Mark Reynolds Sits After Four More Saturday Strikeouts
By Scott Allen
Exactly how much more can we take? We’ve always known Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Mark Reynolds strikes out a lot. A LOT! What is concerning is now, even though his power numbers are about where they should be, his batting average is not. After striking out four times on Saturday, Dbacks manager A.J. Hinch sat Reynolds on Sunday, not the first time he’s done that to Reynolds this season after a poor game.
Reynolds is now hitting .209 with 107 strikeouts this season. I don’t care about the home runs at this point. Hitting .209 and unproductive outs such as a strikeout just won’t cut it, at this level or any other. Something needs to change. He needs to be making more productive outs. I would be ok with the strikeouts if he had more sac fly’s and ground outs where he was moving runners. Twice this week he struck out with the bases loaded.
The time has come to do something. Mark Reynolds has become the Chris Young of 2010. Young, as you will recall, struggled all last season, even seeing his average drop below .200, a point Reynolds is not far off from. Look at what Young has been able to do since he was sent to AAA last August. he cam back stronger in September and this season has his average at .265 as of Sunday. Now .265 is nothing to go running to tell everyone about, but .265 might as well be .365 to Young and Dbacks fans after the season he went through in 2009. He was in the .280’s most of this season until a recent mini-slump. His power numbers are up as well. He has 13 home runs and 50 RBI.
How many times is Hinch going to just sit him every time Reynolds has a bad game? That doesn’t do anyone any good. He sits, gets no chance to improve himself. He could be in AAA Reno working on his issues. I’m not saying send him there for the rest of the season, although if that’s what it takes, then do it. Young went down for a few weeks and got himself right. Not the time to give up on Reynolds yet, given the power stats, but it is also time to stop ignoring the problem as well. Benching Reynolds intermittently does nothing for him or the team.