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Quick Hits: The weather is heating up and so are the hitters. Here's a look at a few players who are crushing the ball in the month of June. Marlon Byrd is batting .516 (16-31) this month, raising his average on the season to .329. Victor Martin...

Quick Hits: The Orioles parted ways with Dave Trembley today. Let's take a look at what else they'll need to fix in order to become competitive again. Their starting pitchers are 9-27 with a 4.91 ERA, 4th worst in the majors. They've converted ni...

Quick Hits: We've essentially had three perfect games thrown this season, but Braden, Halladay and Gallaraga aren't the only players who have been perfect. Here are a few others: Luke Gregerson leads the majors with 17 perfect relief appearances of...

Quick Hits: One of the simple keys to success for a pitcher is quickly retiring the bottom third of the order. So it should come as no surprise that the pitchers who struggle with 7-8-9 hitters are having disappointing seasons. Rich Harden has allo...

Prior to the start of the season the buzz around Jason Heyward was as much about his plate discipline as his power potential. Every few years we come across a rookie who makes an immediate impact with his power, but it typically takes a few years to ...

Quick Hits: According to Inside Edge, Ubaldo Jimenez threw 13 split-fingered fastballs on Monday. Hitters swung at seven of them and failed to put any of them in play. On the season, opponents are batting just .185 against Jimenez's splitter. Here's ...

Quick Hits: We're all well aware of David Ortiz's May resurgence. But here are a few other hitters who will be sad to see the calendar turn to June. Mike Fontenot is batting .378 in May, over 100 points higher than his career BA of .274 Tra...

Quick Hits: Here's a look at some hitters who have been hot in certain situations over the past two weeks: Chipper Jones has a .632 OBP and a 1.232 OPS with RISP. Billy Butler is batting .522 (12-23) in at bats ending in fastballs. Mike...

With one out in the 8th inning on Wednesday, Joe Mauer came to the plate with men on the corners and the game tied at two. The Yankees chances of getting out of the inning without allowing a run seemed bleak. But last year's American League MVP groun...

Quick Hits: Today in Quick Hits, let's take a look at some pitchers who rise to the occasion when faced with a tough situation. "3-4-5 hitters are 0-16 this season with RISP against Tim Hudson, easily the worst opponents BA in the majors. "To...

Earlier this morning we took a look at the best "putaway pitches" in the game. We only listed the top seven fastballs, sliders, curves and changeups, so a few of you had questions about specific players that didn't show up among the leaders. Here are...

Following Joe Nathan's injury this past March, Mark Simon introduced a stat which he labeled "putaway rate." He defined it as "the percentage of two-strike plate appearances that ended in strikeouts." Taking his idea a step further, we set out to de...

Quick Hits: A number of pitchers take the hill today who have found success this season getting hitters to chase pitches out of the strike zone. Here's a look at a few of those guys... * Hitters are chasing Scott Baker's fastball out of the zone 26....

Quick Hits: Chris Coghlan went 0-6 with three strikeouts and was the Marlins only starter who failed to collect a hit on Sunday. In five of his at-bats he found himself in a two-strike count, a situation where he has struggled all season, batting jus...

Quick Hits: Will Venable went 3-3 with two doubles and a triple off sliders from Jeff Weaver and Ramon Ortiz last night. The performance raised Venable's average vs sliders this season to .474 - third highest in the majors. Let's take a look at some ...

Quick Hits: Yesterday in Quick Hits we took a look at batters who are crushing fastballs this season. Today we'll focus on guys who have excelled against off-speed pitches. * Joey Votto is batting .529 (9-17) against changeups. * Ryan Sweeney has y...