{"id":383193,"date":"2026-07-23T00:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383193\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:56:14","slug":"houston-astros-cam-smith-gets-a-break-to-work-on-his-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383193\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Astros: Cam Smith gets a break to work on his swing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cam Smith<\/a> was absent from the Houston Astros<\/a> lineup for its entire series against Miami this week, a hiatus manager Joe Espada said was to give the right fielder time to work on his swing with the team\u2019s hitting coaches.<\/p>\n

Smith started 91 of Houston\u2019s first 101 games in right field and before this series had not been held out of the lineup in back-to-back games. Going into Wednesday, Smith was hitting .130 in July and in a 1-for-28 stretch that had lowered his season slash line to .210\/.283\/.362.<\/p>\n

Before their series finale Wednesday against Miami, Smith was among a group of Astros taking early on-field batting practice at Daikin Park. Hitting coach Victor Rodriguez said the main objective with Smith is \u201ccreating some rhythm\u201d in his set-up before he begins his swing.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of staying still, create some kind of rhythm with the hands and with the body so he can get in a position to hit, instead of just sitting there and being stiff and going,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Lately, the Astros noted Smith collapsing on his back leg when he began his swing, creating a suboptimal path to the ball, said Rodriguez. He ascribed that to Smith being late on pitches and said they\u2019ve worked the last few days on Smith \u201cstaying over\u201d the ball against high velocity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he\u2019s on time and he has rhythm, then he gets into that position over the ball,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen him hit balls hard all over the place and that\u2019s what we want from him. We don\u2019t want him just to be a pull guy (but) able to drive the ball to all fields like he was doing early in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s pull rate has crept upward each month this season. The second-year right fielder had his best month in June, slashing .231\/.276\/.462 with 10 extra-base hits over 91 at-bats. His expected slugging percentage in July, based on contact quality, is his lowest in a month by over 100 points, per Statcast.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s average bat speed in July is his highest of any month this season, and his swing-and-miss rate is his lowest. Rodriguez said he believes Smith is \u201cmaking good swing decisions\u201d but is \u201cjust not in a good position to do anything\u201d with the pitches he attacks due to being late.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he continues to have good decisions but he has rhythm, he\u2019s on time, then we\u2019ll see him driving the ball all over the place,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

In the first two games against Miami, Smith entered as a late defensive replacement. He took one plate appearance in them and drew a walk. Espada indicated that Smith could return to the lineup when the Astros begin a series against the White Sox on Friday, after a team off-day.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been working on trying to hit the ball more in the air, trying to get his body in a better position to drive the ball,\u201d Espada said. \u201cHe\u2019s hitting the ball hard but on the ground. Trying to get more back-spin. Hopefully we can make some adjustments and we\u2019ll get him back in there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cam Smith was absent from the Houston Astros lineup for its entire series against Miami this week, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-383193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}