Fletcher finally has hit a hot streak and seems to be out of his offensive funk. I’m sure many would be shocked to hear that in SEC games this season, Dom is hitting a robust .352! And his overall batting average has climbed above .280 - higher than Grant Koch! Who would have thought that 2-3 weeks ago, when Koch was batting .320 and Fletcher was about 100 points below that?
Yes, it’s great to see Fletcher hitting like we’ve all known he’s capable of hitting. As for the doom and gloom, Koch isn’t, which makes me concerned about all the innings he’s caught if it’s taking a toll on his hitting. Many catchers go through that. Hope that’s not the case.
I think Koch problem is his setup,he is too far off the plate to cover the outside corner.he could do that if he stepped in but he doesn’t he tries to pull the outside pitch and he ends up catching it with end of his bat which results in weak ground balls and pop ups.the only pitch he can hit hard is a inside pitch and they are not pitching him there. not sure why he does that.
Fletcher is hitting better, but he had a base running error that cost Arkansas a run last night.
I don’t think anyone really questioned whether or not Fletcher would come out of it. He’s done well the last two weekends. So I’m not too surprised that’s his average. With only 13 games played in the SEC season, it doesn’t take much to get your average up.
Koch can’t touch a ball in the middle of the plate let alone one on the outside corner.
He’s way to far off the plate.
He looks almost as bad at the plate at Bonfield. Whom takes the pitches early in an at bat for stokes only to get one swing to roll over one or just strike out! Those 2 should be able to produce and Thursday they didn’t.
You may not have questioned it, Clay. But as someone who visits this (and a couple of other) boards almost daily, I can assure you that there were many who were much concerned about Fletcher’s extended batting slump.
I will say that I wasn’t, for the longest time. He was one of the players I was most anxious to see in 2018 - to see how he’d build upon last season. I was hoping he might have a breakout season much as Benintendi did after his freshman season; not necessarily to those extreme heights, but a “better” year. I’m a big Fletcher fan.
But by 2 weeks ago, I’ll admit that we were deep enough into the season (yes, we may only be at the halfway point of the SEC season; but we passed that point in the regular season about the end of March) that I was just beginning to worry about him a bit. Seemed like every time he’d have a “turnaround” game, with a key hit, he’d immediately go back into an 0 for 7 funk. He couldn’t seem to get above .220 for the longest time.
Now, I’ll say that some of the time, he was simply hitting into bad luck; he’d square one up down the line, and it would be foul by 6 inches - or, right at someone. Then, all of a sudden, those breaks started going his way. He’s gotten 3 or 4 “hits” in the past 10 days that were swinging bunts, or seeing eye singles that weren’t even hit solidly. You can see his confidence and swagger at the plate coming back, and now (the last week or so), he looks like the old Dom. He’s always had a great first step and glove in the field, but even that has taken a step up . . . maybe because of his batting success, maybe unrelated.
Either way, it’s good to have “old Dom” back.