The 2022 MLB regular season is le s than two weeks old and, to be completely honest with you, this is the worst time of year to analyze baseball. The sample sizes are so small and it is damn near impo sible to differentiate what's meaningful from what's nothing more than baseball being weird. But, we soldier on. With that in mind, our weekly series breaking down various trends acro s the league continues Wednesday with a look one rookie's tough luck strike zone, another's unique pitch, and the league-wide home run rate. . SEA CF #44 BA0.143R4HR0RBI1SB4 By all accounts outfielder is Aaron Ness Women Jersey one of the best prospects and most talented young players in baseball. , saying he has "well-above-average power and a better feel for contact than most with this profile." Nearly all other publications ranked Rodrguez as a top three prospect as well. That said, Rodrguez's introduction to the big leagues has been bumpy. He is 5 for 35 (.143) with 17 strikeouts through 10 games. That's OK. Countle s young players needed some time to find their footing at the level (when's the last time you looked at 's 2011 stats?), though that doesn't make it any more fun to sit through. Growing pains are a bummer. This is not to absolve the 21-year-old Rodrguez of blame for his poor start -- he's Madison Bowey Women Jersey been bad and it's OK to say it, and it doesn't mean he'll be bad forever -- but I do want to note he's dealt with a le s than perfect strike zone. Let's call it the rookie strike zone, the old-school idea that a young player won't get borderline calls in his favor until he proves himself in the show. Already six times this year Rodrguez has struck out looking on a pitch outside the strike zone. has done it five times, and and Jr. have done it three times. No other player has done it more than twice. Look at some of these called strike threes against Rodrguez. A few are egregious: Going into Tuesday's games, only five hitters had more called strikes on pitches outside the zone go against him than Rodrguez, regardle s of count. Hitting in the this league when you're le s than two weeks into your career is hard enough. Hitting when so many calls go against you is even tougher. These calls swing count leverage and generally make life hard on the hitter. As tempting as it may be, Rodrguez has not blown up at an umpire yet. He's done nothing more than have a few quick words for the ump after a called strike on a pitch out of the zone. There's a way to be respectful and tell the umpire you disagree with his call without making a scene or get ejected. Rodrguez has done well to walk that line thus far. I know "it'll even out over time" is not a satisfying answer, but that's really all Rodrguez can do at this point. Wait for the calls to even out. Expanding the zone and trying to hit those pitches will only lead to bigger problems. For a rookie, Rodrguez is doing a decent job of swinging at the right pitches (36.8 percent chase rate). It's just that a few scattered calls have gone against him. Rodrguez has been rung up on a few pitches outside the zone in the early going and who knows, maybe he would have eventually struck out in those at-bats anyway. The kid has been the victim of a pitcher-friendly strike zone thus far though. It's happened. Soon enough the tide will turn, and I suspect he'll get settled in and begin producing at a clip expected of a top prospect. MIN RP Nicklas Backstrom Men Jersey #59 ERA6.00WHIP1.33IP6BB2K11 The new pitching craze these days is the "sweeper," or a hard slider with a ton of horizontal movement. . The and are among the clubs teaching their pitchers sweepers as well. Thanks to advanced pitch data and high-speed cameras, pitches are literally designed in a lab and taught to the staff nowadays. Some pitches can not be taught, however. . rookie righty also appears to have a pitch that is unique to him. It's been dubbed the "splinker," and is e sentially a split-finger sinker. It is a vicious pitch that combines upper-90s velocity with a splitter's nosedive. Look at this: Check the grip, check the action, and it's 98mph Lucas (@DBITLefty) Duran has had the splinker for years. , when Duran was in High Cla s-A. It's just that Duran is now in the big leagues and we're seeing it in action. It's no longer hidden away in the minors. As you can see in the GIF, the splinker is nothing more than a traditional splitter grip, yet to moves like at velocity. Watch it at full speed. This is nuts: "It's not really a one-pitch-wonder kind of deal, but it's like, there are pitches that only one person has in the game," . "I think this pitch is a pretty unique pitch. I don't know how you prepare or game-plan or think about a pitch Ilya Samsonov Kids Jersey like that as a hitter. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I can honestly say that." Duran, 24, has allowed four runs in six big-league Jakub Vrana Men Jersey innings thus far, though he's struck out 11. He's thrown 31 splinkers, hitters have swung at 20, and they've mi sed 10 times. Duran did leave one splinker up enough for to hit a homer, but that 50 percent whiff rate is off the charts. The league average for splitters is 38 percent (the highest among all pitch types). The Twins are using Duran in relief now and that might be his long-term home. He has a bit of an injury history and his slider is not a reliable third pitch. It could be Duran is Minnesota's closer of the future as a guy with an upper-90s heater and the splinker, a pitch that is unique to him. In this era of pitch design, there is no replicating the splinker. It is Duran's and Duran's alone. "You get the, 'Holy ... how does he throw that?'" . "All sorts of reactions like that. You get a lot of hitters looking pretty silly." . It was higher than the 2019 regular season home run rate, . Generally speaking, the regular season home run rate tends to be higher than the spring training home run rate, so we were in for a ton of homers in April, right? Nope. Wrong. Thus far the regular season home run rate is the lowest it's been in years, and substantially lower than the spring training home run rate. Look at the home Dmitry Orlov Kids Jersey runs per balls in play rate the last few years (ignoring the unusual 2020 season): Spring training HR/BIPApril HR/BIPRegular season HR/BIP2017 4.0% 4.5% 4.8% 2018 4.5% 4.2% 4.4% 2019 4.7% 5.2% 5.4% 2021 5.0% 4.7% 4.9% 2022 5.5% 3.8%??? Your eyes did not deceive you. A lot -- A LOT -- of home runs were hit in spring training. And no, your eyes do not deceive you now. The home run rate is way down since Opening Day. Over the weekend only 15 homers were hit in the 14 games Sunday. It's the fewest homers in a day with at least 14 games since Sept. 2014, and the fewest in a day in April since 1993. There are three po sible explanations. One, it's just a small sample blip. That's po sible, though we're already over 8,000 balls in play f