Dustin Ackley already has quite an eye for the strike zone

In case you haven’t noticed, Dustin Ackley has been on quite a tear of late.

The Seattle Mariners rookie, drafted No. 2 overall behind Stephen Strasburg in the 2009 draft, has a .315/.377/.559 line in 39 games since being called up from Class-AAA Tacoma. His OPS+ is 165, the fifth highest OPS+ ever for a rookie with at least 150 plate appearance.

He’s showing unexpected power as well, with five home runs and five triples. (Although to be fair, one of those triples was a line drive that Ryan Sweeney botched badly, and another was a bit fluky and involved an Ichiro impersonator. Ackley has wheels, but he’s not exactly Jose Reyes.)

Anyway, Jeff Sullivan at Lookout Landing has a nice breakdown of what Ackley has done so far, and ponders the possibility that it’s pointless to guess what Ackley will become, because Mariners fans might already be seeing his best, and that’s a good thing.

One thing’s for certain, the 23-year-old seems to know the strike zone. Below are two charts, courtesy of Texas Leaguers. The first shows pitches from lefties that Ackley has swung at, the second shows pitches he has taken. Impressive.

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