I just checked out the P-G's article on Brandon Moss. I don't know why I'm as amused by stuff like this as I am, but let's take this apart:
One month ago, he added... an open stance.
The latter has restored his confidence -- after a 2009 of "negativity," to use his word -- and his ability to drive a baseball deep.
"I have been doing pretty well the past month or so," said Moss, batting .236 until a midweek 0-for-10 stretch amid the attention on a third Class AAA Indianapolis teammate to get promoted within one week --none of them named Brandon Douglas Moss.
Uh, why doesn't that 0-for-10 count? If the implication is that Moss was distracted by three of his teammates getting called up, would that really be a point in his favor? Or are we just throwing endpoints around arbitrarily in order to have a story?
Also, go look at Moss' monthly splits. I dare you to find the trends that are described here. What I see is a really bad April followed by a mediocre May followed by a June that is nearly as bad as April was (and that would look even worse were it not for a 3-for-6 game yesterday, after this article was published). Moss has been bad pretty much continuously since the Pirates acquired him, and so far that hasn't changed. There's nothing in his stats this year that looks like anything more than random variance, and not-very-interesting random variance at that.
There's no story here ("Bad outfielder remains bad, news at 11"?), or at least the story isn't what the Post-Gazette thinks it is. The headline is "Moss Spinning Positive Vibes," which was an unintentionally apt choice of words. Moss isn't as good as he once was, and it's sad to hear him try to explain that to himself.
Ok, ok. One more thing:
Moss remains subject to polar-opposite spells, cold and hot, but look at the change in production: From two homers, seven RBIs and two doubles in early May to six homers, 26 RBIs and 15 doubles by mid-June. He then endured an 0-for-10 skid in four games against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, dropping his average by week's end to .225 in 59 games.
This is so incredibly frivolous and confusing. What the P-G is referring to is that in April, Moss had two homers, seven RBIs and two doubles. At the time this article was published, he'd had four homers, 19 RBIs and 13 doubles in May and June. Which I guess sounds like a serious improvement - except the latter time period is about 250% larger than the former one, because the minor league season didn't start until April was already a week old.
Again, in reality: awful April, marginal May, junk June. There's nothing to see here, folks.