I Drift Off to Sleep Each Night Praying that Laynce Nix Will Retire

Laynce Nix, after a three year run of occasional playing time with the Rangers in the early years of this decade, has been mostly a Milwaukee Brewer farmhand since 2006. In December of 2008, Nix signed a minor league contract with the Reds. Since leaving Texas, Nix has only appeared in thirty Major League games. Your classic tweener/fourth-OF type, he's a career .235/.272/.401 hitter at the big league level.

Should this man become a Twin, stop following the Royals...

Yet for whatever reason, he completely owns Gil Meche. Or did. Although he hasn't faced Meche since 2005, the aforementioned Laynce is a .417/.462/1.500 hitter against Meche. Here's his complete history against our beloved #1/#2 starter:

• 9/11/03: Nix goes strikeout, flyball, groundout against Meche. The wily Cajun convinces himself he owns Laynce. He will be proven dead-wrong.
• 9/16/03: Nix, having diligently studied Meche for hours the week before, goes home run, home run against Meche.
• 4/16/04: Fall had turned to winter, and back to spring again, but Laynce stayed locked in. In his first at bat, Laynce homers off Meche again, his third straight bomb off of #55. In the fourth, Meche walks Laynce on four pitches, during a Baseball Tonight Live Look-In. (Ok, I made that up.)
• 10/03/04: Buck Showalter slots Nix in the leadoff spot against Meche. In an epic, game-beginning confrontation, Meche strikes out Laynce swinging. In the third inning, Nix returns the favor (cliche alert!) by homering again. In the fifth inning, a seething Meche strikes out Nix looking.
• 4/28/05: Meyche-Nix enters its third season. In the bottom of the third, Nix doubles off of Meche, his first non-three-true-outcomes result against Meyche since their first showdown. In the fifth, Nix blasts a Meche offering deep to center... but it stays in the ballpark. Perhaps dejected, Nix strikes out against Meche in the 8th.

In sum: 13 PAs, 4 Ks, 1 BB, 1 2B and 4 HRs.

Only Alex Rodriguez (5) has more homers off of Meche lifetime, and he needed 38 PAs to do so. Among players Meche has faced at least ten times, only Carlos Delgado (1.500) has matched Nix's slugging percentage. Not only is Nix arguably Meche's greatest nemesis, the converse is true: Nix's weird dominance of Meche is un-parralled in his career. The man only has 29 career homers, and 14% of them have come off of Gil. The number of pitchers Nix has homered off of three times? Zero. The number of pitchers Nix has homered off of twice? Zero. It's four off of Meche and 25 one-homer-stands. The only really comparable matchup for Nix is his entirely different brand of success against Tim Hudson, a singles-based .429/.429/.500 line in 14 PAs.

Laynce Nix, I don't have to understand you to fear you. I know what you can do and I only feel partially secure knowing that you are minor league filler for a National League team the Royals rarely play. Only when you retire, perhaps to start a spelling program for youngsters with your brother Jayson, will I be able to sleep easily at night.