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Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Carl Crawford was designated for assignment Sunday amid a woeful start to the 2016 campaign. 

The Dodgers announced Crawford’s demotion and added that they recalled catcher/infielder Austin Barnes from Triple-A Oklahoma City to fill the 34-year-old veteran’s spot on the MLB roster.

Crawford has appeared in 30 games this season, posting a slash line of .185/.230/.235 in 81 at-bats.

“Father Time gets everyone,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters. “This game is about performance.”

Making Crawford’s performance all the more disappointing is how much money Los Angeles stands to owe him over the next year-plus, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times:

Trayce Thompson has flashed promise in his first season with the Dodgers thus far, but the outfield as a whole has been lackluster this year.

Gifted youngsters Yasiel Puig (25) and Joc Pederson (24) haven’t lived up to expectations, with batting averages of .237 and .226, respectively. Puig also just went on the disabled list with a strained left hamstring, which goes to show the Dodgers have so little faith in Crawford that they sent him to the minors.

Andre Ethier is already out for a prolonged period with a fractured tibia, so L.A. will have to count on the likes of Howie Kendrick, Scott Van Slyke and Pederson to pick up the slack in the outfield rotation.

A team ERA of 3.34 entering Sunday has been the primary reason the Dodgers are above .500 with a 30-27 record. Increased production from the batting order will be necessary for surefire playoff contention, but Crawford won’t be doing any more damage at the dish at least for the foreseeable future.

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Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias is reportedly getting another chance at the major league level after a disappointing debut.

Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times wrote Tuesday, “Urias is coming back to the major leagues. Alex Wood is going on the disabled list with elbow soreness.”

The 19-year-old Urias started against the New York Mets on Friday and did not make it through the third inning before manager Dave Roberts pulled him. The Dodgers sent him back to Triple-A Oklahoma City after his debut, per Doug Padilla of ESPN.com.

Los Angeles lost Urias’ start, 6-5, as he allowed five hits and three earned runs in 2.2 innings. He also struggled with his command with four walks.

Padilla noted the teenager was the first pitcher to start in the majors before turning 20 since the Seattle Mariners’ Felix Hernandez in 2005.

That the Dodgers called Urias back so quickly is notable because Padilla wrote they “made no secret of their desire to keep Urias’ innings to a minimum this season and have even suggested using him out of the bullpen as the season progresses.”

Wood goes to the disabled list after he pitched Monday’s game in Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs. He allowed two runs and seven hits in five innings of work and has a 3.99 ERA in 10 starts in 2016. McCullough pointed out Wood “reported some triceps soreness today.”

With Wood out, Rotoworld noted Urias will take the vacated spot in the rotation and make his next start against the Atlanta Braves.

The young southpaw couldn’t ask for a better matchup considering the Braves were tied with the Minnesota Twins entering play Tuesday with the worst record in the major leagues at 15-35. Atlanta has also struggled at the dish and is dead last in baseball with 161 runs scored, which is a symptom of its overall offensive issues:

Urias is surrounded by enormous expectations. MLB.com ranked him as the No. 2 prospect in the league entering the 2016 season and pointed to his “plus or better stuff across the board.”

He is consistently in the mid-90s with his fastball and can touch 97. He also has a “big-breaking curveball and fading changeup” to work with, per MLB.com. However, Urias has never appeared in more than 87.2 innings in a single season and missed two months in 2015 to have a benign tumor taken out of his left eye.

It is easy to envision Urias and Clayton Kershaw as a dominant one-two punch for the Dodgers down the line, but he first needs to make strides and gather experience during his second chance in the big leagues.

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There were no beanballs, no ejections and no Chase Utley fireworks in Sunday night’s tussle between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets.

But there was Clayton Kershaw, and lately that means flat-out greatness.

Well, OK, not just lately. Kershaw has been great for years now to the point where it’s possible to take him for granted.

But over his past several starts, he’s elevated his game to yet another level and put himself on track to claim another National League Cy Young Award and, yep, MVP trophy.

The Mets were merely the latest unlucky victims.

For 7.2 innings, the Dodgers left-hander carved New York’s lineup into neat little pieces, striking out 10 with no walks and allowing two earned runs on four hits.

He surrendered a solo home run to Asdrubal Cabrera in the sixth. A second run was charged to his record when left-hander Adam Liberatore coughed up a Curtis Granderson RBI triple in the eighth, plating Kevin Plawecki, who had singled off Kershaw to lead off the inning.

