As Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News pointed out, Ian Kinsler has been one of the most efficient base-stealers in the history of Major League Baseball — a pretty insane thing to think about, actually.
Over the course of his career, Kinsler was 157-for-188 on stolen base attempts entering this season — good for an 84 percent success rate with five seasons of more than 20 steals and two of 30-plus.
This year, things aren't going so well on that front as Kinsler has just four stolen bases and has been thrown out six times, a number that leads the league — not something you want to lead the league in.
The other night it was because of a busted hit-and-run when Elvis Andrus failed to get bat to ball, but that's chalked up as a caught stealing. On Tuesday, it was bad timing on Kinsler's part. Whatever the case, the number is sure to get better given his past, but so far this season, Kinsler has been a pretty lousy base-stealer.
“I’ve got to keep running,” Kinsler told Grant. “My timing is a little off, and I really haven’t had many chances to go on a straight steal. Mostly they’ve been busted hit-and-runs or running with two strikes. My mentality isn’t quite there yet.”
Kinsler has long had the potential to be a 30-30 guy, so yeah, you just have to trust him here. It's not like he's lost a step, he's just got to get his timing right.
