On Monday (May 19th), Jason Kipnis 0/3 with a sacrifice bunt and officially ended one of the hottest streaks since Barry Bonds was destroying everyone in 2004. This night ended his streak of eight consecutive games where he reached base at least three times, a streak in which he had 20 hits (seven for extra bases), four walks and three time hit by pitch. While somehow he didn’t win player of the week with a line of .586/.667/.931 (he was beaten by Brad Miller of Seattle with a .429/.500/.943 line, but more RBI), Major League Baseball may be saving him for the award for the entire month of May.
So far this May, Kipnis is hitting .485/.564/.773 with eight doubles, three home runs, nine RBI and 18 runs scored. As most hot streaks don’t coincide directly with the specific turning of a calendar page, Kipnis’ turn around started on April 26th when he was placed into the lead-off spot in the Indians line-up. Prior to that, Kipnis had been hitting just .239 on the year (his average actually dropped to .218 after an 0/5 on April 30th) and the Indians were struggling as an entire offense with their number one hitter, Michael Bourn, batting .169 and Kipnis struggling as well.
After making the change, Bourn was dropped to the bottom of the lineup and has raised that average to .233 (largely aided by not batting against left handed pitchers, Kipnis has raised his season average to .333 (raised more than 120 points in a span of 15 games) and the Indians offense has picked up as well. While it may not place them among the best in the league and they still can’t score more than two runs per game behind Corey Kluber, since making the change in lineup (which included batting Carlos Santana second), they have gone from scoring 3.63 runs per game to 4.86.
While not all the recent offensive success can be placed on Kipnis’ shoulders, a large amount can as can be expected when changing a number one hitter from one who gets out more than 80% of the time to one who gets on base more than 50% of the time. This turnaround by Kipnis likely can’t be maintained, as seen by his 0/3 night in Chicago against the toughest left handed starter in baseball, Chris Sale, but it shouldn’t be entirely unexpected.
Before he was considered one of the worst second basemen both offensively and defensively in 2014, he was an All-Star and MVP candidate in 2013. In both 2012 and 2013 Kipnis hit at least 14 home runs and stole at least 30 bases, good for a WAR of 10.8 from his short rookie year in 2011 through 2013. In 2014, things fell apart as Kipnis suffered an oblique injury on April 30th. Kipnis had been the number three hitter and was batting similar to his April of 2015 when he went down. Upon return from the DL on May 28th, Kipnis was obviously not healthy and it was apparent in every part of his game.
Most baseball fans should be familiar with how devastating an oblique injury as the muscle is involved in almost every baseball activity. A strained oblique takes away flexibility and power, considerably limiting a second baseman when turning to make a throw to first or attempting a double play. It also limits defensive range and the smoothness of the swing at the plate. The Indians were in play-off consideration for most of the 2014 season and Kipnis felt the need to hurry back, but ultimately, they may have been better off if he had let the injury heal fully. While his numbers did improve slightly over time, the injury got worse and lead to other various injuries that caused Kipnis to either miss or be removed early from ten of the Indians final twelve games in 2014.
After an off-season of recovery, Kipnis seems completely recovered. He has stolen five bases already this year compared to just two times caught and has legged out two triples, more than he hit all last season. The Indians haven’t had much going for them this year and can use some positivity at this point. Despite having four of the best pitchers in all of baseball (Corey Kluber 2.31 FIP, Carlos Carrasco 2.76 FIP, Trevor Bauer 3.41 and Danny Salazar 3.52 are all in the AL’s top 20), they remain in last place in the tough AL Central. Even after this Kipnis resurgence, the Indians have actually lost 3.5 games in the standings since April 26th. One man’s change was not enough to turn around the team, but at least it’s one more thing, along with those starters mentioned and Michael Brantley, that the Indians can check off their “needs fixing” list.
