Aguilar wants bat to do the talking
It’s rare when Jesús Aguilar doesn’t have something to say.
But Sunday morning was one of those occasions, as he politely asked reporters to check back with him when his batting average was in a more suitable location – more specifically closer to .300 than the .237 with which he entered the day.
The deflection certainly wasn’t personal and was somewhat understandable, actually, considering the grind it’s taken to even get to this point for the slugging first baseman.
Aguilar came into the Milwaukee Brewers’ series finale with the San Francisco Giants at Miller Park on the heels of his third consecutive multi-hit game, having singled, doubled and driven in a run in a much-needed 5-4 victory on Saturday night.
Pull the lens back even further, and Aguilar is in the midst of a more prolonged period of success. Over his previous 27 games, he was hitting .380, raising his average from .188 to .237 with four home runs and 10 runs batted in.
When all is said and done, Aguilar won’t come close to touching his run production from 2018, when he hit 35 homers and drove in 108 runs with an OPS of .890 en route to becoming an allstar.
But for a lineup that’s struggled to consistently produce runs, any production is a positive.
“He has definitely looked like the Agui of old,” hitting coach Andy Haines said. “Using the whole field, impacting the baseball the way we know he can. We knew it was coming.
“I don’t think any of us foresaw it would be the middle of July until we saw the Agui of old, because there is really a natural ability to hit. He does so many things that I think of as just ‘hitter’ things. You believe in the hit tool, the bat, the at-bats.
“He handled it great. He is the prototype for how to handle struggles. He was a great teammate, he had the same energy, which is easier said than done. And he’s being rewarded for that now.
“The blessing for him, and the message, is, ‘Be thankful that there is a lot of season left.’ He still has plenty of time to have a really good season. The reality of having a great season, we’re realistic about that because of where he’s at. But he could still have a really good season.”
Big things were forecast for Aguilar coming into the season, and it appeared the Brewers finally had a long-term answer at first base.
But he got off to a terrible start at the plate, hitting just .123 with two extrabase hits and five RBI in his first 25 games. Aguilar hit two homers and collected four hits in his next two games to head into May on a good note, only to go right back into the tank.
It was a head-scratching turn of events for a player who was seemingly in the middle of everything for Milwaukee’s offense in 2018.
“He got into a deep hole,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It surprised all of us, for sure. I thought he came out of spring in a good place, swung the bat well, kind of how you would expect it, ball was going everywhere on the field and for whatever reason he just got stuck during the season at some point.”
Aguilar was hitting .186 on June 5, and it wasn’t until June 25 with a twohit night against the Seattle Mariners that his average rose above the Mendoza line for good.
There have been no major mechanical changes to what Aguilar has been doing at the plate, according to Haines, with his stance opening slightly one small tweak.
Maybe more than anything, it was just a matter of a good hitter finally getting into a good spot for a prolonged period of time.
“The spacing of his feet is so important,” Haines said. “He’s a big guy, and he’s gotten kind of narrow at times. That just leads to other things.
“Really, if you see good spacing in his feet, he’s a guy who’s usually in a good position to hit and he makes really good decisions. Then everything else just kind of happens and plays to his strengths.
“But I do think a lot of it is chicken or egg, man. This confidence thing is real. Once you click on a couple of balls and you’re a rhythm and feel-type hitter, that’s a real thing. And you see it happen right in front of our eyes.”
After getting next to no production at first base with Aguilar and Eric Thames over the first couple months, the Brewers are now fortunate to have both swinging the bat well at the same time. Thames, who got the start Sunday, was hitting .267 with 13 homers and 38 RBI.
When that’s happening, the Brewers are much less susceptible to left-handed pitching and a more dangerous offensive team overall.
“One, I think it makes us a better team against left-handed pitching,” Counsell said of Aguilar’s surge. “It’s important to be good against that.
“Second, he played a lot last year, but the first couple months he was just such a dangerous pinch-hit at-bat in the league. You felt like you had this really dangerous bat to deploy in big spots. That doesn’t help you every night, but the ability to get that big hit and do damage when you can get him in the right spot is important.
“Last, it’s going to make us be creative with Eric, but allows us some room to put Agui at first and put Eric in the outfield if there are days that we need to do that.”