Travis hopes slow start is behind him
Jays second basemen has been hurt by lack of preparation time in spring
NEW YORK— Devon Travis sat at a computer screen in the hallway behind the Jays’ dugout at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, reviewing clips of his at-bats.
Travis has been hitting with far more authority recently — 6-for-17 in his last five games before Wednesday, with two multi-hit efforts in New York — than at any other time through the first six weeks of the season, but the 26-year-old likes to call the video homework the “process.” And the process never ends.
“It’s been really just two games here, but I have to stay with the process and continue to look for good at-bats and continue to find the barrel on the ball,” Travis said as the Jays prepared for the final game of a three-game series against the Yankees. “I’ve been feeling better and better for a week or so now, but I have to keep that going.”
Travis has been searching for his swing and a return to the mechanics that have made him one of the team’s top hitters when he’s been healthy.
A season-ending knee injury last year and off-season surgery altered his normal approach to the game and his usually positive attitude. Travis came into spring a bit behind in the process; he wasn’t able to jump into games until the last couple of weeks in Dunedin. His knee simply took longer than expected to heal properly
He broke out of an early-season rut with his first multi-hit game when the Jays were in Anaheim and he received encouragement from Angels legend Albert Pujols, but he went 2-for-18 over the next six games.
Now Travis and the Jays hope his struggles are behind him.
“He looks like a totally different guy the last few games,” Jays manager John Gibbons said Wednesday, referring to Travis’s 4-for-8 performance in the first two games of this series.
“You could see it a little bit into that last homestand. We were holding onto the fact that it was just a matter of time. He has been too good for us. He’s still a young kid . . . When you can hit, you can hit, and it’s usually just a matter of time.
“You see him drive balls the other way, which is what he has always been able to do. I think he’s going to hit his fair share of home runs some day too. I think he’s going to drive in a lot of runs some day. But he was frustrated by all of that. It was a so-so spring training for him too. It was up in the air, we didn’t know if he was going . . . to be ready (for the start of the season).”
Travis was still hitting just .165 going into Wednesday, well below both expectations and his career .285 average.
But he does look like a different player than the one who was battling with his rehab at the end of March. “They came up to me and asked me if I was ready, and I told them I was ready,” Travis said. “But I feel strong. At this point last season, I was 15 pounds heavier (about 185 to 190 pounds). But I felt my knee needed (the weight loss). I came back this season lighter, that’s what I shot for. I’ve played as high as 195 pounds, but this was for my knee.”
Travis also feels he’s just as strong, power wise, at the plate regardless of what weight he tips the scales at.
It’s the process and the test that adversity presents to a player that he has earned greater respect for.
“Times like this test you, especially in this game,” Travis said. “As players, we can bring our struggles home with us. But I tell myself anyone can smile when things go well . . . but you when times are tough is what it’s all about. I try to be as good a teammate as I can be, and I go to sleep at night, good game or bad.”