DRURY FEELING GOOD, BUT CAN IT LAST?
Through so much of the season there were hopeful words about how one strong performance would lead to another, how a player having a big game would be the spark for him catching fire. It rarely happened for an inconsistent Padres offense.
So the Padres and their fans must wait to see what happens with Josh Bell, Brandon Drury and Juan Soto after they combined for six RBIs and six hits in Wednesday’s 8-5 victory over the Phillies, which evened the National League Championship Series at a game apiece..
But they are of such import the possibility of bigger things, beginning today with Game 3 at Citizens Bank Park, can’t be ignored. Drury in particular showed a tangible sign he might be on track to better results.
Each of the three has struggled with different things.
Soto appears to be pulling off the ball and letting pitches he normally smacks go by. Bell has been missing more pitches and, by his own admission, trying too hard.
For Drury, he has gotten away from pulling the ball.
“I know,” he said Wednesday. “Today, I did it.”
He lined a home run over the short wall near the leftfield corner in the second inning, lined out to left field in the fourth inning and after hitting a two-run single to center field in the fifth drove a line drive to the warning track in left in the seventh.
“I was actually talking about that with some of the hitting coaches today,” Drury said after the game. “I was like, ‘Man, what do you think the difference was?’ Because it wasn’t like I was going in with no approach today. I just felt confident, and I was letting the ball come to me.
“So I was looking at my swings (on video), and that’s
the swing that was dangerous all season was the shorter pull swing, and I had that today. So I think that’s just a byproduct of letting the ball come to me and not trying to go get it. I think there for a while my swing didn’t feel great and I was trying to go get everything. I was scared to get beat. So I was trying to rush to get to the ball. And today I felt like I was really having the ball come to me
and that allows me to take my A-swing.”
Managers and coaches often praise players for hitting to all parts of the field.
For Drury, he is at his best when hitting to the pull side (left field). It is something he leaned into this offseason, and the results are why the Padres traded for him in early August.
Drury hit .249 and slugged .415 in his first seven
MLB seasons. In that span, he pulled the ball more than 40 percent of the time. But in 2020 while with the Blue Jays and ’21 while with the Mets, Drury began to focus on going up the middle and to right field more. He pulled the ball just 35 percent of the time in those seasons while hitting .231 and slugging at a .369 clip.
The way Drury tells it, there was an epiphany while
working this offseason with his father, Shane, who has long been like Drury’s personal swing coach.
“We watched all the guys who hit 30, 40 homers,” Drury said. “Very few of them are opposite field. They pull the ball a lot. We looked at (Alex) Bregman and (Nolan) Arenado and guys like that. A lot of their homers are all pull. So we worked this offseason on how to be short and direct — not a long or a cheating swing but be short to it and pull it.
“To hit a ball right-center with the way the balls are these days, you have to absolutely kill it. Some of these fields are big, especially in San Diego. Right-center is ridiculous. But to pull the ball out, you have to hit it good, but you don’t have to crush it.”
With the Reds this season, Drury hit .274 and slugged .520 while pulling the ball 44 percent of the time.
He pulled the first pitch he saw with the Padres for a grand slam on Aug. 3. Since arriving in San Diego, he has been at his best when pulling the ball consistently. During a 14-game stretch from late August to mid-September when he hit .275 with a .956 OPS with four doubles and five homers, Drury pulled 16 of the 34 balls he put in play.
Drury hit 28 home runs this season, including eight with the Padres. He homered every 18.5 at-bats, almost twice as frequently as in his first seven seasons. Of his 28 homers, 22 were to left field.
“I’m trying to pull it,” he said. “But I’m not trying to cheat to it, not trying to like lunge or get the head out or anything like that like I used to when I thought that’s what pull meant. I want to let the ball come to me and be short like a bullet.”
Now, all this is easier said than done.
Drury had gone 14-for-69 over his 19 games leading up to Wednesday. In that time, he pulled just 14 of the 40 balls (35 percent) he put in play.
“I’ve noticed it,” he said. “But sometimes when you’re hitting, it’s hard to have your good feels all the time. So (Wednesday) I had the feeling where I could let the ball come to me and still pull it . ... I felt good. Hopefully I can just keep building off that.”