{"id":74323,"date":"2024-05-24T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T15:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74323"},"modified":"2024-05-24T10:56:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T14:56:42","slug":"mariners-julio-rodriguez-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/24\/mariners-julio-rodriguez-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"Slumping Mariners Superstar Poised For A Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Julio Rodr\u00edguez is off to a slow start for the third time in as many seasons, but Seattle\u2019s star center fielder is poised for a comeback. One of the most dynamic hitters in baseball, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodriju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Julio Rodr\u00edguez<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is experiencing a major power outage nearly two months into the season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last year, Rodr\u00edguez became just the third active player with 60 homers and 60 doubles in <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/05\/11\/mlb-rookie-club-baseball\/\" target=\"_self\">his first two seasons.<\/a> But the 23-year-old outfielder has not had the same success this year. He is batting .257\/.306\/.312 with just two home runs through his first 51 games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rodr\u00edguez might be a player who needs more time to hit his stride. His second homer of the season came in last week\u2019s series finale against Oakland, sparking an eight-game hit streak. Rodr\u00edguez was batting .406 with 13 hits, a home run, three RBI, and five runs during his eight-game hit streak. But the 23-year-old had just one hit (a single) in 15 at-bats during Seattle\u2019s four-game series against the Yankees. His struggles led Mariners manager <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/servasc01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scott Servais<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to drop him to sixth in the order for Thursday\u2019s series finale in the Bronx.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rodr\u00edguez has spent most of the season \u2013 and his career \u2013 in the top two spots in the batting order. Seattle\u2019s star center fielder leads the American League in strikeouts (62), and his seven extra-base hits are the fourth lowest among qualified hitters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Julio Rodriguez\u2019s slugging percentage went down to .313 in the year. 145th out of 158 qualified hitters.<\/p>\n<p>7 extra-base hits in 51 games. Just 3 qualified hitters in the game with less (Jared Triolo, Jonathan India, Jung Hoo Lee).<\/p>\n<p>Utterly inconceivable.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Joe Doyle (@JoeDoyleMiLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoeDoyleMiLB\/status\/1793715631822705113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 23, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Slumping Mariners Star Julio Rodr\u00edguez\u00a0Could Make a Comeback<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Julio Rodr\u00edguez is no stranger to the sixth spot in the order. It\u2019s worth noting that last May, the two-time Silver Slugger was dropped to the sixth spot after a slow start. At that point last season, he hit just .204 before launching 32 homers and finishing fourth in MVP voting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While dropping from the top of the order to sixth may come across as a demotion, Rodr\u00edguez sees it differently. \u201cI feel like every time that you hit a little bit lower in the lineup, you can see all the guys, who the (pitcher) is working and stuff like that,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite his early struggles, Rodr\u00edguez is hitting the ball hard, and his exit velocity ranks in the top nine percent. Rodr\u00edguez could be on the cusp of a comeback, and perhaps moving to the sixth spot can spark him like it did last season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: <em>Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Julio Rodr\u00edguez is off to a slow start for the third time in as many seasons, but Seattle\u2019s star center fielder is poised for a comeback. One of the most dynamic hitters in baseball, Julio Rodr\u00edguez is experiencing a major power outage nearly two months into the season. Last year, Rodr\u00edguez became just the third [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":74329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1071],"tags":[4308],"class_list":["post-74323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mariners","category-mlb","tag-julio-rodriguez"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}