Jose Altuve is batting .407 on the road this season. He’s also on pace to go 25/40 with a .348 average. How can a man that good be that small? Truly remarkable.

Javier Baez is batting .326 with a .380 OBP and .457 SLG in July. He’s been on his game with a homer and three steals as well. Move things back to June 1st, 40 games, and we’re talking about a youngster who is batting .304 with a .352 OBP and .526 SLG. Those are elite numbers across the board for any position, let alone a middle infielder. If Baez were to keep up that 40 game pace over a full season we’d be looking at a .300 hitter with 28 homers, 104 RBI and a .877 OPS. That means Baez has done his best Troy Tulowitzki the last quarter of a season. The question becomes the following. When Jorge Soler and Dexter Fowler return how often will Baez be in the lineup? With the way Baez is batting I would have to think that Soler will either be left in the minors for a while or be called up to be a spare part, at least until Baez slows. As long as Baez keeps hitting, why wouldn’t he play?

Kole Calhoun has scored 11 times his last 10 games while posting a .432 OBP. Not many seem to talk about Calhoun much though he’s having one heck of a season with a .284 average, .361 OBP and 59 runs scored over 91 games. Not elite, but really solid is he.

Adam Duvall in July: a .213 batting average, .269 OBP and .340 SLG. He’s also hit just one homer. The approach has always been bad and funks like this are simply inevitable. Wouldn’t be crazy to deal him now before everyone notices the struggles.

Howie Kendrick is finally, finally, hitting. Over the last nine games Kendrick is batting .447. Over his last 13 games he’s batting .412. That run pushes Howie’s overall batting average up to .270. For Howie that stinks since Kendrick owns a .291 career average. The last three seasons he’s bettered that mark. Moreover, Kendrick has never hit lower than .285 in a season with his worst mark being .279 in 2010. One would have to assume that his batting average will continue to climb northward. Note that Kendrick also has massive positional flexibility. Here are his games played mark this season; 1B (eight games), 2B (22 games), 3B (12 games), OF (46 games). He’s a great bench bat who should be starting for everyone right now.

People kind of dismissed Jason Kipnis in some circles as no longer capable of being an elite level producer at second base this season after a slowish start. No more. Over the last 10 games Kipnis is batting .385 with four homers, a steal and 11 runs scored. He has 15 homers, 51 RBI and 51 runs scored over 89 games. Not running much though with six steals, the only real negative with this second base stalwart.

Anthony Rizzo started a bit slowly, but that’s a distant memory now. Rizzo has a hit in 23 of his last 25 games during which time he’s hit .375. Rizzo is batting .293 on the year, a number that would be a career best.

Eugenio Suarez has 16 homers, 42 RBI and six steals. That’s slightly better than expectations. However, he’s hitting .225 this season with a .291 OBP. Those are simply terrible numbers. Since June 8th, a stretch of 34 games, Suarez has “hit” .198 with a .266 wOBA. There’s counting category production here, but he’s looking an awful lot like the type of hitter we’ve come to expect with the Mark Reynolds and Pedro Alvarez’s of the world.

Ben Zobrist is batting .122 in July. Since June 15th he’s hit .190 with a .298 wOBA. Ugh. Hate to say I told you but… this was always going to happen with Zobrist. When a guy has a decade of work at the big league level we have a pretty darn good idea who that man is. We know exactly who Zobrist is, and that ain’t no .320 hitter. He isn’t a .300 hitter. Never has been. He’s a .266 career hitter who has hit under .277 each of the last six years. His recent slump has dropped his season long average to… .277. Shocker.

So close to a return…

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).