The Dodgers, however, answered back with two runs in the top of the ninth on a bases-loaded Adrian Gonzalez single and went on to a 4-2 victory.

Kershaw didn’t get the win, but his record still sits at a perfect 5-0 for the month of May. During that span, he’s struck out 65 in 49.2 innings while surrendering two walks and five earned runs.

To say he’s a shoo-in for Pitcher of the Month honors is beyond an understatement. ESPN.com’s Doug Padilla was already asking if Kershaw had put together the best month ever before Sunday’s gem.

On Saturday, the story was Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard throwing a blazing fastball behind Utley in the third inning and getting tossed, then Utley launching a pair of home runs.

That, in turn, exhumed memories of Utley’s takeout slide in last year’s National League Division Series between New York and Los Angeles, which ended Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada’s season and ultimately led to an MLB rule change.

Any simmering ill will was pushed to the back burner as Kershaw took the hill opposite veteran Bartolo Colon, who yielded a pair of runs in six innings. Neither pitcher showed any hint of throwing at anyone. Cooler heads prevailed.

So did Kershaw and the Dodgers.

Eventually, he’s going to lose again. He’s not invincible, despite recent results to the contrary.

But on a flawed Los Angeles team that ranks in the bottom third in baseball in OPS and has question marks in the bullpen that bubbled up again Sunday, he’s been nothing short of a savior.

Even after taking two straight from the Mets, the Dodgers still trail the archrival San Francisco Giants by 4.5 games in the NL West. Where would they be without Kershaw?

The Chavez Ravine faithful are no doubt shuddering at the thought.

Which brings us back to talk of another MVP Award. Kershaw claimed the prize in 2014 when he posted a 1.77 ERA with 239 strikeouts in 198.1 innings.

This year, his ERA sits at 1.56, and he’s already compiled 105 strikeouts in 86.2 frames with just five walks, which inspired the following tongue-in-cheek response from former player and current ESPN analyst Doug Glanville:

Reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper is mired in a slump that has lowered his average to .245, though the 23-year-old is always a threat to go off.

Heck, with so much season left, there’s time for any number of top talents to vault into the MVP conversation.

Right now, Kershaw‘s chief competition for the award might be Mets left fielder Yoenis Cespedes, who leads the Senior Circuit in home runs and slugging percentage.

On Sunday against Kershaw, Cespedes went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. It’s only one game, obviously, and Cespedes remains a force. But it felt like a message was delivered.

Again, this transcendence is nothing new for Kershaw, as MLB.com’s Michael Clair outlined:

Over the last three seasons, Kershaw has posted a 188 ERA+, a statistic that normalizes performance and compares it to the league average (which is 100). [Justin] Verlander’s best season: 172. [Tim] Lincecum’s: 171. [Felix] Hernandez: 174. That means Kershaw has been better, on average, over the past three years than any one of those guys was in his very best season.

We’re nearing the point when it will be time to talk about Kershaw not merely as one of the best pitchers of his generation but one of the best of all time. 

It will become even more unavoidable if Kershaw wins another MVP. Ten pitchers in MLB history, including Kershaw, have taken home an MVP and Cy Young in the same season. No one has done it twice.

“I wish we had 25 of him,” Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts said of his ace, per Padilla.

That’s understandable, especially given the Dodgers’ shortcomings. It’s also an impossibility.

Baseball is a game of surprise and uncertainty, but this much we know unequivocally: There’s only one Clayton Kershaw.

All statistics current as of May 30 and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com.

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Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias, 19, became only the third teenager in the last 20 years to pitch in a major league game when he stepped onto the mound for the first inning of Friday’s eventual 6-5 loss to the New York Mets, per ESPN on Twitter.

The hard-throwing left-hander thus joined Seattle Mariners ace Felix Hernandez (2005) and Baltimore Orioles pitcher Dylan Bundy (2012)—both of whom also debuted at the age of 19.

Prior to Hernandez, the last 19-year-old to pitch in the majors was Todd Van Poppel of the 1991 Oakland Athletics, while Jose Rijo of the 1984 New York Yankees was the last player to debut at 18, per Baseball-Reference.com (h/t High Heat Stats MLB via ESPN.com’s SweetSpot Blog).

