Search for swing leads Marisnick back to ‘Little League’
Adjustments mean outfielder’s batting slump may be over
Jake Marisnick has experienced the cycle of a slump less than one month into the season.
He hit two home runs in the first three games. Then a nosedive began April 10 and plummeted into an 0-for-22 hole.
A favorite of Astros fans for a smile that usually is as sure to be on his face as any fly ball to center
is to land in his glove, Marisnick boiled over with frustration. “It builds up,” he said. He searched for answers at the plate and vented in the tunnel of the dugout.
“That’s where I do most of my explosions,” he said. “Nobody sees them.”
The world noticed plenty on the field. He got calls from his parents, friends, various hitting instructors and high school coaches. They had advice to share. They claimed to see the problem.
Marisnick still did not find a solution.
During a four-strikeout game in Seattle, he cussed and ham-
mered his bat into the grass. His swing had not made contact that satisfying in more than a week.
The next day, a young fan in Chicago shouted: “That was a beautiful bat slam.”
Marisnick, a 6-4 righthanded hitter with a one-handed finish and elite athleticism, often hears “beautiful catch” or “beautiful swing.”
“Bat slam,” he said, “is not the best thing I want to be hearing right now. That kind of woke me up.”
A single against the White Sox snapped the hitless streak at 12 days, but Marisnick did not yet break the spell.
He kept missing good pitches and flailing at bad ones, striking out 54 percent of the time.
“You’re looking for a good pitch to hit and you miss your pitch,” he said. “You miss your pitch, and then you miss your pitch again, and that’s when the game speeds up on you.
“Now you’re 0-2 instead of standing on second base.”
Leads in strikeout rate
Marisnick is striking out at a higher rate than anyone in the majors. It bothers him.
“It matters,” he said before the recent series against the Angels. “It’s unacceptable.”
Hours later, Marisnick whiffed under a 92-mph fastball and walked away squeezing his barrel.
His strikeouts mounted to 30 in 57 at-bats, a drastic rate for a platoon player.
The malaise felt especially challenging because of the breakout season he engineered last year with what he described as a “complete overhaul” to his swing.
Aiming to strike the bottomthird of the ball, keeping the barrel of the bat through the zone longer and getting a swing “on plane” — mirroring the path of the pitch — reinvented Marisnick.
On average, through 2016, he batted .225, less than .600 in OPS and fewer than five homers. He then flourished for a career-high .815 OPS and 16 home runs, including his six farthest ever.
He leveraged the power of his frame that had been sapped by swinging downward for low line drives. A thumb injury cost him the chance to compete in the postseason.
Marisnick enjoyed an upward trajectory similar to the fly balls he sent soaring over the fence.
“I didn’t really hit a snag like this last year,” he said. So when you first hit a snag, you have to do some searching and kind of go, ‘All right, what’s the issue? What’s happening? What’s the problem? What pitches are you missing?’ And for me, it’s a lot of stuff.”
Subtle changes, big impact
Standing at his locker, Marisnick positioned his hands as he might in his batting stance. Then he moved them an inch higher.
“Small changes feel drastic during the season,” he said. “It feels like you’re moving them an eternity.
“I’ve got some things that are limiting me from getting to certain pitches, or I’m fouling them off.”
Reluctant to divulge so much information that pitchers could pick him apart further, Marisnick simplified his adjustment: he has shortened his swing.
“It’s Little League stuff,” he said. “That’s the crazy part. Shorten up on the ball and play.”
He still sought the best angle to hit consistently with hard contact. Shortening his swing, getting his bat to the ball more quickly, could work, he said.
If that is a betrayal from the approach that had changed his life so powerfully last season, he said it might only be necessary for a bit, just until he can get back into a groove and swing free of concern again.
Against the Angels, Marisnick failed in the first game, sat out the second and got the positive result that he has needed in the finale Wednesday.
He found himself in a familiar position: pinch-hitting as a lateinnings defensive replacement and down 0-2 in the count.
It was the 33rd time this season Marisnick was behind 0-2. He had not gotten a hit previously.
The Angels set a target low and away, but the pitch headed toward the middle. Marisnick put a quick, defensive swing on it. It was not the all-out hack that he had used to drive balls more than 440 feet, but it packed enough punch at a 36-degree angle to send a shot to left field.
Marisnick scurried out of the box and watched the ball intently. He could not be sure of its final destination until it sailed into the Crawford boxes for a home run.
He still has burdensome batting trends to overcome. Since April 1, Marisnick has taken 131 swings and totaled five hits.
Nearly 60 percent of the time he is swinging and more than 40 percent of the time he is chasing. He has not drawn a walk.
Marisnick had said things would turn around. He did not say when, but he expected it to happen soon.
“In two weeks,” he said, “we’ll have a talk about how much my struggles helped me.”