timmy6141Using the best technology available to us today, SlumpBot .200 identifies a few players who are currently having a bit of trouble and then offers solutions for performance recovery.

Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants

Data: 5-5, 3.41 ERA, 92 1/3 IP, 3.01 FIP, 1.19 WHIP, 3.03 K/BB

Malfunction: Lincecum, the birthday boy who turned 27 Wednesday, just hit a rough patch: In his last three starts, he's given up 16 earned runs in 15 1/3 innings, as his ERA has risen from 2.22 to 3.41. The funny thing is, almost the same exact thing happened at this time last year. In his last three starts in May 2010, he gave up 14 earned runs in 15 1/3 innings, as his ERA rose from 1.76 to 3.14, so I wrote a Slumpbot column about him then. As you know, he was pretty good after that, putting up a 3.58 ERA over the rest of the year, and he was even better in the playoffs, where he posted a 2.43 ERA in six appearances en route to a World Series championship. So is this just an annual early summer dead-arm, or

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The Stew goes through the quad and into the gymnasium to look at some of the hottest players in baseball and their chances of keeping it going.

Jonny Venters, Atlanta Braves

The Naked Truth: 4-0, 2 SVs, 0.47 ERA, 38 2/3 IP, FIP, 0.724 WHIP, 3.64 K/BB

Having a nice little Saturday: The best reliever in baseball is currently the setup man to a rookie closer who has blown five saves. Craig Kimbrel is still having a fine year, but Venters has been otherworldly. And he hasn't kept his success to himself, either, having taught his two-seam fastball grip to his teammate, major league ERA leader Jair Jurrjens. He strikes out more than a man an inning, he gets so many more grounders than every other pitcher in baseball that it looks like a misprint, and he's leading all relievers in appearances and innings pitched. If anything, he's been too good for his own good — he's appeared in more than half of the Braves' games, and in 71 percent of the Braves' wins this season, 25 of 35. The Braves

ichiro681Using the best technology available to us today, SlumpBot .200 identifies a few players who are currently having a bit of trouble and then offers solutions for performance recovery.

Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners

Data: .260/.313/.303, 0 HR, 20 RBIs, 14 SB, 4 CS, 20 BB/19 K

Malfunction: It looks like a misprint. Ichiro isn't just batting under .300 in June — something that has only happened in one other season, his difficult 2005 season in which he hit .303 — but he's struggling to hit .250 in June. He isn't just a few hits from the league lead — he has been the major league leader in hits for the past five seasons — he's tied for 28th in the majors. What's more, after spending years as one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball, all the top defensive stats agree that this year he's started to slip badly, and manager Eric Wedge has already given him three starts at DH. (But he hasn't yet given Ichiro a day off.) Is this the beginning of the end for Ichiro? {YSP:MORE}

Diagnosis:

hellboyThe Stew goes through the quad and into the gymnasium to look at some of the hottest players in baseball and their chances of keeping it going.

Jeremy Hellickson,
Tampa Bay Rays

The Naked Truth: 6-3, 2.80 ERA, 64 1/3 IP, 3.83 FIP, 1.18 WHIP, 1.70 K/BB

Having a nice little Saturday: Jeremy Hellickson is a rookie pitcher with a low-90s fastball, which automatically makes him less sexy than Mariners rookie Michael Pineda, the man with the fastest average heater in the game. But while Pineda has been famously spectacular, "Hellboy" has been even better since the beginning of May. In his past five starts, Hellickson has a 1.36 ERA and an opponents' .168 batting average. In the Stew's preseason predictions, Mark Townsend picked him for AL Rookie of the Year, and if he keeps pitching like this, he just might make Mark look like a genius.

You're my boy, Blue!: The trouble is, Hellickson's components haven't been nearly as good as his results. Over those amazing past five starts, when he's

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Using the best technology available to us today, SlumpBot .200 identifies a few players who are currently having a bit of trouble and then offers solutions for performance recovery. This week we focus on some players who still haven't found a cure and have been slumping from the start of the season.

Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals

Data: .262/.333/.412, 9 HR, 31 RBIs, 4 SBs, 0 CS, 23 BB/22 K

Malfunction: Offense is significantly down across baseball this year: Teams are only averaging 4.13 runs a game, quite a bit less than the 4.33 runs per game that teams managed last year, even though we all unofficially agreed to call it "The Year of the Pitcher." So, in this offensive context, Albert's otherwise blah .745 OPS is good enough for an OPS+ of 109, nine percent above league average.

But while being merely above-average would be good enough for most mortals, it isn't for Phat Albert. He hasn't been below .300 this late in the season since 2007. In fact, he hasn't even spent a single

beckett527The Stew goes through the quad and into the gymnasium to look at some of the hottest players in baseball and their chances of keeping it going.

Josh Beckett, Boston Red Sox

The Naked Truth: 4-1, 1.69 ERA, 64 IP, 2.74 FIP, 0.95 WHIP, 2.90 K/BB

Having a nice little Saturday: Through 12 games, the Boston Red Sox were the worst team in baseball — they were 2-10, comfortably in last place, and the media was going into hysterics. Since then, they're 26-12, tied for first place in the toughest division in America, and looking like the juggernaut we all predicted they'd be. Their ace of the staff is a big reason why.

You're my boy, Blue!: Plenty of people were ready to make fun of the Red Sox for giving Beckett a $68 million extension at the beginning of an awful, injury-plagued campaign in 2010 in which he finished 6-6 with a 5.78 ERA over just 127 2/3 innings. But this year he's demonstrated why they felt he was worth the money.

Beckett gotten a bit lucky. First, his homer rates have dropped

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Using the best technology available to us today, SlumpBot .200 identifies a few players who are currently having a bit of trouble and then offers solutions for performance recovery. This week we focus on some players who still haven't found a cure and have been slumping from the start of the season.

Dan Uggla, Atlanta Braves

Data: .180/.250/.335, 7 HR, 15 RBIs, 17 BB/40 K

Malfunction: I last wrote about Uggla on April 26, and blithely dismissed his struggles: "He's a fine hitter who has just had a terrible first month of the year. It happens." But now that he has had a terrible first two months of the year, it seems clear that there's more to it than that. Uggla has the ninth-worst OPS in baseball, and though he has appeared in all 51 of the Braves' games, he has only begun 12 games with a batting average above the Mendoza line. He's providing a bit of power — his seven homers are tied for fourth among second basemen — but everything else has gone horrendously wrong. {YSP:MORE}

bautista_ruthThe Stew goes through the quad and into the gymnasium to look at some of the hottest players in baseball and their chances of keeping it going.

Jose Bautista

The Naked Truth: .360/.509/.816, 16 HR, 27 RBIs, 37 BB/20 K

Having a nice little Saturday: What more can you say about Jose Bautista? Dating back to September 2009, Bautista has been by far the best hitter in baseball, and a year and a half in, some writers have started to say that he has taken the mantel from Albert Pujols as the game's top player. Here's the crazy part: As much improvement as Bautista showed in 2010 compared —  his OPS was 238 points higher, for starters, than it was in 2009 — he's better by even more this year. His 1.325 OPS is 330 points higher than last year's. He's leading the majors in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, homers, walks, runs, and total bases. He's putting up the kind of numbers no one has seen since Barry Bonds' unearthly 2001-2004 —  except Bautista's stats are