Davis makes contact
On the infrequent occasions when Baltimore Orioles first baseman Davis has put the ball in play, he has hit it hard and gotten nothing to show for it.
Those outcomes are harder to attribute precisely either to good pitching, bad hitting or buzzard’s luck. We can, however, break them into three general categories:
- fat pitches that a hitter might be expected to feast on,
- borderline pitches that would be likely to favor the pitcher,
- and contact on pitches off the plate.
Of the 16 contact outs made by Chris Davis, only two fit the latter category. If he swings at a pitch that’s off the plate, it’s usually a whiff.
The remaining 14 divides exactly in half: seven in which Davis got a very good pitch to hit and seven in which he had to attack a decided pitcher’s pitch. It’s no surprise that the latter seven netted him nothing. It is something of a surprise that none of the first seven have fallen in.
Four of those seven were solid line drives that happened to be intercepted by either the left or right fielder. A fifth was a well-hit fly ball to center. Only twice, on ground outs to first base, did Davis contact a fat pitch and fail to hit it hard.
When he has made contact with pitcher’s pitches, Davis has also tended to hit them relatively hard. Of the seven, three were in on the outside corner; Davis sent two of those to center and was retired the third time on a weak ground out to first. Davis also contacted three borderline low pitches and lifted all three solidly to center.