SHIFTING HIS STANCE
Adjustments to Alvarez’s posture at the plate aim to help slugger return to ALDS form
An hour and a half before Game 4 of the World Series, Houston’s two hitting coaches came together to correct their cleanup man’s batting stance. Troy Snitker noticed Yordan Alvarez rocking back and forth in his prepitch setup.
Alex Cintrón summoned Alvarez to the batting cage and put Snitker’s observations into practice. Snitker observed all of Alvarez’s weight shifting to his front leg, which limited his ability to stay behind the baseball. Alvarez adjusted and put some weight onto his back leg.
“He took three or four (swings) in the cage and took it into the game,” Cintrón said.
The adjustment did not pay immediate dividends but did invite hope that Alvarez is inching closer toward his American League Division Series form. In Houston’s 5-0 win during Game 4, Alvarez hit two balls to center field and another to left — an all-fields approach manager Dusty Baker mentioned he’d been missing.
“Most of the time when you turn things around is when you start hitting the ball to the opposite field,” Baker said before Game 4. “Because that means you’re staying on the ball longer.”
All three of Alvarez’s batted balls in Game 4 carried at least a 97 mph exit velocity. Only one fell for a hit — a single into the left-center field gap — but the swings he took were nonetheless encouraging.
“He needed more weight on his back foot; that way he could stay behind the ball more,” Cintrón said before Game 5. “He was in a bad position. He was jumping forward and couldn’t stay behind the ball. That one clicked to him. He put more weight on his back foot, and he started hitting behind the ball.”
Alvarez struck out twice in Game 5, but he did chase home the winning run with a ground ball to the right side during the eighth inning. He’s just 5-for-40 since Game 2 of the ALDS, after which he became the focal point of every opponents’ scouting report and started seeing almost no pitches inside the strike zone.
“They’re kind of teasing him,” Baker said. “He’s a young hitter. It’s a situation where you might have to take some walks, but when you’re a young hitter and can hit, you want to hit.
“But it’s hard to hit lowpercentage pitches, but also at the same time, it’s tough to be selective when you want to hit, and it’s tough to be selective when you are a young hitter and you want to contribute to your team … I just urged him just to be a little more patient, but that’s easier said than done.”