Herrera’s hot streak might not be a streak at all
PHILADELPHIA » By the looks of the crowds, you probably haven’t noticed as yet, but the Phillies have featured one of the hottest hitters in baseball this season. So much so that people are beginning to wonder if they have one of the best all-around players in the league on their roster.
This isn’t the big free agent with the rock star name. This is Odubel Herrera people are talking about ... or at least they would be if more were showing up to Citizens Bank Park.
“You can make the argument that he has been our most consistent and best hitter across the first part of the season. You can make the argument that he’s one of the top 15 hitters in all of baseball,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “Every night he has a chance to do damage, the chance to lay down a bunt for a base hit, a chance to spoil a great pitch from the opposing pitcher, which is very, very frustrating when a pitcher executes his best pitch and the ball’s at your shins or at your letters and he’s whacking you into the gap.
“That’s like, disheartening for the opposition. So yes, he’s meant the world to us so far.”
This three-hole world beater for the Phillies entered Wednesday’s game against the San Francisco Giants with a .346 batting average (second in the National League), with 44 hits (also second in the NL) garnished with five home runs and a .940 OPS. The same veteran centerfielder who, much to his chagrin, was held out of the starting lineup in the season opener, but by the season’s fifth game had heated up up at the plate and hasn’t been under .300 since.
“You never say of any player, unless they’ve done it for several years straight, that he’s going to go hit .350 or he’s going to OPS off the charts or he’s going to drive the ball out of the ballpark all over the place,” Kapler said. “Did we think he was a very good offensive player? Yes. Did he have a track record of being a good offensive player? Yes. So is this some sort of shock? No.
“But certainly it’s been an incredibly pleasant surprise.”
That’s because Herrera, despite a .288 batting average over his three previous seasons with the Phils, wasn’t much good at consistency. He’d go on long streaks of ineptitude at the plate, and even though he had turned himself into a center fielder with great range by last season, it had often been enjoyable to watch him circle under balls or wreck while tracking them down.
What’s more, he drove previous manager Pete Mackanin crazy with his occasionally outlandish base-running antics or other examples of lost concentration during games. And despite his streaky hitting proficiency over those previous three seasons, Herrera only got on base at a .344 clip, which with a more selective eye should have been a bit better.
This season? Something’s changed. And it’s probably not only the manager and hitting coach.
“I feel very, very good right now,” Herrera had said Monday night through the team translator. “It’s part of being selective. I want to be disciplined at the plate, I don’t want to swing at bad pitches, I just want to swing at good pitches.”
In his first at-bat Wednesday night, as all of 18,448 were still filing into the park, Herrera held true to that overdue approach, and drew a walk. It extended Herrera’s streak of reaching base safely to 38 games, tying Jimmy Rollins for fifth overall in club history.
It was also Herrera’s first of three walks on the night in an 11-3 Phillies win over the Giants. He’s now slashing at .341/.411/.527.
Kapler, of course, says he had no doubt as to what Herrera could do.
“When I look at his numbers I’m not looking at them in a 10game stretch,” Kapler said. “I’m looking at them over as long of a sample as I possibly can that I feel is representative of who he is. So for that reason, I don’t see streaks. I see a big body of work. And because I watch him on tape I’m like, ‘OK, this guy has really good bat to ball skills.’ He’s super aggressive but sometimes he’ll take when the pitcher isn’t expecting it, drawing an occasional walk.”
Although Herrera seemed to make Mackanin scratch his head more often than not, Kapler said people who worked with Herrera over the past few years only had good things to say about him.
“Ultra-talented, very aggressive. I don’t know if you want to go into that elite range but exceptional bat to ball skills,” Kapler said.