I figure we'll be spending a lot of this month talking Menchkins. Here's Adam, getting us started:
Oooh...Ryan Meaux and Erasmo Ramirez. I say Jenkins is headed toward an MVP season!
Quick, show of hands: how many of you have ever heard of Erasmo Ramirez before today?
Ryan Meaux?
That's what I thought. Setting aside the irrelevance of spring training stats, I really don't care how well Jenkins hits against a couple of guys who will probably spend the year in Triple-A. His performance against Ryan Meaux tells us absolutely nothing about how he'll do against Zach Duke and Ted Lilly. I've got an idea about that though, and it involves embarassing strikeouts.
Jenkins, of course, was all smiles after the game:
Glad to hear it, Geoff. I hope you enjoy these at-bats against lefties, because you won't get many of them during the season. Hernan Iribarren is "trying to do good against everybody" too, and he's just about as likely to be a league-average hitter against MLB lefties this year as you are.
And, oh, by the way, Iribarren--we're talking about a guy who hit two home runs in single-A last year--out-hit you.
Now, the only way I would even begin to accept the possibility that Jenkins deserves 600 at-bats this year is if I believed he really was changing his approach. That means no swinging from your ankles and committing to a home-run cut as soon as the ball leaves good ol' Erasmo Ramirez's hand. Here's what our new hitting coach has to say:
Sounds good, right? If I thought Jenkins would listen to Skaalen all year, I might just get excited about that. On the other hand, Jenkins is likely to have the right right two-strike approach until about April 11th, the first day Ned puts him in the lineup against a lefty. After that...bombs away, dude.