Haynes: One-Hit Wonder?
After a rock-solid debut season that saw Mark Haynes post a .330/.412/.602 slash in 119 big league plate appearances, 2041 seems to have gone awash. The RHB DH/1B has hit only 1 homer and slashed .200/.269/.300. His presence as essentially a big black hole of sucking darkness in the middle of the lineup against LHP is a major reason the club’s offensive numbers are a tepid mid-pack, and his 17 Ks to go with only 6 walks is a sidecar that has club officials wondering if the 22-year-old needs to spend some time down in Indianapolis to get his head on straight.
As such, they’ve taken the first action of having him see Dr. Renato Lyri, a local sports psychologist, who has worked with, among others, Olympic class athletes.
“We think Mark has a long and fruitful career ahead of him,” said assistant GM Jose Cabrera, “but it’s not unusual to see a young guy go through the peaks and valleys that a baseball guy can go through. It’s a tough game, really. Very mental. It’s important to us that Mark knows the Yellow Springs family has his back.”
Later, of course, Cabrera noted that AA slugger Robert Chenoweth has been dropping some huge numbers in Santa Clara—which, again, is information that makes one thing that perhaps the club might be having Haynes’ back head back to Indianapolis pretty soon. This may well be the best course of action for Haynes as well as the team, seeing that most scouts agree that—despite torrid numbers in AAA—the kid from Garden Grove, California was brought up before he was completely ready.
With the team struggling to catch the Loserville ball club for leadership of the Heartland division, many fans wonder just how patient the Nine can be.