't know what the league average is. Famed patient hitters this season Giambi (4.11 P/PA) and Abreu (4.28 P/PA) do of course see more pitches, but guys like Damon (4.00 P/PA this season, 3.87 P/PA for career) are much closer. Jeter's P/PA is almost identical.

Cano is a total hack (3.33 or so), but I suspect that Melky is just about league average in terms of patience and working the count. His problem is not that he does not take pitches, but that he doesn't seem (this season) to hit very many of them hard.

I know it's a small thing, but I think it was a mistake to send Christian down. It doesn't hurt anything to have another option in the outfield, especially against lefties. He doesn't have to be especially good, just a little better than Melky. And they wouldn't lose anything in terms of roster space because they could just DFA Moeller fer cryin' out loud. Speaking of ridiculous...

let's hope we see the former.