Is The Captain Heating Up?

Derek Jeter went on the disabled list on June 13th with his season line at .260/.324/.324. He had hit just two homers, both coming in the same game in Texas, nine doubles, and one triple. Jeter had lost the ability to hit line drives or lift the ball. It seemed possible that every ball off his bat could take three hops and land in an infielder's glove.

Returning on July 4th, Jeter showed no signs of improvement. He went 0-for-4 and dropped his season line to .256/.320/.320, a far cry from his .313/.383/.449 career line. 

But the next day, Jeter went 2-for-6 with a double, starting a hitting streak that included his 5-for-5 game where he reached 3,000 hits.

Since July 5th, Jeter has hit a sparkling .347/.394/.516, good for a .910 OPS. In that span, he has homered twice, doubled eight times, and tripled once. In less than a month, Jeter has nearly doubled his extra base hit production.

Jeter has faced a lot of media and fan pressure this season, but maybe his 3,000th hit has pushed him through everything. Whatever it is, I hope he can keep it up through October.

Thanks to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman for inspiring me to write this post. Sterling and Waldman mentioned on Tuesday night that Jeter has been hitting much better over the last month.