Dillon Atkinson: Machado's return to form shouldn't be a surprise

Through the first half of the 2017 campaign, to say Orioles third baseman Manny Machado was underperforming at the plate would be an understatement. Machado slashed a combined .290/.351/.518 with 72 long balls and a 132 wRC+ from 2015 through 2016. Being just 24 heading into this season, many expected him to stay on the same track, if not get even better.

However, this hasn't been the case. From the start of this season to the All-Star break, Machado posted just a .230/.296/.445 with a 91 wRC+. After being labeled one of the top third basemen in the game, if not the best, this isn't the showing he, the Orioles or the fan base were hoping for. In fact, it's such an underperformance that I didn't even think it would be possible for Machado to post this batting line through a whole half of a season.

Fortunately, though, it looks like the young third baseman is turning a corner. In his last eight games, Machado is batting .469/.541/.719 with a 239 wRC+, and it all started with his two-homer game in Minnesota shortly before the break. He went hitless in just one of the eight contests, and has multi-hit games in five. It's amazing to see him turn the corner like this out of nowhere. Did it actually come out of nowhere, though? I think not.

My argument is that the majority of his struggles of been due to bad luck. Sure, he's had some issues that haven't been luck-based. For example, this season he has a 14.7-line drive percentage and a 43.2-percent groundball rate. A season ago, he was hitting 20 percent line drives and 37.3 percent ground balls. He also possibly hasn't been recognizing strikes as often as last year, swinging at 67.9 percent of pitches thrown inside the strike zone, a drop from 72.3 percent in 2016. Also, his average on the outer third of the plate has dropped significantly since 2016. Last year, his averages per pitch on the outer third of the zone were .143 on up and away, .161 on middle and away, and .071 on low and away. This year, on those three zones, he is .040, .100, and .033, respectively. However, it's not like all of his struggles are in his control.

Heading into the All-Star break, Machado had a .239 batting average on balls in play, which is the first indicator of bad luck and future success. But there's more than just that. With the technology and stats provided to us nowadays, we've been able to see that despite Machado's poor numbers, he has led all of baseball in balls hit with an exit velocity of 100 mph or higher. Yes, his total of 99 is higher than Marcell Ozuna (97) and Aaron Judge (96). In fact, Machado has defeated his own hard-hit percentage every year since 2013, going from 29 to 29.3 to 33.1 to 35.4 to 40.4 percent this season. Luck aside, he's even been performing in the clutch. In high-leverage situations this season, Machado is batting .308/.367/.577 with a 137 wRC+.

We can point fingers at Machado's struggles this season and say he hasn't performed well. Sure, he's hitting the ball on the ground more and he's not doing as well as he was on outside pitches, but the biggest reason for his unappealing numbers this year has been luck. He's been hitting the ball hard all year, he's been taking his walks and hitting for power. Over his last eight games, he has continued to scorch the baseball, but now they're falling in for hits. It's probably too late to have him in any 2017 Most Valuable Player discussions at the end of the year, but it's not farfetched for me to predict that Machado will be the American League's second-half MVP. There's plenty reason to believe that Manny's back to being Manny and he's here to stay.

Dillon Atkinson blogs about the Orioles for Orioles Uncensored. Follow him on Twitter: @DAtkinsonOU. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.