Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 09, 2007
Sore DH

Travis Hafner left the game Wednesday night due to a sore knee.

Hafner entered the game batting .255 with 18 home runs and 70 RBI in 109 games. In Hafner's first five years, he never played more than 140 games.

Hafner does a great job of getting on base for the Indians, but his power is down this season. And at least in June, no one knew why:

Believe me, I'd love to shed light on this problem, but the two people who have studied it most -- Hafner and hitting coach Derek Shelton -- don't see any mechanical differences in Pronk's swing that would account for the power outage. Shelton chalks it up as one of those rough patches that every hitter -- even one of Hafner's caliber -- goes through, but this has gone on for the better part of the '07 season.

So maybe it's just a slump, or maybe it's the decline of a 30 year old. Hafner is slugging .438 after slugging near or over .600 the last three seasons.

The Indians lost in extra innings 6-4 to the White Sox. They had two chances to win as they led 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth, but Dye homered to tie the game. Cleveland scored in the 12th, but a solo shot by Pierzynski again tied the game. Finally, a two run shot by Uribe sealed the game in the bottom of the 13th.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:33 AM | Injuries | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Players like Hafner... and like David Ortiz, also playing hurt and also suffering a relative power outage... tend to have short careers. Bill James would say they have "old players' skills:" power, OBA, slow, and marginal defensively. Mo Vaughn, Greg Vaughn, Cecil Fielder, Mark McGwire, the Giambino. This doesn't always happen, but it happens a lot.

Posted by: jvwalt at August 9, 2007 12:49 PM

He's likely fading.

Posted by: Devon Young at August 9, 2007 05:42 PM
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