Widely viewed as one of the top prospects in all of baseball, Urias earned his call-up by dominating the competition at Triple-A Oklahoma City earlier this season, posting a 4-1 record and 1.10 ERA through 41 innings with 44 strikeouts, only eight walks and just two home runs allowed.

The Dodgers plan to strictly monitor his pitch count, as the 19-year-old phenom has yet to eclipse 82 in any outing this year.

He lasted just 81 pitches in Friday’s debut, giving up three runs (all earned) on five hits and four walks in 2.2 innings, though he did settle down a bit after allowing all three of those runs in the opening frame.

Many baseball eyes have drawn parallels between Urias and longtime Dodger left-hander Fernando Valenzuela, as both southpaws hail from northern Mexico and were brought up by the Dodgers at 19 years old.

Although the comparisons don’t seem unfair, Urias may have to wait a bit longer to make his mark, as L.A. optioned him back to the minors after Friday’s contest, per J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers will send 19-year-old pitcher Julio Urias down to Triple-A, Fanatics Network reported Saturday. J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group later confirmed the report.

Urias made his major league debut Friday night against the New York Mets, allowing three runs in 2.2 innings.  

The Dodgers called up Urias Thursday to make a spot start for injured pitcher Alex Wood, who encountered a triceps issue on May 15 against the St. Louis Cardinals, according to the Associated Press (via Fox Sports). 

According to ESPN.com’s Doug Padilla, Urias was the first teenager to start a major league game in 11 years. He was the youngest Dodgers left-hander since Sandy Koufax in 1955, via ESPN Stats & Info:

While he had a good start to his outing against the defending National League champions, he was unable to get through three innings, delivering 81 pitches to 17 batters. 

He spoke about his debut after the Mets’ 6-5 walk-off winner, via Padilla: “I’m not going to lie. When I went out there, I started thinking of everything I had to go through to get here. I will never forget anything that happened in this game because this is the happiest day of my life.”

Urias is considered the Dodgers’ top arm in the minors and was ranked the sixth-best prospect in baseball by Baseball Prospectus in April. In seven prior starts in Triple-A, Urias was 4-1 with a 1.10 ERA with 44 strikeouts in just 41 innings.

While Wood’s injury was never going to keep him out for long, it did give the Dodgers an opportunity to give the young Urias some experience on the major league level, especially against one of the best power-hitting teams out there. 

With that limited experience under his belt, Urias will now head back to the minors and hone his craft a bit before being unleashed upon the majors full time. 

Stats courtesy of MiLB.com and ESPN.com.

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NEW YORK — The kid said it was the best day of his life, the happiest day of his life.

Do you blame him? Julio Urias is 19 years old, he was pitching in a real major league game and everyone was rushing to say how great he’s going to be.

Maybe he will be. No matter how bad the numbers were Friday night, when the kid needed 81 pitches to get eight outs and allow three runs, nothing that happened at Citi Field should change anything anyone thinks of him.

Well, almost nothing, because you know the Los Angeles Dodgers were hoping Urias was ready to hand a big spark to their underwhelming team. Manager Dave Roberts said as much Friday afternoon.

“This is a big stage, but we feel he’s ready for it,” Roberts said. “We just feel good that his time is now.”

The Dodgers should never have needed Urias’ time to be now, not with their $250 million payroll. After falling short last year because they didn’t have a third starter behind Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, they never should have begun this year without a second starter behind Kershaw.

It’s not Urias’ fault that they did, any more than it’s his fault that they could also use his help in a bullpen that lost another game Friday night on Curtis Granderson’s walkoff home run off Pedro Baez.

The Dodgers are trying to be overly protective of Urias. No matter how many times anyone brought up Fernando Valenzuela and asked if this young Mexican pitcher could do what that young Mexican pitcher did 35 years ago, it was never going to happen.

They weren’t going to let him make enough starts. They weren’t going to let him throw enough pitches.

He was out there Friday night because they had a need, and he was pitching great in Triple-A. But even before he looked nervous and struggled against the New York Mets, the Dodgers weren’t coming close to guaranteeing that Urias would make even one more start this season.

They were no more forthcoming afterward.

“We’re going to talk and see what’s best for him and for us,” Roberts said.

It may be he makes one more start before Hyun-Jin Ryu comes off the disabled list. It may be he pitches out of the bullpen, either now or later in the season.

Can he help a team that’s now just 25-24 and slipping further behind the hot San Francisco Giants? His stuff suggests that maybe he can, although Friday night we saw more of the 95 mph fastball than the changeup that reports suggest is so good.

