Adrian Beltre’s august (adjective) August (noun)

Adrian Beltre and the Texas Rangers had a great August.

Last night Beltre had four hits and two runs scored in the Ranger’s 5-3 win over the Indians. With the win the Rangers matched a team record for wins in August having also won 19 in August 1975 and 1977.

Beltre has been even hotter than the Rangers who celebrated their third month this season with 17+wins (17-6 in April; 19-9 in June). Beltre has gone 17-36 (.472) with 14 RBI in his last nine games hit .472 (17 for 36) with 14 RBIs in his last nine games. After a soft July, Beltre has been huge as the Rangers led the majors in runs in August.

Beltre had 10 games in August in which he had multiple hits and the Rangers were 8-2 in those games:

Rk	Date	Opp	Rslt	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI
1	2012-08-31	CLE	W 5-3	5	2	4	2	0	0	1
2	2012-08-27	TBR	W 6-5	3	1	3	1	0	1	4
3	2012-08-24	MIN	W 8-0	4	1	4	1	1	1	3
4	2012-08-23	MIN	W 10-6	5	2	3	1	0	1	1
5	2012-08-22	BAL	W 12-3	5	3	3	0	0	3	5
6	2012-08-21	BAL	L 3-5	4	0	2	1	0	0	0
7	2012-08-18	TOR	W 2-1	4	1	2	1	0	0	0
8	2012-08-16	NYY	W 10-6	3	2	2	0	0	0	3
9	2012-08-11	DET	W 2-1	4	0	2	0	0	0	0
10	2012-08-05	KCR	L 6-7	4	1	3	1	0	0	1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/1/2012.

As you can see from the chart above, Beltre had his first career three-homer game and hit for the cycle for the second time in his career on 8/24 when he became the player in major league history to hit for the cycle in the same ballpark as a visiting and home player.

Take a look at Beltre's .258 July:

Now, look at how Beltre owned the middle, lower, and outside portions of the plate in August when he hit .333:

Beltre month-by-month:

Split	GS	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
April/March	20	81	13	26	6	0	4	13	.321	.356	.543	.900
May	23	101	15	32	6	0	6	21	.317	.327	.554	.882
June	28	108	17	37	6	0	4	18	.343	.392	.509	.901
July	23	93	12	24	2	0	4	9	.258	.289	.409	.697
August	29	111	19	37	9	1	7	21	.333	.384	.622	1.006

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/1/2012.

Adrian Beltre's Cycle

With the most violent swing this side of Bryce Harper, Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre takes cuts so hard that he'll occasionally end up on one knee at home plate. Beltre didn't end up kneeling after any of his base knocks while hitting for the cycle against the Twins last night, but he brought Twins pitchers Samuel Dedundo and Kyle Waldrop to their knees by doing what he does best: bludgeoning pitches thrown below the belt.

All four of Beltre's hits came on pitches thrown in the lower half of the strike zone. Beltre tripled off the left-center field wall on a middle-of-the-plate curveball from Dedundo in the first inning and lined a low Dedundo fastball to left field in the second. He then homered on a low curve from Dedundo in the fifth, nearly losing his balance as the ball screamed into the left field stands, and finally singled on a low Waldrop fastball in the seventh:

Location of Beltre's hits, 8/24/12

Lashing lower-half pitches is nothing new for Beltre. Check out his slugging percentage by pitch location against pitches thrown at or below the belt:

Among qualified hitters, only Boy Wonder Mike Trout, Edwin Encarnacion, A.J. Pierzynski, Austin Jackson and now-suspended Melky Cabrera have a higher slugging percentage against lower-half pitches this season. :

Highest slugging percentage vs. lower-half pitches, 2012

Batter	Slugging Pct.
Mike Trout	.636
Edwin Encarnacion	.604
A. J. Pierzynski	.573
Austin Jackson	.569
Melky Cabrera	.567
Adrian Beltre	.563
Ryan Braun	.562
Jason Heyward	.558
Andrew McCutchen	.549
Josh Hamilton	.539
MLB Avg.	.386

Yu Not Getting Calls on the Glove Side

Yu Darvish's first stateside season has been equal parts exhilarating and exasperating. Darvish has struck out 25.8% of batters faced, which ranks behind just Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez and R.A. Dickey among qualified starters. Yet he has also walked hitters 12.6% of the time -- only Edinson Volquez, Carlos Zambrano and Ubaldo Jimenez has issued a higher percentage of free passes.

As we've documented before, Yu hasn't been as control-challenged as you might think. Rather, he has had difficulty getting calls on borderline pitches. Now that we're five months into the season, it has become clear that umps aren't calling many strikes on Darvish's glove-side pitches. He gets an above-average number of called strikes and has an above-average strike rate on arm side pitches. But to the glove side, he's getting precious few calls and has thrown strikes just over 46% of the time:

Pitch Location	Called Strike Rate on in-zone pitches taken	Called Strike Rate on out-of-zone pitches taken	Overall Called Strike Rate	Strike Pct.
To Arm Side	84.9	15.2	34.8	62.2
MLB Avg. for right-handed SP	84.7	16.1	32.5	61.8
To Glove Side	62.2	1.3	17.3	46.3
MLB Avg. for right-handed SP	71.8	5.9	24.7	53.8

Here's Darvish called strike rate on glove-side pitches, compared to the average for righty starters. Low-and-away seems to be the biggest problem spot:

Darvish's called strike rate on glove-side pitches

Average called strike rate on glove-side pitches for RH SP

Breaking it down by pitch type, Darvish has a 19.4% called strike rate on glove-side fastballs (30.5% average for righty starters), 13.5% on sliders (17.4% average) and 10.9% on cutters (21% average). Overall, Ervin Santana and Edwin Jackson (two other slider specialists) are the only righties with a lower called strike rate on glove-side pitches:

Lowest called strike rate on glove-side pitches among right-handed SP

Pitcher	Called Strike Rate on Glove-Side Pitches
Ervin Santana	15.4%
Edwin Jackson	16.9%
Yu Darvish	17.3%
Josh Johnson	18.7%
Derek Lowe	19.4%
Max Scherzer	19.7%
Jake Westbrook	19.7%
Rick Porcello	19.7%
Homer Bailey	20.0%
Gavin Floyd	20.1%

This is quite the quandary for Darvish. He has to work both sides of the plate, lest he become too predictable, but the fastballs and especially sliders and cutters that he throws to the glove side lead to hitter-friendly calls and lots of walks. Getting more love on the glove side would go a long way toward Yu living up to the hype.