A player’s statistics can bounce around a whole bunch early in a baseball season. It doesn’t take much for someone to go from one of the worst hitters in the league to a slugging behemoth in the span of just a few games. That is why the refrain “small sample size” is uttered just about anytime a player performs to an extreme in a short period of time.
Freddy Galvis signed with the Orioles in late January to be the team’s starting shortstop. It was a logical match for both sides. After all, Galvis had a decade-long track record of being a competent major leaguer at a position of need for the Birds, and there were few exciting internal options to fill the glaring José Iglesias-sized hole in the lineup.