Juan

Pierre

Pierre has broken his own Marlins’ hit record, leads the NL with 213 hits, and is the only major leaguer not to miss an inning this season. His 44 stolen bases are down from the 65 he swiped last season, but still excellent for fantasy purposes. With four more runs, he’ll reach 100 for the second straight season.

Pierre’s value hasn’t suffered in Florida, but he’s still not someone you want to get too excited about in 4x4 leagues.

Pierre discovered he had been wasting some of his speed by not running in a straight line. He also received instruction on how better to pump his arms while running. Pierre was caught 20 times last year for a 76 percent success rate. If he can bump that up to 80 percent he stands a chance at reaching 70 steals.

Pierre has been out since Sunday with a dislocated pinkie.

Pierre believes that pitchers are paying closer attention to him and using the slide step effectively to stop him from moving up a base. The Marlins will continue to give Pierre the green light to run, but don’t expect Pierre to top the 50-stolen base mark this year.

Pierre has only been successful on 62 percent of his attempts, after succeeding 77 percent of the time last year. This qualifies as disappointing, but he is still tied for sixth in all of baseball with 18 steals.

''I’m just trying to get them going,’' manager Jack McKeon said. ''Luis is doing great lately, and [Pierre] hasn’t been hitting, so we just changed them again.’' Pierre was hitting just .212 over his last 37 at-bats. The top spot should help him improve on his speed game as well, where he’s just 15-for-23 in stolen base attempts this season.

Manager Jack McKeon said, there was no rational reason why the switch was made, or has worked out so well, but that he will stay the course while his top two hitters in the order were doing so well.

Pierre is hitting .380 in his past 18 games, raising his average to .312 for the season. He’s also getting thrown out less trying to steal. He was successful just 59 percent of the time on his first 34 attempts, but has seven steals in his last nine tries. If he continues to improve, 100 runs and 40 stolen bases are within reach.

He stole second and then third off Luke Hudson and Javier Valentin, giving him 38 swipes on the season. Despite his .262 batting average, Pierre is right on pace to match all of his other expected totals.