The fastball might even play up if the Dodgers use Urias in short relief, but if they needed another reminder that velocity isn’t everything, it came when Granderson turned around a 97 mph Baez fastball and sent them home as 6-5 losers despite their ninth-inning comeback Friday.

You can bet Chase Utley won’t call this the best day of his life, even though he got to figuratively thumb his nose at all the booing fans with his three-run game-tying double in the top of the ninth. Utley is 37, and no day that ends as a loss can qualify as great.

Urias is 19, and no matter how many times scouts say he looks like a veteran when he’s on the mound, he’s still a grateful kid.

“This is the best day of my life, as it is for any big league player making a debut,” he said through an interpreter. “I’ll never forget anything that happened. This is the happiest day of my life.”

We won’t forget it, either, especially if Urias goes on to have a career as good as the prospect people say he will. The prospect people are sometimes right, so it’s worth mentioning that Baseball America had Urias fourth overall and tops among pitchers on its preseason Top 100 list.

Others agree, and Clayton Kershaw told some reporters (including ESPN.com‘s Doug Padilla) Urias is better at 19 than he was.

“Much better,” Kershaw said.

Fair enough, since Kershaw was in Class A at this point in his age-19 season. Oh, and the prospect people at Baseball America had him ranked behind Matt Garza, Mike Pelfrey, Adam Miller and a bunch of other pitchers whom he’s far better than today.

But while it’s fun to read the prospect rankings, it’s hard to completely count on them. Too many things happen, and too many players develop at their own pace.

Urias has developed quickly. He earned his spot as the first 19-year-old to start a major league game since Felix Hernandez in 2006, and the youngest Dodgers starting pitcher to debut since Rex Barney in 1943.

He earned that, but he probably didn’t need to be the guy who might help turn around this Dodgers season. It’s not his fault that the Dodgers were in this bind—the one Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke tweeted about as Urias was struggling through the three-run first inning Friday:

They have to keep searching, and maybe at some point this season Urias can even be part of the answer.

What happened Friday didn’t change that.

So let the kid enjoy the happiest day of his life.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are calling up pitcher Julio Urias to make his MLB debut Friday against the New York Mets, the team announced Thursday.

Urias will step in for Alex Wood, whose start has been pushed back to Monday due to left triceps soreness, per Jon Weisman of Dodger Insider.

Weisman noted that Urias, at 19 years and 289 days old, will be “the youngest Major League pitcher since Felix Hernandez’s 2005 season with Seattle, the youngest Dodger pitcher since Fernando Valenzuela made his debut as a reliever in 1980 and the youngest Dodger starting pitcher since Dick Calmus on August 23, 1963.”

Urias has been excellent at Triple-A Oklahoma City, going 4-1 with a 1.10 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 41 innings this season. According to MLB Pipeline, he is the top left-handed pitching prospect in baseball and both the No. 2 pitcher and player overall.

He hasn’t given up a run in 27 straight innings in Triple-A ball, according to Weisman.

While Urias will earn the start Friday, Ken Gurnick of MLB.com believes the team will ultimately move him to the bullpen this season “to limit his innings,” noting that he’s never exceeded 87.2 innings pitched in his previous three professional seasons.

Urias is considered the Dodgers’ best pitching prospect since Clayton Kershaw. Moving him along slowly and not pushing his innings this season is a wise move, making his transition to a relief role inevitable. Even in limited innings, Urias will have the chance to prove the hype is justified and that he can be a dominant starter in the years to come.

He may also improve, at least temporarily, a starting pitching staff that has been touch-and-go behind Kershaw this season.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter. 

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Even without a career that includes six All-Star appearances, four Silver Sluggers and three seasons in which he finished in the top 10 in NL MVP voting, Chase Utley would forever remain in the baseball lexicon.

All because of one play.

Utley became infamous when he launched himself toward second base in Game 2 of last year’s National League Division Series, breaking the leg of New York Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada leg but preventing a double play. This offseason, MLB legislated that kind of violent action out of the game, adopting what is known as the “Utley Rule.”

The ultra-competitive, highly controversial play was thought to mark the end of an otherwise stellar career. That is, until Utley, thought to be dead weight on a talented Los Angeles Dodgers roster, trotted out to second base this season.

Nearly two months into the MLB season, not only is Utley a crucial part of the Dodgers lineup, but he’s also proved that his latter years may yield some great baseball.

