Baseball players don’t get much hotter at the plate than Brian Dozier has been at the end of July and early August.
He has a 13-game hitting streak heading into Friday night’s game, and Dozier is once again producing clutch hits, doubles and home runs at his All-Star pace.
But he’s been more than just the occasional hot streak at the plate. The Twins second baseman has been an extra-base hitting machine. Last year he had 71 of them – already this year he has 48, and there’s still two months of the season left.
Additionally, he’s homered 22 times this year – on pace to match his total of 28 from last season. But as of late, Dozier has put himself in elite territory.
Over his last 5 gms @BrianDozier has 10 hits/5 HRs. The last @Twins w/ 10 hits/5 HRs in a 5-game span were Puckett ('87 & '95) & Ortiz ('02)
— Dustin Morse (@morsecode) August 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/761258121671114752
People are using all kinds of fancy stats to evaluate players these days. But Dozier tells FanGraphs that there’s only one thing that matters – creating runs.
“If you’re more of a power hitter, you’re more valuable. At the same time, the game is played up the middle. Catching, pitching, short, second, center field – and if you get offensive production out of those positions… I wouldn’t call them defense-first, but any time you can get offense up the middle it’s a plus. Power is an even bigger plus. Not just home runs, but extra-base hits. Guys who can put up 50, 60, 70 extra-base hits are really valuable. I’m about one thing, that’s creating runs.”
With five home runs over this last five games and a 13-game hitting streak, Dozier has been practicing exactly what he preaches and producing plenty of runs.
