Magglio Benched, For Now
Posted by Zach Sanders on Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 9:52 pm
The Detroit Tigers have benched Magglio Ordonez indefinitely. From the Detroit Free Press report:
“I’m going to get him away from it,” Leyland said. “He’s beating himself up. Just let him breathe a little bit and see what happens.”
Ordonez is hitting .273/.347/.343 this year, well below his .317/.376/.494 line from last year, and his career averages of .311/.370/.513. Worst of all, all of Magglio’s power seems to have vanished. Ordonez has only hit 2 homers this year, and hasn’t hit one since April 27th.
Most of Magglio’s struggles could be attributed to a LD% of only 15.2% (20.4% last year), a GB% of 59.8% (43.6%), and a FB% of only 25% (36%). When your hitting the ball on the ground 60% of the time, good things aren’t going to happen. Opposing pitchers have been throwing Magglio less fastballs this year, 5% less to be exact. This is a noticeable amount, but doesn’t do much to explain his struggles.
One can only speculate how long Magglio will be out of the lineup. Some think he will play sparingly the rest of the season, while I believe he’ll be back in the lineup right after the All-Star break. Leyland’s comments leave this completely up in the air, so your guess is as good as mine.
