10 hitters who have put their slow starts in the rear-view mirror

The first two months of the MLB season have seemingly flown by. Although, for the 10 players listed below, most of that period probably felt like an eternity while they were mired in early-season slumps.

But these hitters have found their swing after sluggish beginnings, and they entered Memorial Day as some of baseball's most productive players in recent weeks.

Nick Kurtz, A's
Kurtz's on-base streak, which he extended to 48 consecutive games on Monday against the Mariners, is one of the top stories in the sport right now. But it's not like the 2025 AL Rookie of the Year is settling for a bunch of walks and softly-hit singles during his streak. After hitting one home run over his first 19 games, Kurtz piled up seven dingers in his next 33 games entering Monday. The lefty slugger carried a .215 average and a .308 slugging percentage into April 18, the date of his second long ball. From that point, he put together a .331/.474/.587 slash line across 154 plate appearances, and his 191 wRC+ in May is the best among qualified American League hitters.

Bobby Witt Jr., Royals
For a moment there on Monday, it looked like Witt had authored yet another game-changing moment for the Royals. Alas, his go-ahead homer in the bottom of the eighth against the Yankees ended up as just a footnote in Kansas City's loss. But it was also a part of Witt's continued power surge; all eight of his home runs this season have come within his past 27 games.

Witt owned a .254 average and a sub-.300 slugging percentage in mid-April. Now he is the AL leader in hits -- something he did in 2024 and '25 as well -- and has raised his slug nearly 200 points, up to .481, over his past 36 contests. One of the most valuable defensive players in the sport, Witt's all-around game added up to an MLB-best 3.3 FanGraphs WAR entering Monday's game.

Julio Rodríguez, Mariners
We have certainly been here before with the face of the Mariners' franchise. A notoriously slow starter, J-Rod produced a .267 slugging percentage through his first 20 games. He has nearly doubled that percentage since then (.529) while adding eight dingers in his past 34 games. Too makes strikeouts and ground balls played a prominent role in Rodríguez's dreary start to 2026. But since April 17, his K rate is a very manageable 18.2%, and his ground-ball rate has slimmed significantly, from 55.8% to 38.9%.

Rafael Devers, Giants
Devers, like Rodríguez, just needs some time to get into gear. The Giants star was included in previous iterations of this article in 2024 and '25, and he ultimately logged a wRC+ better than 130 in each season. His wRC+ entering Monday was just 94 (100 is league average), but that's actually quite an improvement. Devers was slashing .207/.248/.289 with a 51 wRC+ through the end of April. But since the beginning of May, he has a .301 average, a .935 OPS and a 159 wRC+.

A player who consistently hits the ball on the screws, Devers' 55.2% hard-hit rate this month is about a 13-point jump from March/April. He's also nearly doubled his barrel rate in May (13.8% after it was at 7.4% through April). Both of those rates went up on Sunday, when Devers crushed San Francisco's second grand slam in as many days.

Jazz Chisholm Jr., Yankees
The Yankees still have one of the top offenses in the big leagues, although it hasn't been humming recently like it was earlier in the season. On many of those fruitful nights, however, Chisholm really struggled at the plate. He was hitting .173 with a .498 OPS through his first 23 games. In game No. 24, he finally went deep for the first time this year, and he homered again in game No. 25. Since the night of that first homer, April 23, Chisholm has five home runs, a .303 average and an .873 OPS through Monday.

The Yankees' offense has now fallen into a slump, averaging barely more than three runs per game over its past 16 contests, and it's Chisholm who has turned into one of the team's best at the plate. What's his secret? It's gotta be the shoes pants.

Alec Bohm, Phillies
There's no way to sugarcoat it: Bohm was one of the worst hitters in MLB through the season's first full month. He came into May with a .151/.218/.208 slash line. He had four extra-base hits in 106 at-bats. His wRC+ was 20, second lowest among qualified hitters. Matters didn't get much better in early May, so Bohm was benched for two days by interim manager Don Mattingly with the hopes that the time off would allow the third baseman to reset.

Sure seems like it worked. Bohm homered twice in his first game back and owns a .346/.393/.654 slash line with eight XBHs in 14 games since his return to the lineup.

Samuel Basallo, Orioles
You've had a pretty good day in the batter's box when you can raise your OPS by more than 100 points in a single game. That's what Basallo did on April 24 -- his 20th game of the season -- as he picked up four hits and finished a triple shy of the cycle against the Red Sox. The highly touted rookie saw his OPS soar from .596 to .722 that night, and he's hardly slowed down from there.

After that performance, Basallo has still batted .316 with a .539 slugging percentage over his past 24 games through Monday. He has registered at least one hit in 17 of those games, boosting his average from .172 to .267 in the process.

Michael Busch, Cubs
Busch had to be feeling good about himself after his three-hit showing on Opening Day against the Nationals. Unfortunately, he would collect the same number of hits over his next 13 games and 47 at-bats. He started to heat up in the back half of April but still ended the season's first full month with a lackluster 71 wRC+.

In May, Busch has a 179 wRC+, sixth-best among qualified batters. That includes his game on Monday, when he drilled a solo homer to center field for Chicago's only run against the Pirates. Heading into Memorial Day, Busch ranked third in hard-hit rate (61.1%) and second in barrel rate (20.4%) among all hitters with at least 50 batted balls this month.

Gavin Sheets, Padres
On April 23, Sheets provided one of the most important hits of the Padres' season thus far: A pinch-hit three-run homer that capped a huge ninth-inning rally en route to victory in Colorado. It happened on his 30th birthday, too. Sheets came into that at-bat with a .219 average, a .260 on-base percentage and two homers, both of which came on April 10. That pinch-hit blast was the first of seven homers over his next 25 games, and a handful of those dingers were extremely clutch. He owns a .290/.402/.609 slash line over that span.

Riley Greene, Tigers
Say what you want about how Tarik Skubal's absence has affected the Tigers, but their fall into the AL Central cellar has more to do with their bats. Since May 4 -- the day Skubal landed on the injured list -- the Tigers have lost 16 of 19 games while scoring a total of 49 runs and producing a team OPS of .576. And it would be much worse if not for Greene, who is basically carrying the offense at this point.

After hitting .247 with a .364 slugging percentage across his first 22 games, Greene has batted .353 with a .509 slug in 32 games since. Although he hasn't homered since April 29, the 25-year-old outfielder has recorded nine multihit games and a .422 on-base percentage this month. The Tigers' OBP in May -- with Greene included -- is .286.