Cincinnati Reds
Little change, big results
By C. Trent Rosecrans, CNATI.com Posted September 29, 2009 9:08 PM ET
During the two months he spent on the disabled list with a broken wrist, Jay Bruce watched a lot of baseball.
Bruce watched Reds games in addition to games from all across the majors and even game film of himself and his at-bats. With a broken wrist, he couldn't swing, but he could think. He thought about baseball, he thought about his approach at the plate and he thought about everything he'd done in the first half of the season. And there was a lot to think about, and not much of it positive, hitting .204 with an on-base percentage of .291 before breaking his wrist. He had 19 home runs before he went on the DL in early July, but that didn't overshadow the other stuff.
"What I've done this year is not the type of player I think I am at all," Bruce said. "I've told plenty of people, I don't care about the home runs - I want to be a hitter, I don't want to be a slugger."
So Bruce studied other hitters and noticed something he did that not too many other players did. He was "double tapping" - moving his front foot back at the beginning of his swing, right before he moved forward. Instead, he changed his swing to just picking his front foot up and back down again.
"Not many people did what I had going on in my swing. I started thinking about it a little bit," Bruce said. "I saw Adrian Gonzalez took out his double tap. I thought maybe there's something to it. Then I forgot about it and my timing was so off, I was like, 'you know what, the best time is to start is right now.' I'm glad I was committed to it and changed."
What the change has done has simplified his swing and allowed him more time to see pitches.
"There had been some talk about it in spring training, because there was so much going on in my swing," Bruce said. "But I think it's all about simplifying it for me. I was a little reluctant to change because I'd been so successful. I think changing and learning and not being afraid to change is something that helps you as a player."
It's not an overnight change, Bruce is still struggling with the change and being consistent with it, but the results have been impressive so far. Since coming off the disabled list, he's hitting .375, including a 2-for-4 night in Tuesday's 7-2 victory over the Cardinals, hitting two home runs and collecting a career-high five RBIs.
More impressive to Reds manager Dusty Baker than Bruce's home-run stroke was some of the pitches he let go.
"He's more calm, he's not chasing bad pitches," Baker said. "Before he left, he was chasing them all over the strike zone."
With two men on in the second inning, Cardinals starter Joel Pineiro tried to get Bruce to swing at two fastballs off the plate. Bruce didn't chase. He then fouled off a fastball over the corner of the plate and then took a fastball just below his knees to make it a 3-1 count. He pounded on a fastball over the heart of the plate and drove it 392 feet into the Cardinals' bullpen in right.
With a man on in the sixth, Pineiro tried to get Bruce to chase a curveball of the plate, before Bruce watched two strikes. With a 1-2 count, Bruce watched another pitch, this one a curveball just low before pouncing on a slider he crushed 419 feet to center.
"He's taking pitches now that he swung at. Him and Brook Jacoby made some adjustments in his approach," Baker said. "You see him staying off bad pitches. The key to hitting is - other than a couple of guys in this league - if you can hit quality, high-percentage pitches, you can hit. Like tonight, that 3-1 pitch, he stayed off a couple of tough pitches before he got to that point. He's not out of the woods yet, but he's come a long way."
Categories: Cincinnati Reds, Featured Stories, News
Tags: Brook Jacoby, Dusty Baker, Jay Bruce, Joe Pineiro
Comments (6)
Interesting that Jay's comments are all "I" "I" "I" and Dusty is the one that mentions/credits Brook Jacoby. Somehow I doubt CTR got those Jay quotes wrong.
Reading between the lines here, Jay struggled when he was healthy, perhaps because he was double tapping, and the problem went unnoticed by the person/people who get paid to notice it, besides Jay. I wonder how many other franchises, especially those with middling payrolls, expect their 22 year old players to correct their own mistakes?
Seriously hard for me to read this and not yearn for the Reds to fire at least one of the coaches, if not most of them.
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I hate to double comment here, but I just read Hal's DDN note that covered this same topic.
It's crystal clear that the sports journalism on CNATI is tops. Much respect given and due to Mr. McCoy and his HOF chops, but Hal summarizes Jay's discussion of his swing as "a detailed explanation". It's CNATI that gives us those details.
And, as I said in my previous comment, I believe the devil in this case is in the details, namely Jay taking credit for making the adjustments, and Dusty giving the credit to his coach and the player both.
The article was on Hal's DDN blog, so I don't know "a detailed explanation" was the result of an editor's pen or not, but I think the detailed explanation provided here on CNATI says a lot more than that three word summary. And therein could lie a story bigger than just the fact that Jay Bruce might have it figured out. The how and the why here are important. Thanks for providing them.
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Great article! But unlike Antonio, am not so sure its this is as much an indictment on Brooks as it is a sign of pride/stubborness in Bruce. The article mentions discussions in Spring Training about his "busy" swing - I assume Bruce wasn't speaking to the water cooler. As we've seen with Mr Bailey, coaches can only help if the player listens. Perhaps this injury may have lead him to be more receptive....
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i'm with chris. first, i believe there's a 'we' implied in the spring training quote. also, it's part of the parlance of the athlete -- your hitting/pitching coach can work, suggest a lot. but in the end, it's up to you to implement it. no matter how much you're coached to do something like that, it's ultimately up to you to do it and you'r ethe one who pays the price if it doesn't work.
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I also kind of think along the lines as Chris. At first I noticed him using the word "I" a lot and thought hmm, but the spring training quote leads me to believe that he had a whole lot to work on.
I think when a guy is playing all the time and struggling, he has so much going on in his head that it hinders them more. The injury, in my mind, was a the most positive thing that could have happened to Jay. Sounds weird I know, but he didn't have to take the hit to his ego of being sent to the minors, and he got a chance to have time to sit back and focus on his swing with a clear mind, and not press while he was struggling every night. I know it's a small sample size to this point, but he looks a lot better.
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