We’ve Seen This Before From Austin Jackson

John and I apparently both had Austin Jackson on our minds today. I wanted to put Jackson’s slow start in perspective considering the magnifying glass placed on early season statistics. Look at Jackson’s player profile and you’ll see numbers that didn’t appear on that page last season.

16 games into the 2011 season Jackson is hitting a disappointing .175. If the season is a novel then we need to remember that this is the first chapter. It may not be very good but that doesn’t mean the rest of the story won’t get better. Many will agree Jackson’s initial “story” was quite good although there were individual “chapters” that left something to be desired.

I went back into Austin Jackson’s 2010 game log to look at 16 game stretches from last year. Did we see anything as bad as what we are seeing now? Basically, yes.

“2011 start” shows Jackson’s stats as they sit today, “2010 Worst” shows Jackson’s lowest batting average over any given 16 game stretch last season, “2010 Avg” shows what Jackson did over the average 16 game stretch last season.

The difference between Jackson’s bad start and his worst stretch in 2010 is one fewer hit, three more walks and one more strikeout. All in the same amount of at bats. It is certainly disappointing that he has gotten off to a slow start and showed little change in his walk and strikeout rates but I don’t see any reason to over-react at this point. What we’ve seen from Jackson through 16 games is nearly identical to what we saw out of him in the 16 games he played from June 4-28. Now we just need to see him replicate the best of his 2010 season.