ARLINGTON, Texas -- After a brief break, Prince Fielder will return to the Texas Rangers' lineup today.
"The rakin' starts," Fielder crowed.
Fielder said that in a playful tone. Humor helps as the Rangers wait for Fielder to begin power raking.
Fielder has not found his power swing. He goes into the series-opener against the Los Angeles Angels hitting .190 with only two home runs and a .295 slugging percentage for 79 at-bats.
To put that into perspective, Fielder is tied for 61st in the American League for home runs and is 92nd in slugging percentage.
"I'm not worried," said Fielder, out of the lineup for Wednesday's victory against the New York Yankees. "Worrying is not going to help anything. Come every day and see what happens. That's all you can do."
The plus to Fielder's performance is that he is tied for seventh in the AL for RBI with 15. The RBI have come at a price. Fielder has driven in five runs with outs. A year ago, Fielder had 13 of his 98 RBI with outs.
The batting average on balls in play (BABIP) metric offers an insight into what is happening with Fielder.
Opponents' defense and luck can be factors in BABIP, but it also reflects how hard balls are hit. The harder a batter hits the ball, the more likely he is to get a hit.
For the small sample of the season to date, Fielder has not been hitting balls hard. His BABIP of .206 reinforces that contention. Fielder had a .323 BABIP last season, when he finished with 23 home runs and a .463 slugging percentage. His career BABIP is .303.
"Just hitting a ball hard, that's really the key," Fielder said. "That's the whole battle. You take your hits any way you can get them, but the key is really hitting them hard. That's all you can try to do."
Fielder said he is healthy and not having a recurrence of the neck-discs problem that caused season-ending surgery in May 2014.
Manager Jeff Banister said opponents are determined not to give Fielder a chance to pull the ball for power. That means fewer fastballs on the inside half and more soft stuff away. Teams continue to use shifts to the pull side against Fielder.
A year ago, he beat those plans with hard-hit singles and doubles to left-center. Fielder has not yet done that this season.
"Is Prince where we'd like him to be, where he'd like to be?" Banister said. "Absolutely not. Prince holds himself as one of the main players in this lineup who helps us win ball games.
"I don't know if he's ever satisfied with where he's at. It's a terrific quality for him."
Fielder may simply have moved into a different stage of his career, one in which he will not match previous power numbers.
From 2007-12, Fielder averaged 33 home runs with a .549 slugging percentage per season. He was in his 20s during that period.
Fielder's season highs since that stretch are 25 home runs, with Detroit in 2013, and a .463 slugging percentage last season. He will turn 32 on May 9.
The clock is ticking.
Banister puts faith in Fielder's career past performance and believes the power will show over the full season. Fielder shares that view.
"That's the law of averages," Fielder said. "Hopefully, that's the case. But every day you have to go out and give it your best and not worry about the other stuff."
With Fielder lacking power, the Rangers are next-to-last in the AL for home runs with 18 but are 5-2 in homer-less games. That will not last. Every AL team last season had a losing record for homer-less games, with the Rangers at 23-43.
Time for the clean-up hitter to start raking.
Sports on 04/29/2016