Ethan Mendoza had just clobbered his second home run in as many games, a statistical anomaly for a hitter who had hit just eight long-bombs across his previous 106 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just one thing had changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m just the same hitter I was last year,\u201d Mendoza said during a post-game media availability. \u201cJust added more strength, more weight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Longhorns\u2019 rising senior second baseman had undergone a transformation that offseason, entering a baseball chrysalis as a contact-oriented leadoff man and emerging, 15 pounds of muscle later, as a slugging cleanup-bat.<\/p>\n
The change was immediately noticeable. Mendoza more closely resembled hulking former Texas catcher Carson Tinney than Adrian Rodriguez, a spry rising junior and middle infield mate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a couple jokes because A-Rod (Adrian Rodriguez) got skinny and Doza (Mendoza) gained some weight,\u201d said Casey Borba, a rising senior corner infielder. \u201cI made a joke (to Mendoza) \u2018Oh, what are you taking dude?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
As visible as the change was, it was even more evident at the plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mendoza homered in each of the Longhorns\u2019 other two nonconference series before adding another six shots after the opening of Southeastern Conference play, doubling his home run count from 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His slugging percentage rose from .476 in 2025 to .478 in 2026, and his isolated power jumped from .143 to .200. He had seven more extra-base hits and his home run-to-fly ball percentage went from 9.3% to 12%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His stats would look even more impressive had his batting average on balls in play not dropped from an unsustainable .402 to a below-average .278. BABIP is a largely luck-driven stat, and while Mendoza\u2019s decreased sprint speed was detrimental to it, his slide in the metric is mostly due to misfortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, the results back up head coach Jim Schlossnagle\u2019s team-building philosophy, which places an emphasis on strength and athleticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the teams in the last several years in the College World Series, they\u2019re not little teams, they\u2019re big and strong and fast,\u201d Schlossnagle said back in April. \u201cYou can be tall, you can be short, but you can\u2019t be weak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlossnagle spent the offseason acquiring sizable position players like the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Tinney, Aiden Robbins, a 6-foot-2 and 205-pound former Texas outfielder, and a trio of freshman pitchers in Michael Winter, Brett Crossland and Sam Cozart, all of whom are an average height of over 6\u20195 and weigh an average of 252 pounds. His efforts were rewarded with Texas\u2019 first trip to the College Baseball World Series since 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is science behind what Schlossnagle believes.<\/p>\n
While being heavier does not necessarily make a player a better hitter, adding muscle allows one to swing their bat faster, which then drives the ball farther, according to Steven Finkelstein, a professor in the University of Texas\u2019 Department of Astronomy.<\/p>\n
\u201cPower is really speed, and so the faster you swing the bat, the harder you will hit the ball,\u201d\u00a0 Finkelstein said. \u201cYou\u2019re transferring momentum from the bat to the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
While there are many other factors at play, being able to get the bat around faster is a very reliable way to increase a hitter\u2019s power, according to Finkelstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mendoza\u2019s Schlossnagle-style evolution has added another tool to a well-rounded ball-player. More impressively, he did most of the transforming on his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was mostly just diet,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cI looked up some meals on TikTok, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever he was cooking, it clearly worked.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ethan Mendoza had just clobbered his second home run in as many games, a statistical anomaly for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-396143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396143","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=396143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}