Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Maintaining Career-Low Hard-Hit Rate
3 years agoToronto Blue Jays outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has been relatively quiet at the plate so far this month. Over 14 games in July, he's slashing .250/.321/.417 with two home runs, two doubles, nine RBI and seven runs. Nearly half of his RBI for the month came from a grand slam on Sunday. Gurriel has some concerning underlying metrics on the year. His current 37.2% hard-hit rate is a career-low, down from 49.4% last year. His average exit velocity of 88.3 mph is also a career-low, as is his current xSLG (.393). Gurriel has the luxury of hitting in one of the league's top offenses, but he'll need to turn things around soon in order to keep his everyday role through the rest of the season.
Source: ESPN
Source: ESPN