PITTSBURGH \u2014 As Dansby Swanson tried to explain what he was working on, he understood it almost sounded ridiculous. After working to lean into his athleticism in the offseason and having a solid start to the season, the veteran shortstop has had a May to forget.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a way I get in the box and create a better way for me to actually see the ball,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cI know it sounds like, \u2018Duh.\u2019 But there\u2019s all kinds of ways to see. There\u2019s different ways to see better. So it was finding a different perspective to see a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swanson compared it to how sometimes people are taught to shoot a rifle with one eye open and other times with both. However it needs to be framed, it was as simple as Swanson has not been picking up pitches early enough. Especially breaking balls.<\/p>\n
Swanson had a 124 wRC+ with a 16.4 percent walk rate in March and April. In May (through Wednesday\u2019s game), he has put up a 30 wRC+ and 6.8 percent walk rate. Instead of laying off pitches outside the zone, his chase rate has gone from 21.5 percent to 32.1 percent as pitchers increased the breaking balls usage against him from 36.5 percent to 47.9 percent. And his hard-hit rate has plummeted.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t hard to figure out what Swanson was doing wrong. He and his hitting coaches knew the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand he\u2019s getting a ton of sliders down and away,\u201d hitting coach Dustin Kelly said. \u201cHe\u2019s chasing. Why is he chasing those? He\u2019s not looking down and away, but the body is not really allowing him to move and shut down on those pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obviously, seeing the ball matters. Swanson can see; his eyesight isn\u2019t an issue. But he just wasn\u2019t picking up the ball early enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m right-eye dominant,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cThat\u2019s my back eye. What can I do to get my right eye to always be on the ball?\u201d<\/p>\n
After Swanson spent much of the offseason not focusing on mechanics and just trying to feel how his body moves better, Kelly says they\u2019re now building upon that base. The struggles forced them to.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally focus on setup and what your position is,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cHow are you moving to pitches? Maybe changing some of the sights. When looking for a pitch in, what does that mean? It doesn\u2019t mean swinging at everything in, just starting on the inner line to stay on the plate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly said they\u2019ve been working on various things in the cage and batting practice and have started bringing them into the game. Swanson is a bit wider with his base, trying to stabilize his lower half and also slightly lowering his leg kick.<\/p>\n
If they can get Swanson to see the breaking balls away better, recognize them earlier, a lot should fall into place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re working away on him so much and trying to X the corner,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a slug out there; there\u2019s some chase and obviously some swing-and-miss. So, we\u2019re getting his body in a place where that pitch doesn\u2019t look as enticing.\u201d<\/p>\n
They both feel like it\u2019s starting to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWednesday night, felt much more like myself,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cMore along the lines of what I was doing earlier in the year when I was doing much better, just in terms of pitch selection, hitting balls to different parts of the field and taking my walks. It was a promising sign for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swanson had two hits Wednesday, including a double. In Thursday\u2019s 7-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, he laid off sliders away from Paul Skenes to draw an early walk (his strikeout against Skenes was on a changeup at the very bottom of the zone) and, in general, avoided chase. The results didn\u2019t come, but it\u2019s a step he needs to take to find a hot stretch.<\/p>\n
Swanson has always been a streaky player at the plate. He tried to eliminate the lulls with his work in the offseason, but it has yet to solve the problem. So, the work continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s not a question of whether I can hit spin,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cIt\u2019s more that I was swinging at all the bad ones and taking the good ones. The ones I was seeing were the bad ones. Maybe that\u2019s a product of not having my eyes fully on the lane of the pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 As Dansby Swanson tried to explain what he was working on, he understood it almost sounded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[479,363,99],"class_list":["post-671990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}