Brennan Boesch – Lectured by Tigers to Relax

According to reports, namely Lynn Henning  of the Detroit News, the Tigers brass had a long discussion (or in Lynn’s words, “lectured him hard — VERY hard”)  with Brennan Boesch about pitch selection after Sunday’s game.

How do you imagine this actually went down?  Do you think Jim Leyland and Lloyd McClendon sat him down in a corner and wagged their finger at him?  “Don’t you go chasing those pitches out of the strike zone any more young man.”  Maybe they even went so far as to make him go cut his own switch.  Perhaps they put together an impressive PowerPoint display showing the Strike Zone and then showing Brennan that pitches 2 feet off the plate outside are probably not the best pitches to swing at…even if you do happen to make contact.  That was then followed by a short Q&S session in which Boesch asked about pitches a foot off the plat INSIDE…where Jim and Lloyd looked at each other and then started to cry a bit.  Hopefully they went a couple steps further, showing him video of this year and freezing each swing where Boesch looks completely lost and saying “see, right here, you look like an idiot for swinging at that, you are better than this Brennan”.  Furthermore, I am not sure how a “hard lecture” is supposed to make him relax.  It seems that when someone lectures you to relax, the very last thing you actually do is relax.  Its like yelling at a child to “GO TO SLEEP”, rarely does it result in immediate sleep…usually just more lecturing.

As Garret discussed yesterday, Brennan Boesch is just completely out of it right now.  To go a bit Jerry Green on you, I wonder if he could make solid contact with water if he fell out of boat in the middle of Lake Michigan.  Right now he more closely resembles a blindfolded 12 year old swinging at a pinata during his birthday party than a profession baseball player who is trying to drive in runs.  Just like that 12 year old, he will make some contact, basically due to luck, but the contact lacks consistency and accuracy.

Fortunately, Leyland has done the correct thing in dropping him in the batting order.  Not only does it help the team by putting a superior hitter (Andy Dirks – right now) in a position to help score runs, it should also relieve some of the pressure from Boesch that he must get on base in front of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder.  If this goes on much longer though, the Tigers may have to think about having him go down to Toledo to work some things out.  Unlike a few other Tigers, if Brennan Boesch is not hitting, he really does not add that much to the Tigers team.