Patience, adjustments help Culver up his hitting
TRENTON >> Sporting a blue polo, jeans, a backwards hat and a backpack, Cito Culver stood in the hallway outside the Thunder clubhouse and smiled as he reminisced about Spider-Man.
No, not the comic books or movies. Asked for the turning point of his season offensively, the 23-year-old infielder thought back to Superhero Night, an Arm & Hammer Park promotion for Trenton’s May 6 game against Harrisburg. The Thunder wore special jerseys with Spider-Man-colored tops in a 5-4 victory.
“I was doing some early work with (hitting coach) P.J. (Pilittere), and we changed some things I was doing in my approach,” Culver said. “That game I had three hits and my first home run. And since that game, I’ve felt locked in. I’ve had some little minor skids, but I was able to get right back on it because of the conversation me and P.J. had in the cage that day.”
Before that night, Culver’s hitting production was off to a disastrous start. He was batting .138 with a .230 on-base percentage and .215 slugging percentage in 65 at-bats.
Since Superhero Night, the Yankees’ 2013 first-round draft choice is batting .283 over his last 244 at-bats with 15 doubles, two triples and two home runs. His season average is now up to .256, his OBP up to .320 and his slugging up to .362 — quite a steep climb for a player who couldn’t buy a single in the early goings despite often hitting the ball right on the screws.
“It was kind of a joke around our team,” manager Bobby Mitchell said with a laugh. “It was like, ‘Poor guy, man. He’s not hitting very well, but he’s hitting some balls hard.’”
Culver insists his mechanical adjustments over that stretch were minimal. The right-handed batter tweaked his swing in the offseason, experimented in spring training and finally settled on a physical approach he felt would elicit more consistency in a career littered with unsustained flashes. And he didn’t want to overcompensate on his tough luck.
But Culver had to mentally reinvent his thought process at the plate and not press. Specifically, he and Pilittere focused on staying inside the ball and taking pitches the other way. And he needed to continue to be patient for strikes in his hot zones.
“It’s really hard when you’re not getting hits,” Culver said. “This game’s tough, I mean, really tough. I just tried to stay with it and be confident. That’s the only way you’re going to get out of slumps like that is try to stick with what you’re doing and be confident and know that the hits are going to come. I’ve trusted the process and I’ve trusted my work.”
Added Mitchell, “It just makes hitting a lot easier when you know that your mechanics are pretty good. All you’ve got to do is see the ball and hit it.”
On Thursday night, Culver ironically became Arm & Hammer Park’s Player of the Game after committing a throwing error at shortstop in the first inning for a 1-0 Altoona lead. But he emphatically atoned with a 2-for-4 performance at the dish, collecting a home run, triple, three RBI and two runs scored en route to a seasonhigh seven total bases as the Thunder won.
“These last two, almost three months now, I’ve been feeling really good and really confident at the plate,” Culver said. “It’s all about my preparation. I think I’m preparing way better for games. I’m learning about the pitchers that are throwing against — us that day, and it’s helped a bunch.”
So has the Rochester native finally figured it out and turned the corner in minor league baseball?
“I wouldn’t say I’ve figured it out, man,” Culver said with a laugh. “Baseball is a humbling game. I just try to stay humble and work on what’s in front of me. That’s all I want to do right now.”