Barometers and self-induced slumps

Firstly, a good indication of how momentus a callup is can be determined by ESPN. If their player profile page goes up fairly quickly but with no photo, or if it takes a couple of days before it's even created, then the callup is likely considered of little overall import.

But if it's done within hours of the callup, like say, Eric Hosmer and Danny Duffy, well...there's probably a bit of anticipation there. While Duffy's impact would have been interesting against the new Royals nemesis, the Cleveland Indians, it's almost as interesting against the Royals other big tormentor this season, the Texas Rangers.

Since manhandling the Royals at the softBallpark at Arlington in a sweep April 22nd - 24th, the Rangers have went an unimpressive 8-13, going from a .667 winning percentage down to .524 -- also from 2.5 games in front of the LA Angels to tied with the Oakland A's.

Also since that time, the Rangers scoring has dipped severely, as they only averaged about 4 runs/game during that stretch, whereas previously they averaged over 5.5 runs/game.

This is an interesting series -- the Rangers trying to get away from .500 again and back into first place, and the Royals trying to get back to and over .500 and back into the division race. Undoubtedly the Rangers want to beat up again on the Royals pitching and re-establish themselves, while the Royals just want to remember how to score and want to avoid spiraling into irrelevance.

For the Royals to score, however, it will take the breaking of several slumps -- key among them, Alex Gordon. He still has solid numbers overall, which shows just how hot he was early, but the strikeouts are really starting to become a problem. Any changes in his approach won't matter if he can't put the ball in play more often.

Right now he's striking out esentially once every 5 plate appearances, and is tied for 16th in the AL for most strikeouts. Of the 18 other guys on that list, there are only 4 of them that can be considered doing well (Ben Zobrist, Kevin Youlkilis, Howard Kendrick, Curtis Granderson), and you'd be hard-pressed to say that each of the other 14 wouldn't considered to be struggling in some way.

Alex is unique of those players in the sense that he isn't underperforming, per se, but considering the lofty heights from whence his OPS came, his current slump has taken on that connotation. But consider this -- while it's still a small sample size, the simple facts are:

Gordon is striking out more often this year vs. his career (once every 5.0/pa as opposed to roughly every 4.4/pa) while walking less often (once every 13.5/pa this year as opposed to roughly every 10.1/pa).

So whatever changes Alex may have made in order to have such a hot April, to put up numbers approaching that again, he'll have to give himself a chance to get a hit more often.