posted on Sunday, July 09, 2006 2:19 AM
by
Jim
Midseason Review: A.J. Pierzynski
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BA
| OBP | SLG | SB | CS |
284
| 33 | 91 | 17 | 0 | 6 | 29 | .320 | .365 | .444 | 0 | 0 |
Something nice: A.J. Pierzynski has improved his game both with the bat and glove. He finished the first half batting a team-high .320, and has improved his approach against lefties. He's batting .299 against southpaws this year with three walks, improving his clip by 70 points and walk total by...three. He also has the lower catcher ERA between the team's two backstops, and is throwing out 27 percent of runners after a career-low 22 percent the previous year. His improvement makes it tempting to overuse him.
Must improve: Clutch hitting. He has fewer RBI than Scott Podsednik despite hitting behind the best players on the team, and that's mainly due to his .244 batting average with runners in scoring position, although that has improved as of late. With none on, he's batting .354.
Three best games
June 17/July 9Ozzie Guillen didn't actually want his players to break bones when sliding into second to break up a double play, but he wanted good, hard fearless slides. Pierzynski did that in both these games. Against the Reds on June 17, he slid into Brandon Phillips, causing him to throw the ball away and allowing two runners to score to give the Sox a 7-5 lead. On July 9, he took out Alex Gonzalez to allow Alex Cintron to beat the throw, tying the game in the 11th inning.
June 30With Juan Pierre on third after Scott Podsednik misplays a flyball into a triple, Todd Walker grounds to first, and Pierre breaks for home. Pierzynski blocks the plate perfectly with his foot and tags Pierre out as he tries sliding around home to preserve a two-run lead.
July 1
A.J. makes himself a thorn in the sides of the Cubs once again when he drills a three-run homer off Ryan Dempster onto Sheffield Avenue with two outs in the ninth inning, giving him one of his rare clutch hits.
Three worst games
May 31Since when does a 3-for-4 day go down as one of his worst? When those three hits come in a 5-0 loss. This performance represented A.J.'s season on the whole pretty well. He's had eight three-hit games this season, and RBI in only three of them.
June 14A.J. gets hit by Vicente Padilla fastballs in his first two plate appearances, and has to leave the game. He'll miss the next two with a couple of bruises, and Javier Vazquez didn't even stand up for him.
June 27
In one of the dumbest baserunning episodes of the season, Pierzynski tried to go from first to third on Rob Mackowiak's single -- not realizing Joey Cora held Jim Thome up at third. A.J. was caught in between bases, but was spared the indignity of getting tagged out when Jim Thome tried to break for home as a diversion and was tagged out himself. He'd later line into a double play, though that was Jermaine Dye's fault.
Grades
Bat: B
All things considered, this overall production is about what we'd expect to get out of Pierzynski. If he can time his hits better, we could really be onto something.
Running: C-He's the slowest guy on the team, which is really something when he's wearing the same colors as Paul Konerko, Jim Thome and Joe Crede. He doesn't take a lot of chances, mainly because he can't.
Fielding: B-It's difficult to overstate his gamecalling, and he's less of a liability with his throwing arm than he was last year, but some of those wild pitches thrown by Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras aren't their fault.
Awards
Hands of Stone,
April 9-15