The 2022 MLB regular season is nearly two months old and we are beginning to see the contenders separate themselves from the pretenders. Several clubs that started out hot have come back to Earth and others that started slowly are beginning to climb up the standings. That said, there's still a lot of season to be played and a lot of time to decide postseason races. With that in mind, our weekly series breaking down various trends acro s the league continues Wednesday with a look at one big-name player's power outage, and league-wide trends with position players pitching and four-man outfields. . TEX 2B #2 There is no sugarcoating it: first season with the has been a disaster. That doesn't mean he won't turn it around at some point, but after going 1 for 3 with a walk Tuesday night, Semien is hitting .199/.266/.274 in Year 1 of his seven-year, $175 million contract. He's hit one home run in 47 games after hitting 45 homers a year ago. Semien Vadim Shipachyov Kids Jersey 's lone home run came this past weekend against the , his former team. It was a grand slam and it is most notable because he hit it out to right-center field. Semien has 161 career home runs and only 27 have been hit to center or right field. "When I hit it, I thought, 'Oh, that's probably gonna get caught,'" . "But it carried out. Sometimes with day games here, when you hit it right, it carries. Of course, a grand slam is great. The first with a new team, a good swing to help us win, I'll take it." Semien's 45-homer season a year ago was made po sible by incredible results when he pulled the ball. Thirty-nine of his 45 homers were pulled, and he posted the lowest ground ball rate of his career on pulled balls. Semien didn't just pullthe ball a lot in 2021. He pulled the ball a lot in the air, which equaled home runs. Here are his rates when pulling the ball the last few years: Ground ball rateHR/FB rateAverage exit velocity2018 57.4% 22.0% 90.3 mph T.J. Tynan Jersey 2019 58.4% 39.3% 90.5 mph 2020 (60-game season) 51.4% 23.8% 87.6 mph 2021 44.1% 45.9% 93.3 mph 2022 60.3% 0.0% 87.9 mph average for RHB 58.7% 29.6% 90.6 mph Semien is still pulling the ball as much as usual (47.7 percent compared to his 45.3 percent career average), but he's hitting it on the ground more often when he does pull it, and he's not hitting it as hard as last season. That low ground ball Jaycob Megna Kids Jersey rate and high exit velocity last year was very conducive to home runs. This year it's the opposite. He's pulling the ball in ways that don't lead to power. We know Semien isn't hitting home runs because he's not pulling the ball in the air with authority. The question now is why is he not pulling the ball in the air with authority? There could be an underlying injury we don't know about. That's always po sible. Rangers manager Chris Woodward seemed to chalk it up to a mechanical i sue. : "There's been some inconsistency there from this year to last year and how his body is moving," manager Chris Woodward explained. "But he's been open to that. And he's like: 'I want to figure this out.' I hope he doesn't overwhelm himself. I don't think it's a huge fix. I think it's pretty simple. But by simple, it may take a little time to get it perfectly right. I think he will be fine. He's on the right trail to get solutions. That's encouraging." That was just about a month ago and Semien still hasn't rediscovered his power stroke, which isn't a good sign for Garret Sparks Men Jersey the whole "he's on the right trail to get solutions" thing. Semien's batted ball data has pretty much leveled out. He's not pulling the ball any more or any le s now than he was in April, nor is he hitting it on ground any more or any le s. He's e sentially spinning his wheels. I don't think anyone realistically expected Semien to hit 45 home runs again this season, but he's on pace to hit if we round up. That's a problem. It's June. Hot and slow starts and now officially trends, and with Semien being so early in a long-term contract, you can be sure the Rangers want to see some progre s soon. We're beyond the point of saying it's still early. "It's human nature to pre s sometimes with a new team. I went through it last year too, just not this long of a slump or whatever you want to call it," . "Of course, when I'm not getting hits and we're not winning, I get frustrated, but I understand that this is a long season. You (go) through the ups and downs. Sometimes you start with slumps, but I am going to work as hard as I can to get out of it." , position player pitching did not peak in 2019. I'm not even sure it's peaking in 2022, but what we used to see maybe once or twice a month is now almost a nightly occurrence acro s baseball. In an effort to preserve arms -- actual pitcher arms -- David Clarkson Jersey teams routinely turn to position players to eat up an inning or two in a blowout. Here are the number of position player pitching appearances by year (ignoring the 2020 pandemic season and not counting ): 2022: 23 and counting (on pace for 79)2021: 952019: 902018: 652017: 36As recently as 2011, only eight -- eight! -- position players took the mound all season. Eight different position players pitched just last week ( outfielder pitched last week and three times already this season). We're on pace for only 79 position player pitching appearances this year, though that rate will climb as the season progre ses. It always does. Beyond the sheer number of position players making pitching appearances, there's a new trend emerging in the world of position player pitchers: they're pitching in . Historically, position players were sent to the mound in blowout lo ses. It used to be an act of desperation, an acknowledgement you've been beaten so badly that it risks ruining your next game or two. Now teams are getting a little cheeky and using position players to close out blowout wins. It happened four times last month: (), ( ), (), and Alberto again ( ). They combined to allow nine runs in four innings in those appearances. "They made me pay like I've been making pitchers pay for 22 years," . Four position players pitched in a win in May and the and did it twice each, so this wasn't a one-off with four different teams. Two teams did it multiple times. Prior Ryan Reaves Jersey to this season, the last position player to pitch in a win was with (who else?) the Dodgers. He did it twice in two-week span in Aug. 2019. Martin also did it that March. As you might suspect, most recent position player pitching appearances in a win came under extreme or unusual circumstances. . catcher John Baker and Orioles slugger picked up wins in 16-inning games. utility man pitched in a win when . Four position players pitched in wins in May. Nine did it from 2011-21, and two did it from 196