Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Girardi hoping spark from Herrera isn’t just a flash
Joe Girardi wasn’t about to declare his corrosive centerfield problem completely solved as yet, but watching Odubel Herrera round the bases in Atlanta Friday night seemed to offer at least a hint of a solution.
The Phillies manager has gone to great lengths to keep much of his hair and his emotions under control as his club tripped over every viable centerfield option in the season’s first month. But Girardi had to like seeing former National League All-Star and MLB suspendee Herrera finally get into somewhat of a groove in the opener of the road trip by blasting a first-inning, three-run homer that sent the Phillies on their way to a 12-2 blasting of the Braves.
Girardi characterized the home run as something that Herrera had been building toward in recent days.
“Joe just felt like, with a few days work, (Herrera) was getting closer and closer and closer,” Girardi said Saturday, with a reference to Phillies hitting coach Joe Dillon. “He kept telling me he’s getting closer. We saw it on that Thursday (in a win over the Brewers) before we left home and we saw it yesterday.”
Not only are they seeing Herrera get more comfortable in a centerfield spot that he regularly occupied for four and a half seasons up until his suspension in mid-2019, but also more comfortable at the plate, which is where Herrera has always had a hold and cold kind of presence.
“Joe had talked to me about how the direction of his weight was important,” Girardi added about Herrera. “I don’t always see those things, but Joe sees them. He got his direction correct and that’s been a big difference.”
Herrera, in the final season of a contract paying him $10 million this year, can still cover a lot of ground, even if he had always looked a little out of left field when it came to playing defense in center. And when it came to his frequently off-balance looks in the batters’ box, well maybe that’s changing now too?
“I feel really good hitting the ball,” Herrera said prior to Saturday night’s game in Atlanta. “The most important thing is to help the team win.”
Asked about the difference working with Dillon has made to his approach, Herrera said, “It’s been better because I keep working in the cage, and I’m using my legs a lot to hit and that’s why I’m feeling better now.”
Herrera missed the bulk of 2019 after being charged in an domestic assault incident with his girlfriend on Memorial Day weekend in Atlantic City. He wound up serving a season-ending MLB suspension, then missed all of 2020 due to the pandemic.
He entered Saturday hitting .176 with a sad-sack .487 OPS through 12 games. But by the looks of things, better numbers and better days could lie ahead.
“I think it was more going through the ball,” Girardi said of Herrera’s hitting problems. “He wasn’t going through the ball, he was getting stuck a little bit . ... You know, he hasn’t had a lot of bats since 2019, he just hasn’t. One winter ball game, probably 50 (at-bats) in spring training and another 50 at the alternate (training) site, which I don’t think is the easiest place to have at-bats because it’s like intrasquad (workouts).”
That leaves Herrera in the position he hoped to be in coming out of spring training ... still worthy of a chance going forward.
• • • NOTES >> Girardi on Jean Segura, who returned from a nearly weeklong absence with a quad issue Friday and promptly had four hits: “We missed him a lot. Nick (Maton) did a great job in his absence; hit almost .300 in his absence. But Jean’s an experienced player. He drives in runs, he gets on base, he does a lot of different things.” ... With the Braves letting in a 100 percent capacity crowd, starting with Friday’s game at Truist Park, Girardi got a warm and fuzzy feeling: “It was nice to see all the people in the stands,” he said. “It was loud to a certain degree. I think us jumping out to the big (sixrun) lead might have changed the energy in the ballpark a little bit but it was good to see so many people in a baseball park, because it just signifies that maybe we’re getting closer to the end of this (pandemic).”