Brandon Moss

Here's an article in the Portland Press Herald about Brandon Moss. Moss struggled a lot at the start of the season but has turned it on lately, going 28-67 (.418) over the last three weeks in increasing his batting average to .294. Whereas I barely mentioned Moss in my May 16 post about Portland's batting leaders (other to say that Moss wasn't among them), he's up there now. Moss is currently 4th on the team in batting average, 5th in OBP (.372), tied for third in slugging (.500) and third in OPS (.872). Moss' 14 doubles are second on the team, his 7 homers are tied for second, and his 26 RBI are fourth. Moss has 46 K's, which are also second on the team, but his K rate has come down over the last couple of weeks, too. When I saw the game on Sunday I thought that Moss' stance looked more open than it had been, but the article says he hasn't changed his mechanics any. I could easily be mistaken because from the BIS seats, the catcher blocks any good view of lefthanded batters in the batters box.

Jeff Bailey and Alberto Concepcion both seem to be hitting better, and Jared the Wicket has bounced back a little, too - all of which were necessary given that the top 4-5 in the lineup weren't likely to continue the way they hit at the beginning of the season. I'd like to see more from Stefan Bailie (who hit well at this level last season) and David Murphy (who still has much to prove as a professional hitter), and I'm confident that we will, so we can dispense with the 4-1 losses (like last night's game) and see the Dogs bash their way to victory every night.