NEW YORK -- José Ramírez’s production through May fell short of the elite standard we’ve long grown accustomed to seeing from him. The caveat is the Guardians’ third baseman had some rotten luck through the first two-plus months of the season.
“If you look underneath the hood,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said over the weekend, “there's lots of positive indicators of how he's impacting the ball, the way he's managing the strike zone. Unfortunately, just a lot of his hard-hit balls right now are right at people.
“... I think we'll look up at the end of the year, and it'll be a typical José year for him.”
Ramírez opened the month of June on a high note. The 33-year-old went 3-for-5 with a career-high-tying three doubles in the Guardians’ 9-4 win over the Yankees on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. It marked only his third game with multiple extra-base hits this season.
Ramírez entered Tuesday slashing .228/.341/.397 with 14 doubles, eight home runs and 29 RBIs in 61 games this season. He has found other ways to be productive (Ramírez’s 20 steals lead the AL), but the slug that the Guardians count on him for has not been there. Ramírez’s .738 OPS would be his lowest since 2015 (.631).
The thing is, Ramírez has hit the ball with authority and had little to show for it. He entered Tuesday with a 42.9 percent hard-hit rate and a 90.3 mph average exit velocity, both of which would be career highs. Based upon his quality of contact, he has been one the Majors’ unluckiest hitters.
Among 261 qualified hitters entering Tuesday, Ramírez had the fifth-largest difference between his batting average (.228) and expected batting average (.287). He was tied for the 32nd-largest difference between his slugging percentage (.397) and expected slugging percentage (.465).
Facing Yankees starter Cam Schlittler in the first inning on Tuesday, Ramírez lined out to center fielder Trent Grisham (101.2 mph exit velocity). He doubled off Schlittler in the third and fourth (103.1 mph and 98.4 mph exit velocities), and reliever Tim Hill (103.6 mph) in the seventh.
Before he hit his second double, Ramírez fouled off Schlittler’s first pitch of the sequence. His bat slipped out of his hands and struck a fan sitting behind the on-deck circle on the first-base side. Ramírez appeared visibly shaken up after seeing what transpired.
Ramírez’s RBI double in the seventh expanded the Guardians’ lead to 6-4. Travis Bazzana’s bases-clearing double in the eighth broke the game open. He finished with a career-high four RBIs.