Dan Uggla's defense improving

Dan Uggla is doing a better job of flashing the leather .

Uggla's defense hasn't gone unnoticed. He entered Tuesday's game with an errorless streak of 41 games, handling 194 chances successfully, but had an error in the sixth inning. Uggla ranked fifth among NL second basemen with a .985 fielding percentage.

''There are some things that I still have to work on and get better at because I'm not happy with the errors I made early in the season,'' Uggla said. Uggla, who has five errors, has improved defensively a little each season.

''I feel like I've gotten to a lot more balls this year than I did last year,'' he said. ``Part of that is with the help of [infield coach Andy Fox], who has helped with placement on different batters.''

If you go just by fielding percentage it is about equal to last year's numbers.  However if one were to get all fancy and use the Revised Zone Rating, it has indeed improved from .776 in 2007 to .806 so far this season.

I haven't been tracking the RZR for Danny this season (or anyone else for that matter) but observationally (yeah, I know that sucks) I would guess it has been steadily climbing.

In other words, Danny's impressions are correct, he is getting better.  Is he among the elite?  Well, no.  But he is improving over last season.