Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
There were good reasons for the Texas Rangers to be worried about Adrian Beltre as the first month of the 2013 season ended.
Aside from the fact that age isn’t on his side at 34-years-old, the third baseman was off the the slowest start of his time in Texas, dragging along a disappointing..222/.280/.424 triple-slash into the first day of May. He’d hit five homers in April, but the .733 OPS certainly wasn’t good enough as the team’s cleanup hitter, let alone for someone who was supposed to be primary source of offense in the post-Josh Hamilton era.
Related: Detroit Tigers: Is Struggling Pitching Staff Anything to Worry About?
Not anymore.
Let’s just put it this way. The Rangers’ offense was ranked 12th in the league at the end of April with 116 runs. Headed into play on the 20th day of May, they’re now ranked fifth in MLB with 212, and lead the league with 54 runs over the last seven days.
If you guessed that a complete turnaround from Beltre had a big hand in that, give yourself a pat on the back.
Simply put, Beltre has simply caught fire as the calendar month turned. He has failed to hit in just four of 18 games played in May thus far, and is carrying a MVP-esque .382/.420/.618 triple slash through 81 PA in the month — not a massive sample size, but not a tiny one to be dismissed either.
With Sunday’s 4-for-5 performance against the Detroit Tigers that helped the Rangers hold off a three-homer night from Miguel Cabrera, Beltre now has three consecutive multi-hit games, as well three four-hit games in the month of May.
So you think he’s seeing the ball pretty well, or what? It took him a while to do it, but the slugger has now pulled his numbers back up to a more Beltre-like .291/.340/.509 triple-slash.
Still, the hot streak doesn’t come without its caveats. Though there’s no doubt that he’s getting results, the fact that his batter ball profile doesn’t show significant change outside of his ground ball rate (52.2 percent to 40.0 percent in April) and a spiked home run rate (18.2 percent vs 12.5 percent) may warrant some pause as to whether this is a luck-fueled (.397 BABIP vs. 200 in April) mirage.
In this case, however, perhaps a bit of luck with fly balls is just what Beltre needs to kick start his return to form this season.
The Rangers should hope so, because if that 15.3 percent line drive rate stays as is, this hot streak could run the tendency to get cold in a hurry, potentially sending the team back to its worrying ways.
