T.S. Eliot said that April is the “cruelest month,” but some major leaguers might vote for June after the last 30 days.
Yesterday I took a look at candidates for Player and Pitcher of the Month in both leagues. Today, let’s consider some players who might be pretty happy to see the calendar turn after a June swoon in performance.
June made more than a few players want to scream.
Ronny Cedeno of the Pirates has the dubious distinction of the lowest batting average for the month, hitting an anemic .121. He had just seven hits in 58 at bats, striking out 17 times while walking only once. He had no extra-base hits. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
Teammate Pedro Alvarez may well evolve into a superstar based on his pedigree of skills and tools. However, his first major-league audition has been a harsh one to date, as he is hitting just .152 in his first 46 at bats.
If the Toronto Blue Jays had some surprisingly hot hitters earlier in the year, some of them suffered a mighty June swoon. Adam Lind hit just .156 in 90 at bats, whiffing 28 times. Edwin Encarnacion hit .167, while Jose Bautista mustered only a .179 average. At least he hit four homers.
On the mound, A.J. Burnett and Nick Blackburn not only have the worst ERAs of the month—11.35 and 10.17 respectively—they are actually also both on my Rotisserie Baseball team. No wonder I am now second last in that category in my league. Burnett got the loss in each of his five starts in June—the mirror image of teammate C.C. Sabathia. Burnett and Blackburn each gave up a whopping 29 earned runs in June, while Blackburn also yielded 45 hits in 25 2/3 innings. He did have a good start last time out for a change.
Kevin Millwood of the Orioles has been hovering close to the run-per-inning rate, as his ERA was 8.82 in six June starts. Royals pitcher Kyle Davies deserves special recognition for walking 17 batters while striking out only ten in June, offering a partial explanation behind his 8.64 ERA. In the senior circuit, Padres pitcher Kevin Correia stands out in the negative sense of the word with a 7.83 ERA.
