Last year Edwin Encarnacion led the Reds in batting average for those who qualified. He hit for a little power and showed some decent plate discipline as well. Early this year, and lets make a big note that it is indeed early, he is hitting just .235 and slugging under .400. He has been hitting well lately though, after going 2 for his first 24 he has gone 10 for his last 25 (.400). I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what Edwin is swinging at and what he isn’t.

From the looks of it, Edwin doesn’t seem to put the ball in play much at the bottom of the zone. Once it get to the middle of the zone he seems to swing a bit more and put the bat on the ball more. I don’t really think this chart tells us much in terms of why Edwin started slow and we probably didn’t need it to figure out why…. very small sample size. He had a week long slump to start the year and has hit .400 since. Still though, Edwin, much like Adam Dunn, has seen his fair share of balls thrown to him (nearly 100 in 233 pitches thrown). He has done a good job at generally laying off pitches out of the zone, although he has chased some.