I'm sure Derek Jeter has had stretches in his long career in which he's gone 123 plate appearances and drawn only five walks. But these are his first 123 plate appearances of the season, so it's interesting.

And there are signs it might not be a total fluke that his 2010 walk rate (4.1%)  is currently less than half his career rate (9.0%). Through Tuesday, he was swinging at 32.5% of pitches outside of the zone, way above his norms (19.7% career, 22-24% from 2007-09). He's been swinging at more pitches overall -- 53.7%, five percent over his average and the highest of his career.

Oddly, though, while swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone (and about the same percentage inside it), he's making contact at a better rate. Much better. While he's swinging at all of those bad pitches, he's hitting 72.1% of them, compared to a career average of 58.9% and well above league norms, and has struck out only nine times, less than half his career rate.

It's just a weird year all around so far for Jeter. Lots of ground balls, no walks or strikeouts. Four home runs (and all long ones), which is a lot for him, even though he's hitting fewer fly balls than ever before. A BABIP that would be the worst of his career -- which is weird given all the grounders, which are more likely to turn into hits -- but a .310 batting average nonetheless (because of the contact and the homers). A would-be career-low .341 OBP.

What does that mean? I have no idea. It's still very possible that it means nothing at all. But he's kind of quietly been an entirely different hitter through this first month than he's ever been before, and it seems to me that it's worth keeping an eye on.