Season-long hitting slump stumps Helton, Colorado

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published June 26, 2005

One of the great mysteries of this season has been the hitting, or lack of it, from Rockies first baseman Todd Helton.

The falloff from last season is dramatic, but is made more so by the consistency of Helton's career.

Helton entered this season with a .339 career average and a .616 slugging percentage, highest among active players. He has never hit less than .315 if you don't count 1997 when he had just 93 at-bats. And he entered the season having hit at least .300 in 14 consecutive full months.

Entering Saturday, though, the Knoxville, Tenn., native was batting .253, was second on the team with 45 strikeouts and had not hit .300 in any month this season.

In June he was hitting .239. And against lefties, against which he entered the season hitting .316 in his career, he was batting .148.

"I have bad days at work just like everybody else," Helton told the Denver Post. "I am going to get out of this through hard work. That's the only way I know how."

There apparently is nothing different about Helton's swing, or his attitude or work ethic. And at 31, he is hardly on the downside of his career. Some wonder if outside influences are taking their toll.

The Rockies lineup certainly isn't scaring anybody, which means Helton can be pitched to carefully. That forces Helton to press, not only for individual achievement but to pick up the slack for his less than accomplished teammates.

"It's obvious," Indians infielder Alex Cora told the Post, "teams don't want to let him beat them."

And he's not. With six home runs and 28 RBIs in 69 games, Helton is on pace for 14 and 65, far below his 1998-2004 averages of 31 and 105, and he recently ended a stretch of 99 homerless at-bats.

"I really don't know why it's happened," Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd said. "But in his career he's never been in a slump, so you figure it's going to happen sometime. It's been more prolonged, but I am confident he's going to come out of it and carry us."

YANKEES BUZZ: Some thoughts from the Evil Empire after the Devil Rays last week won three of four at Yankee Stadium: "It's frustrating," third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. "They dominated us in every aspect of the game."

"They certainly are good against us," manager Joe Torre said. "They don't play like the team in the standings."'

Still, catcher Jorge Posada wasn't convinced. "We should beat that team," he said.

A NATURAL SLUMP: Mike Lowell's power outage has caught the attention of the conspiracy crowd. The Marlins third baseman told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel he is aware radio talk-show callers are wondering whether his power from years past was the result of testosterone or something else he took while recovering from cancer.

"I don't find it amusing at all," Lowell said. "I think it's somewhat disrespectful. I've heard talk radio before and a lot of intelligent things I hear are from the fans, but there are a lot of things that are stupid. I heard after the third game of the season we should trade Miguel Cabrera because he's washed up."

Lowell averaged 27.6 homers his previous three seasons. Entering Saturday, he had three in 237 at-bats. A survivor of testicular cancer, he said he did not supplement his natural testosterone.

"If I had to take something for my cancer, it would have been approved by Major League Baseball, and I would have taken it," Lowell said. "I asked about it. I was concerned whether I had low testosterone levels, and the doctors told me I didn't."

ARROYO LASHES OUT: Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, always with an opinion, said his time with the Pirates was not useful. The Hernando High graduate was a 1995 third-round draft pick.

"It's tough enough when you're a young pitcher to try to figure out how to get big league hitters out," he told the Beaver County Times of Beaver Falls, Pa. "It's even tougher when you also have to worry about how you're dressing, what you're eating and everything else.

"A lot of guys got frustrated over there with the way management was. You felt like they were watching every little thing you did. It just wasn't a really good atmosphere for a young guy."

ETC.: Former Rays utility player Robert Fick, batting .355 with two home runs and 11 RBIs in his first 29 games, rejuvenated his career as a catcher with the Padres. "Catching is my love," he said. "It's the only position I ever played and they took it away from me in Detroit," which drafted him in 1996. ... When the Mariners beat the Mets last week, it was their first victory over pitcher Pedro Martinez in 14 decisions going back to his time with the Red Sox.

[Last modified June 26, 2005, 00:34:18]