After a horrendous 2015 campaign in which he hit .212/.286/.343, Utley signed a one-year deal with the Dodgers. With the goal of chasing one final October, it seemed the 37-year-old was clinging to a talented team with World Series aspirations. That’s not an uncommon storyline for a star player nearing the end of his career.

Utley is hitting .289/.379/.408 this season. Those numbers are better than his 14-year career average of .281/.365/.477. As of Thursday, Utley’s WAR of 1.4 ranked seventh among all second basemen, according to FanGraphs.

He isn‘t writing the epilogue to his career, but an entirely new chapter.

It’s an unexpected turn of a events, given that a Philadelphia Phillies team beginning to rebuild traded him, with cash, to the Dodgers last year.

Think of it this way: Philadelphia had to pay Los Angeles to take him.

Apparently, the Phillies were right to do so. In his 34-game stint with the Dodgers last season, Utley hit .202/.291/.363. His one-year deal this season—worth $7 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts—was a low-risk move for the Dodgers. They took a flier.

For most teams, that much money is significant. But the Dodgers, with their mega-television contract, probably carry that kind of dough in petty cash.

Anything Utley does to help them win this season is a bonus, like ice cream on top of a brownie. But as it turns out, he was a necessary ingredient.

Given the talent in Los Angeles, the team’s struggles are as surprising as Utley’s success. The Dodgers rank 20th in batting average (.240) and 19th in on-base percentage (.313).

Utley ranks first on the team in batting average and OBP and fourth in slugging.

What’s most impressive is that Utley is doing all this while playing his home games at Dodger Stadium, which ranks last in MLB in park factor, according to ESPN.com.

Credit a different approach at the plate for an uptick in Utley’s offensive numbers. According to FanGraphs, 26.9 percent of the balls he has hit have been line drives, a career high. Only 24.4 percent of balls hit by Utley are fly balls, a career low.

While many players hit well in their twilight years, age has generally been a detriment to their performance in the field.

Utley, though, ranks sixth among second basemen at 2.8 defensive runs above average, according to FanGraphs. His 2.2 ultimate zone rating ranks him seventh among those at his position.

To some extent, Utley is the last of a disappearing breed: a group of players who ran the bases with reckless abandon, aiming to win at all costs.

But in this new era of the Utley Rule, he has reinvented himself, and his career appears far from over.

He isn‘t clinging to a talented Dodgers roster, hoping to hang on for the ride.

Surprisingly, Utley is among those at the wheel.

Seth Gruen is a national baseball columnist for Bleacher Report. Talk baseball with Seth by following him on Twitter and liking his Facebook page.

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Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig was removed from the team’s 8-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds Tuesday night, and a perceived lack of effort was the reasoning provided by manager Dave Roberts.

According to Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times, the 25-year-old Cuban was yanked after getting only a single on a ball he hit off the wall.

Per Alanna Rizzo of SportsNet LA, Roberts believed Puig would have ended up with a double had he not admired his hit:

After the game, Puig agreed with his manager’s decision, according to Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register:

Puig often found himself in the doghouse during Don Mattingly’s tenure as the Dodgers manager, and he can’t seem to shake that status even with Roberts now in charge.

The talented slugger has had an up-and-down season thus far, hitting .247 with five home runs and 19 RBI for a Dodgers team that has struggled to remain above .500.

He burst onto the scene in 2013, hitting .319 with 19 home runs in 104 games and finishing second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting before being named an All-Star the following season.

The past two campaigns haven’t gone nearly as well for Puig, though, and his status as one of baseball’s top rising stars has deteriorated.

Puig is under contract for two more seasons beyond 2016 before becoming arbitration-eligible in 2019, per Spotrac.com.

That means he is entrenched unless the Dodgers consummate a trade, but doing so may not be easy due to a sharp decline in value and the perception that he may not be a team player.

Puig’s understanding of Roberts’ decision showed some maturity and growth, but until he proves capable of playing the game the right way on a consistent basis, it may be difficult for Roberts to fully trust him.

That would be much easier if he was displaying All-Star form, but Puig has been largely ordinary, and he can ill afford to be anything less than a true professional if he wants to maintain his spot in the lineup.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Not even the best young ballplayers can escape humility forever. For proof, look no further than the wall Corey Seager hit in his first April as a major leaguer.

But Seager must have gotten his fill of humility, because now he’s looking more like the player the Los Angeles Dodgers and everyone else expected him to be.

