Jays vs. Red Sox, Aug. 28-30

[Avenger]

I've been watching Snider's AB's closely, they're really the only meaningful thing left to watch anyways. The poor kid is seeing practically ZERO fast balls anywhere near the zone. Pitchers are just killing him with crappy off speed stuff down and away and Snider's seems to be reluctant to take his walks. Its quite understandable honestly for a hitter of his caliber to take walks with John McDonald or Raul Chavez hitting behind him.

Despite all this, he's posting a respectable .780 OPS in August with terrible players hitting behind him.

[tsherkin]

He's struggling in this area, but facing NYY, BOS, and TAM every start will do that to you.

Yeah, no doubt, but maybe he should quit throwing up and in to power hitters, and he should probably stop hanging curveballs in the upper third. And where'd his sinker go? For years, we've been hearing about his sinker, and it's usually good, but you're supposed to throw that in the bottom third, and he's really blasting out his cutter instead, and he's not attacking the bottom of the zone well with his fastball.

Really...it can quite easily be explained by a rise in BABIP (or in other words, luck). He's fine. I just wish he could face a team easier than the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox...then he'd be able to easily prove that to the doubters.

He's using his cutter WAY more than he has in any other year (42% of the time, which is a 9% jump from last year, which was an 8% jump from the year before, which was a 6% jump from the year before). He's been figuring it in more often every year, but he's reversed what he was doing that worked last year when he was so good (he threw his normal heater/2-seam about 41% and his cutter at 33%). I'd have to check a bunch of his games from May through July to see if that bears out as a difference between August and then, though.

But as you said, lots of Yanks and BoSox, so it could be as simple as that.