Jonathan Scoop spent the first month of this season riding the interstate, 'I-98' from April 1 to April 30. He wasn't much better over the next three weeks. He's been the best hitter in baseball ever since.
Since May 22, Schoop ranks first in the majors with an average of .366. He's tied with Colorado's Raimel Tapia for the most hits (41) and tied with Fernando Tatis, Jose Altuve and Kyle Schwarber for most homers (11).
Over this 28-game stretch, Schoop has raised his average from .210 to .277 and his OPS from .554 to .812. This is water finding its level. Schoop hit .278 with a .799 OPS in his first season with the Tigers. He's back where he belongs nearing the halfway mark of his second.
Scoop's latest barrage came Tuesday night in Detroit's win over the Cardinals when he drilled a mammoth three-run bomb to stake the Tigers to a 6-0 lead in the fourth.
"He's a big part of what we do when we do things well," said A.J. Hinch. "He's really turned his season around and the numbers on the scoreboard don't even do it justice. He's been remarkable for us with big hits, the homers have picked up, how hard he's hitting the ball is big. And he's adapting pretty well to me moving him between first and second. He's a pro's pro."
That's the other thing about Schoop's scorching month. He's done it while starting the majority of his games at first base. A natural second baseman, Schoop hadn't played a single game at first in his eight-year career before this season. So if he's back where he belongs, so is he completely out of place. You wouldn't know it watching him pluck balls out of the dirt.
And let's be fair to Schoop at the plate: this is more than water finding its level. This is the payoff of countless hours in the cage early in the season, as Schoop tried to find his groove after missing the first two weeks of spring training. Akil Baddoo said Tuesday he'd see Schoop "working four different drills and four different swings trying to figure out what works."
"And I'm just looking there like, OK, alright. And you see him now, one of the hottest hitters in the league."
Schoop won't sustain this pace for the rest of the season. No one would. But assuming he sustains his current numbers -- an average near .300, an OPS above .800 -- Al Avila will have a nice chip to deal at the July 30 trade deadline. Schoop's a rental with an affordable $4.5 million salary. And now he's versatile enough to play multiple positions in the infield. With the bat he's swung of late, he'll have plenty of suitors.
For now, Hinch is happy to keep writing Schoop's name in the lineup.
"Everybody loves Jonathan, and he put work in to get to this point," Hinch said. "It wasn't just rolling out of bed and seeing if it was better today. It was a lot of time in the cage, a lot of adjustments in his game-planning. The production on the field has been remarkable for the last month."