The Dodgers have only slightly recovered from a rough April in May, as their 11-10 record has them at just 23-23 overall for the season. A major bright side, though, has been the emergence of Seager as one of the best players in their lineup.

After a slow start, the 22-year-old has turned things around like so:

Per ultimate zone rating, Seager has also been playing quality defense at shortstop. Add that to what he’s been doing at the dish, and he rates as the Dodgers’ best position player in May.

Widen the area of focus, and you’ll also see Kyle Seager’s younger brother ranks as one of the top 10 position players in the entire National League over that span. And even though he’s just starting to get going, it’s already arguable that he’s the Senior Circuit’s top rookie.

Based on what’s in the book on Seager, this was probably inevitable. He was a .307 career hitter with an .891 OPS in the minors, and he debuted in the majors to the tune of a .337 average and .986 OPS last September. That helped earn him the top spot in all the major prospect rankings.

Seager getting back on track, however, has required him to live up to the specifics of the book on him.

Upon first glance, it doesn’t look like Seager’s approach has changed for the better. Relative to earlier, he’s recently been walking less (8.3 BB% to 7.0 BB%) and striking out more (14.7 K% to 16.3 K%). Numbers like those won’t do him any favors in the Ben Zobrist Lookalike Sweepstakes.

But there are times when first glances are about as deceiving as a Kenley Jansen cut fastball. This is one of those.

After beginning the year with a slightly wild approach, Seager has become more selective (Swing%) with his swings while cutting down on his expansion of the strike zone (O-Swing%) and making more contact (Contact%): 

The more controlled approach Seager has been using recently is an accurate reflection of his true self. As Keith Law of ESPN.com wrote in February, Seager’s ability to recognize pitches and make frequent adjustments gives him an approach well beyond his years. That’s what he’s been showing off.

As for why it took him a month to get around to hitting, it could be because he was pressing in an attempt to live up to his reputation as The Next Big Thing™. Or, maybe he needed time to find his bearings against tougher competition than he faced in his first exposure to the majors. September is a time of watered-down rosters, after all.

“Corey is learning the league,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said recently, per Jack Baer of MLB.com. “I think that he’s been a little more patient and just getting good pitches to hit. With the strength that he has and the swing that he has, if he gets a strike, he’s going to do some things.”

On that note, let’s now look at an example of the things Seager has been doing when he’s gotten good pitches to hit. Delight your senses with the highlights of his first career two-homer game:

Here, the lefty swinger is illustrating the platonic ideal of power hitting: an outside pitch driven out to left and an inside pitch pulled out to right.

After Seager put on that display, even St. Louis Cardinals skipper Mike Matheny admitted he was taken aback, per Mark Saxon of ESPN.com: 

This leads us to the other defining aspect of Seager’s turnaround. According to Baseball Savant, he’s gone from struggling with his exit velocity to making all sorts of loud noises when his bat finds the ball:

• First 25 games: 88.4 mph
• Next 19 games: 93.3 mph

Seager hasn’t quite been the hardest hitter in the league since he started wielding a fiery bat. He’s up there, though, and the list of names behind him includes batted-ball luminaries like Josh Donaldson, Miguel Cabrera, Manny Machado, Carlos Correa and Yoenis Cespedes.

Because no obvious mechanical adjustments stick out on video, this may simply be owed to good health. Nobody official has said as much, but it’s possible Seager wasn’t fully recovered from a left knee sprain he suffered in spring training when the season opened. Once again having a strong back leg in the box would lead to more pop.

Whatever the case, the power Seager is displaying should not be written off as a fluke.

Though he wasn’t known for his power in the minors, Seager’s 6’4″, 215-pound frame makes him bigger and stronger than most shortstops. Between that and an uppercut swing that allows him to get under the ball, it would have been a bigger surprise if he didn’t start crushing eventually.

I am (or might as well be) contractually obligated to note Seager’s trendline won’t continue upward forever. Just because he’s found his footing doesn’t mean he’s never going to slip again. There’s always another slick floor just around the corner in the baseball world.

Nonetheless, Seager’s play in recent weeks makes it that much easier to understand why many were so excited about him coming into 2016. After offering a sneak peek at his star potential in 2015, they all said it was likely just a matter of time before he realized his star potential in 2016.

They can be wrong about such things, but this time, they were right.

Stats are updated through games played on May 22 and are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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