Atlanta Braves designated hitter Marcell Ozuna has been a big part of the lineup for years now. Fans had gotten used to him coming through in clutch situations. However, he's not been as reliable this season.
Fans found out that Ozuna has been dealing with a hip injury that he's been playing through. That explained the change in approach and why he has the fourth-most walks in baseball. He had been one of the bright spots early in the season, however.
Unfortunately, he has cooled off in June and has not been very good. The drop-off has been extreme as he batted .283 and .277 in the first two months respectively. In June, he's slashing .196/.273/.299 with a .572 OPS.
Marcell Ozuna's rough June for the Braves may be due to a bit of bad luck
Ozuna isn't walking as often and hasn't been driving the ball as well as he normally does. That could be from injury but it could also just be underperformance. However, his BABIP for June sits at .239 which could point to a fair bit of bad luck adding to his struggles.
Ozuna is hitting the ball hard with a 49.3% hard-hit rate this season and he's not been susceptible to chasing pitches out of the zone with an above-average 21.9% chase rate.
A BABIP that low typically means a player is being affected by facing good defenses and not having a lot of luck. So, he's putting the ball in play but isn't being rewarded for it. The biggest tell here is that his strikeout rate is still the same as it was in May.
The biggest differences are that he isn't walking as much with just a 9% walk rate in June versus 18% in May. He is also hitting the ball in the air more often with an increase from 31% to 42%. Another interesting change is that he isn't pulling the ball as much. That percentage decreased from 42% in May to 37% in June.
So it seems a change in approach should help get Ozuna back on track. He needs to get back to walking more often and pulling the ball again. It seems that's when he saw the most success. I know there's been a lot of controversy around hitting the ball hard this year, but Ozuna is still doing that so hopefully, he can get out of this funk soon.