Carlos Ruiz, hitter extraordinaire
by Scott Butler 5/15/09
A week ago, you had to be wondering if Carlos Ruiz was a good enough hitter to stay with the Philadelphia Phillies this year. Phillies management is certainly high on the defensive ability of Ruiz and how he handles the pitching staff. But when a player is consistently batting around .200, eventually you need to make a change.
What a difference a few games makes. At the start of the game on Wednesday, Carlos Ruiz was hitting .167 with zero, yes zero, RBIs. Two days later, after his fifth at-bat he had increased his batting average to .308 (I ignored his last two at-bats. As they say, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story). He went from Mendoza to Ty Cobb in just 8 at-bats!
It makes you wonder what kind of a hitter Ruiz is going to be. He showed some power in the minors with around 20 home runs in both Reading and Scranton-Wilks Barre, but hopes of any power in the majors are gone as Ruiz has only 13 career major league home runs.
I think his problem is that he tries to pull the ball too much. That is why he hits into so many double plays. If you have played any baseball, you know that when you try to pull an outside fastball (as a right-handed batter) you will hit a lot of weak ground balls to shortstop and lose most of your power. Ruiz does not have a particularly quick bat and he would be best served by trying to go the other way with pitches and just turn on the inside pitches.
Since he has proven himself defensively, the Phillies told Ruiz in the off-season to focus more on his hitting. Hopefully he listened, because the Phils can't afford to have a .200 hitter batting in the everyday lineup. Phillies fans would gladly accept a .250 batting average. Let's see if he can give that to us.
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