He has a fantastic beard, a voluptuous bald head and a funky batting stance.
He is Kevin Youkilis (duh).
But even better than the beard, the baldness and the stance, is the fact that he is consistent. Actually, very consistent. A consistent that you might even want to say is a little freaky. But thankfully, it's all consistently good.
Kevin Youkilis' line right now is pretty solid. Take a look:For a lot of players, there are ups and downs over the course of a season. Someone might have a 2.90 ERA one month, but the next just blow up and have a 5.00 ERA. In the end, it tends to even out.
Not for Kevin Youkilis, though.
Youkilis has been doing virtually the same thing ... every ... single ... month:
| Split | AB | HR | RBI | OPS |
| April/March | 76 | 5 | 15 | 1.203 |
| May | 55 | 4 | 16 | 1.078 |
| June | 90 | 4 | 14 | .860 |
| July | 95 | 5 | 16 | .822 |
| August | 83 | 4 | 16 | .982 |
| Sept./Oct. | 83 | 5 | 15 | .908 |
Even in May, where Youk missed quite a bit of time due to an oblique injury, he put up solid numbers. Had he not been hurt, he may have broken that 5 home run plateau, or the 16 RBI plateau.
But looking at these numbers, could you ask for better consistency?
While his OPS did fluctuate (a .381 differential between his best and worst months), his low -- .822 -- isn't too far off his career average of .878. Youk has a .962 OPS on the season, better than his .958 of last season.
His consistency is obviously a good thing, but isn't every player supposed to hit a real big slump at some point in the season? Is that a myth, or is it fact? If it's a fact, should we be expecting the slump now? I hope not, because we really can't afford it with a plane ride to Anahiem all booked for Monday.
It sure is nice to know what we have in the No. 4 spot day in and day out, though. There's no doubt it's better than having this there on a daily basis (although No. 6 or so isn't too bad).