Blue Jays looking for smarter plate approach as hitting woes continue

Jorge Polanco had five hits, including a two-run home run, Kyle Gibson struck out a career-high 11 and the Minnesota Twins beat Toronto 9-1

TORONTO – Trent Thornton’s eighth start of the season didn’t go nearly as well as his seventh, and a 9-1 pounding of the Toronto Blue Jays by the Minnesota Twins was a just result. It wasn’t particularly fun – shout out to those among the crowd of 14,372 who gutted it out – and since manager Charlie Montoyo didn’t want to talk about it and you probably don’t want to read about it, let’s not pore over the gory details.

“I’m usually very positive but we didn’t play very good the last three days so I’m not going to sit here and try to make excuses for this and that because we didn’t play good baseball,” said Montoyo. “My kids know it, I know it so I’m not going to insult your intelligence by saying we did this and we did that. We did not play frigging good baseball the last three days. We got hit, we didn’t hit so it wasn’t very good. Thank God (Thursday) is a day off and here we frigging go. We’re going to keep f—— working hard at it. That’s all I got.”

Point taken.

Given that, with the Blue Jays offence extending its lengthy cold spell – 17 runs during the current stretch of eight losses in nine outings, and a mere 11 hits in the three losses to the Twins – let’s go big-picture technical and talk about approaches at the plate and swing paths.

Why? Fair question.

So much of the talk around hitting these days tends to revolve around the launch-angle revolution that has idealized an uppercut swing – think the Nike swoosh checkmark. But working essentially with one specific swing because data suggest it leads to the most productive contact can be short-sighted, as pitchers increasingly leverage four-seamers up in the zone and generate both cut and sink from the same arm slot.

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As Justin Smoak put it, “If you have the same swing on every pitch, you’re not going to do too well, so you definitely have to change it up.”

That means, essentially, game-planning for what the opposing pitcher features in a given an outing and preparing for how to hit it.

“I think you have to have different swings for different types of pitchers,” said Blue Jays bench coach Dave Hudgens, the longtime hitting coach for the Houston Astros before joining Charlie Montoyo’s staff. “For instance, if you’ve got Justin Verlander out there with great hop on the ball, he’s got good rise on the ball, comes over the top, pitches at the top of the zone, if you’re focused on launch angle and have an up-and-under swing, you have no chance.

“My belief is, with guys like that, you’ve got to stay above the baseball and think top of the ball, so your hands have to go almost across your chest,” continued Hudgens. “That’s the only way to get on top of the baseball.

“If you’ve got a guy like Aaron Sanchez or Marcus Stroman who’s going to sink the ball, if you do that same swing, you’re going to hit a bunch of groundballs so you’ve got to think up-under the ball,” he added. “But instead of it being a swing change, I personally like to tell the guys where to hit on the baseball and that will take care of their hand path.”

For batters targeting four-seamers up in the zone, for instance, that means trying to strike the top inside part of the baseball, which forces the hands to travel a corresponding path. On two-seamers, Hudgens urges hitters to aim for the inside bottom part of the baseball to get beneath it.

“Easier said than done,” he said, “but that’s the idea.”

The Blue Jays couldn’t execute that idea against the Twins, scoring just once during a three-game sweep. Billy McKinney’s fifth-inning homer was the first of their two hits all night, both off Kyle Gibson, who struck out 11 batters over six innings Wednesday.

“I was chasing a little early,” said McKinney. “But he was locating well. I was trying to see a pitch that I could drive.”

Gibson kept batters guessing by throwing 23 sinkers, 20 sliders, 19 changeups, 16 four-seamers and 10 curveballs.

That type of mix makes it extremely difficult for a hitter to hunt a single pitch and, similar to Jose Berrios on Tuesday, forces opponents to guess which way a pitch will move, if it does at all.

“The game’s changed in so many ways and pitchers are making it go this way and that way instead of guys who had one fastball doing the same thing every time,” said Smoak. “You’re looking for it in a certain spot to start at.

“Berrios threw me a couple of pitches that I swung at off the plate. And then he gave me a couple of 95 heaters up and in that didn’t move one bit. So pick your poison man. Gibson was always a sinkerballer. Now, he’s throwing more four-seamers to lefties than sinkers.

“You have to be able to eliminate pitches,” Smoak continued. “If you’re not eliminating pitches, you’re trying to hit four or five of them at the same time and now you’ve got no shot. It’s definitely different.”

Hudgens and hitting coach Guillermo Martinez employ various drills to prepare hitters to lock in on an approach, from specific work off the tee, to short toss to positioning the pitching machine to simulate the type of movement batters can expect in game.

Still, given the increasing velocity and better movement pitchers have these days, “I think it’s harder to hit now than it’s ever been,” said Hudgens.

“Plus, with all the information that’s out there, they know where your weaknesses are,” he continued. “Now, they’ve got to execute the pitch. That’s where a good approach from a hitter comes in. They’ve got to execute their pitch, hopefully we’re waiting for a mistake. Because if they make their pitch in the right spot, they’re going to get you out.”

The Blue Jays have found that out the hard way for three consecutive series now.

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