Rodgers “pressing” during anemic start
After a breakout performance in his first extended big- league season last year, Brendan Rodgers is scuffling to open 2022.
Colorado’s starting second baseman, held out of the lineup Friday against the Cubs, is 2- for- 23 (. 087) with 10 strikeouts, no extra base hits, and one RBI through six games played. It’s not the offensive output the club’s former No. 1 prospect expects out of himself, especially after hitting .284 with 15 homers last season.
“I’m not trying to stress about it too much,” Rodgers said. “Obviously it’s not a great start, but I’ve been through minor slumps like this before. I just have to keep my confidence high, continue to believe in myself. It’s not really needing to change anything in my swing — it’s timing, it’s swinging at the right pitches, not chasing. I need to continue to be aggressive, but in my counts.
“I know I’m a great hitter, and I just have to ride this out. I have to keep pushing. I know the hits are going to start falling. There’s 155 more games.”
Manager Bud Black believes Rodgers, Colorado’s first- round pick at No. 3 overall in 2015, is “pressing” following his first opening day start.
“It looks like he’s sort of feeling for the ball with his swing, which is not a good thing,” Black said. “And he’s been a little behind on the fastball. That’s not a good thing either.”
Rodgers agreed with Black’s assessment, noting his fastball timing isn’t dialed in, which is causing him to miss meaty pitches and also uncharacteristically expand the zone on breaking balls late in the count.
The sabermetrics back up those timing struggles. Rodgers is swinging at pitches outside the zone at roughly the same rate as last year ( 29.5% in 2021 compared to 30.5% in 2022), but made contact on 60.0% of those swings last year compared with a 38.9% rate this year.
His contact on pitches inside the zone is also down from 87.0% to 75%, and his overall contact percentage has decreased too, from 79.8% to 64.5%.
The good news? When Rodgers is putting the ball in play, he’s squaring it up. Rodgers’ barrel percentage is 7.1% so far and his hard- hit is 50.0%, compared to 6.2% and 40.3% across 2021. And he knows pitchers and defenses are adjusting to him after playing 102 games last year. He’s now working on countering those adjustments.
“They used to play me pullshift, and now the second baseman is playing more straight up,”
Rodgers said. “They know I can go the other way with it, so they’re trying to take that away, but that opens up other holes for me that I need to focus on, especially up the middle and in the six- hole, too. With two strikes, I need to grind in my at- bats and find those holes.”
Footnotes. Center fielder Randal Grichuk, whose home run robbery helped the Rockies seal a series win in Texas, is out of the lineup for a second straight game Saturday. Grichuk is dealing with back tightness that began on Thursday, but has gotten better in the couple of days since. He took batting practice on Saturday…. Right- handed reliever Robert Stephenson and left- handed reliever Lucas Gilbreath will head out on rehab assignments to Triple- A Albuquerque, after both pitchers were placed on the COVID- 19 injured list on April 6.