"On May 25, 2004, Derek Jeter was hitting .189. He would finish the season at .292. He would hit .300 or better in each of the next five seasons. Today he's 25 hits from No. 3,000.

On May 23, 2011, Dan Uggla is hitting .185. Braves fans have been in a dither over Uggla, who was imported from Florida and then re-upped for $62 million over five years, since April, but Aprils can deceive. Besides, Uggla never hits in April.

Now, however, we're a week from Memorial Day, the first checkpoint of the baseball season, and Uggla was actually better in April, when he hit .194, than he has been in May. On Friday, Uggla was bumped up to second in the Braves' batting order for the first time this season. (Manager Fredi Gonzalez justified by the change by quoting the loose definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.")

Uggla went 0-for-3 that night. On Saturday he batted sixth, also for the first time this season, and went 1-for-6. On Sunday he batted fifth and went 0-for-4.

He's 2-for-28 since his game-winning home run off Roy Halladay on May 15. Esteemed colleague Dave O'Brien reported from Anaheim that Uggla "toss[ed] equipment after a couple of at-bats" Sunday and afterward sat alone at his locker for a half-hour.

A month ago, Uggla was a man off to a slow start. Today he's 30 percent of his way into a season, and he has 15 RBIs, 11 of which have come from home runs. Of his seven homers, five have come with the bases empty. He's 6-for-47 (.128) with runners in scoring position.

The Braves, or at least thought they knew, what they were getting in Uggla: A second baseman of uncertain glove but consistent power. He'd averaged 30 homers and 93 RBIs over the previous five seasons, and a man who hits that well for that long doesn't just forget how to hit. (Does he?)

But now a man expected to do much is doing little, and the cruel truth is that there's little the Braves can do. They could bench Uggla for two or three games, but with Jason Heyward on the disabled list and Nate McLouth hurting this team is running short on bodies. And it's not clear that benching an established hitter, or even moving him in the batting order, does much good: Phillies manager Charlie Manuel tried both tacks with Jimmy Rollins in 2009, and the former MVP still wound up hitting .250."