I think people try to sell his struggles as just a slow start, but you can see these problems last year. His strike out increased and he could hit with RISP. His average began to drop fast last year: RISP 2012 .372 2013 .239 2014 .189 As the lineup expectation of Mauer has increased, his production has decreased. Like most hitters, he may only see 1 good pitch an ABnd if it's early in the count, he's likely to take it. Scott Baker threw him a pitch right down the middle his first AB and he just took it. He did it again the second AB, and he drilled a double to right. I do wish we would get over Mauer hitting .400 in Boston. Just for the record, in 182 AB's, he hitting below his career average in Boston.