HOUSTON – Colby Rasmus started the season holding his hands way out from his body at the plate, made an adjustment a few weeks in to bring his bat closer to his left shoulder, and now is back to where he started.
It’s all about finding comfort in the batter’s box for the Toronto Blue Jays centre-fielder, who tried the different trigger mechanism after a suggestion from hitting coach Kevin Seitzer.
The reversion to his previous hand positioning has led to hits in 10 of Rasmus’ 14 starts since the all-star break, including a broken-bat base hit in four trips to the plate in Sunday’s 6-1 loss to the Houston Astros.
Still, the consistency of results he’s seeking isn’t there quite yet, as he’s a collective 16-for-89 over his last 27 games. The thing about Rasmus is when he connects, he tends to damage as 28 of his 56 hits have gone for extra bases (13 doubles, a triple, 14 homers).
Here’s a discussion with Rasmus over the weekend about the adjustments.
How do you feel at the plate right now and how close are you to locking in on your approach?
“Since I’ve been here, had some tough ABs, they’ve pitched me pretty well. Coming off the bench ain’t obviously the easiest thing, I feel like I was in a pretty good groove coming out of the break and in New York and in Boston I was hitting some balls hard and I hadn’t had much love. I feel fine with what I’m trying to do, I feel good with my approach. (On Friday, Collin McHugh) had a pretty good little slider and he made some good pitches on me, maybe got a couple of calls here and there, and a tough call there on (Chad) Qualls there to start the at-bat, those things are part of it, but it don’t make it easy as far as trying to get your timing and staying right in on what you feel is a good pitch to hit, trying to keep your zone locked in. It’s all part of it but I feel pretty good with what I’m trying to do, my body feels pretty good.”
You worked a tough pinch-hit walk against Astros flamethrower Mike Foltenywicz during the eighth inning Saturday. Was that an example of what you want to be doing?
“Well, I usually have success against guys who throw hard like that, I like guys who challenge you and throw more fastballs, for whatever reason I see the ball better against guys like that. That’s kind of weird because most people don’t, but I like facing guys like that. Coming off the bench, it isn’t easy, but coming off and facing a guy like that knowing that you’re going to get some fastballs is a little bit easier. He threw me a good border-line pitch that wasn’t something I wanted to swing at and so I took it, it could have gone either way, and that changes the at-bat, puts it back to even, and then he just threw me some balls and I was able to take them and thankfully they called them balls.”
Your hands are back out from your body now after bringing them closer in for a stretch. What do you like about starting your swing like that?
“I feel like I’m able to close my body off that way and keep my hands more freed up and since I’ve done that off the break I’ve hit quite a few balls the other way, I’ve hit some balls through the shift, and the idea was to just keep my body good and closed and my hands further away from me, just like I was doing last year. I was able to free my hands up and my hands were working through the zone. I feel like when my hands get closer to my body, I have a tendency to want to cast my hands out, because I want to keep my body closed and I just don’t feel comfortable, it’s harder for me to get my hands working. I feel more comfortable with them out away from me because I do kind of get a feel of letting my hands be free and I feel like that’s been working for me pretty good. The last game in Boston I hit three balls the other way. They got caught. (Xander) Bogaerts dives and catches one, Jonny Gomes barely catches one, does his little tumble-roll, and then I hit one to the gap and Jackie Bradley Jr., ran it down. And I hit a home run to centre field staying through the ball. In the beginning Seitzer thought it was going to be harder for me to keep my timing up, but last year I was able to do it and I had a lot of success, and I was able to hit some balls through the middle of the field, some balls the other way, doing that, and I’m hoping that showing him I can do that, he’ll be able to help me with it, and I can continue to do that.”
What are the challenges in going back and forth with your hands multiple times in-season?
“I don’t feel like it was hard because I was fairly used to doing that. Last year I was doing it for most of the season, and that was what I was working on, so going back to it wasn’t that hard. I took a lot of swings over the break doing it and I got to feeling comfortable with it so coming back I felt comfortable with it. As soon as I got back in the box, my first at-bat, I got a hit off of (Yu) Darvish on a fastball that I blistered pretty good, and then I hit a home run on him later in the game, I just felt like it was something I needed to do, I needed to make a change because what I was doing wasn’t working. I was just pulling balls straight into the shift, my hands were getting out away from me, I wasn’t able to stay inside of any balls, I wasn’t letting anything get deep and I was just crushing balls or trying to swing too hard to hit it through the shift because I was uncomfortable with what I was doing.”
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The Blue Jays sputtered at the end of a promising road trip with three straight losses in Houston after a 6-1 start through New York and Boston. Marcus Stroman struggled in Sunday’s series finale, a reminder that no matter how strong his mound presence is, he still needs his stuff to perform.
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Back at the start of the trip in New York, Jose Bautista made a point of saying the Blue Jays needed to trust in their abilities and not let a couple of losses here and there erode their confidence.
A good test of that comes over the next nine games, when the Blue Jays host the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers before jetting out to face the Seattle Mariners. They can’t let a disappointing series in Houston carry over.
“No doubt,” says Jose Reyes. “We’re not going to win every game. At least coming into (Sunday) we felt like if we can go home with a split in the series, that’s going to be fine. But that wasn’t the case. We need to put this series in the past and try to win on Tuesday.”
Adds Marcus Stroman: “We’re confident. Coming here, just because we weren’t able to win this series against the Astros, it doesn’t mean that our confidence wavered in any way. The boys are confident, we know what we can do. We’ll get home, have the off-day and I’m sure we’ll come out fired up and ready to go on Tuesday.”