This year, until recently, Red Sox fans have been a bit let down by the performance of Jacoby Ellsbury, who gave the Red Sox such a huge boost in September and October of last year.  He started the year pretty well, but didn’t produce offensively through the middle of the season with anywhere near what we knew to be his potential.

September has been a different story this year.  He finished out the month of September with an 18-game hitting streak.  It was his best month overall of the year.  He hit .340 in September – and that’s his only month hitting above .300 this year.  His 20 runs are about equal to his totals in each of the first two months of this year.

And all of this sounds strangely familar.

Why?  Last year, as a late-season callup, Jacoby had an outstanding September as well, actually performing better at the major league level than he had been to that point in the year in the minors.  He carried that consistently high level of performance through October, and the World Series, right up to the final victorious game.  It seemed that in every game, he did something to help the team win.

So we seem to have a pattern emerging here.  It’s quite a common thing for players to have their “time of year”.  Johan Santana, for example, though good before the All-Star break, each year is close to unbeatable in the second half of the season.  So I don’t think it’s a stretch, based on just the last two seasons of performance, to give Jacoby Ellsbury the moniker “Mr. September”.

Though, as a Red Sox fan, I can hope that he can start to find that hot streak a little earlier in the season, and still keep it through October.  🙂