A closer look at the struggles of Mark Reynolds

I have heard some fans say that we all should have expected to see new Orioles' third baseman Mark Reynolds hit for a real low average after he batted .198 last year. However, Reynolds hit .279 in 2007, .239 in 2008 and .260 in 2009. His career batting average coming into this season was .242. He was a career .280 hitter in the minor leagues. Right now, Reynolds is batting .174 with three homers and 15 RBIs. That batting average is 68 points under his career number. Plus, his power outage this year has been dramatic. Reynolds averaged a homer every 13.1 at-bats in 2009 and one every 15.6 at bats last season. Now he is averaging one every 38.3 at-bats. His career OPS was .817 coming into this season and his worst-ever OPS was the .753 he posted last year. Right now he has an OPS of .600. Another area where Reynolds' performance, right now, is way off his career numbers is in his production batting against left-handed pitching. He is a career .243 batter with an OPS of .879 against southpaws. This season he is batting .100 (3-for-30) with an OPS of .383 against left-handed pitching. Sum this up and Reynolds has fallen way off his career pace in batting average and power. I have not seen him play enough over the years to say that his swing right now looks any different from what it was when he was with Arizona. I don't think anyone with the club right now has any answers for Reynolds, or they would have fixed this by now. Reynolds, career at bats per homer: 2007: 1 every 21.5 at bats 2008: 1 every 19.3 at bats 2009: 1 every 13.1 at bats 2010: 1 every 15.6 at bats 2011: 1 every 38.3 at bats Reynolds, OPS by year: 2007: .843 2008: .779 2009: .892 2010: .753 2011: .600 Reynolds got some big hits early in the year for the Orioles and he had eight RBIs during the team's 6-1 start. His OPS at that point was .862. He has just seven RBIs in the 29 games since then. Reynolds is far from the only player struggling on offense right now and he has plenty of season left to get it going. But right now he has under performed against what his track record says in a big, big way. The questions no one can answer are why and how can he reverse this trend? By the way I hope some of you can come out to Hightopps in Timonium this Monday. I'll be there at 7 p.m.