Belt says he’s not concerned about hitting homers — only line drives.
SAN FRANCISCO >> Major League Baseball’s recent home-run surge has been dubbed the fly-ball revolution. But as the sport returns from its unexpected COVID-19 hiatus, Giants first baseman Brandon Belt is aiming to go against the sport’s new grain.
“My main goal is just getting the ball down and hitting line drives,” Belt, who is coming off of his two worst slugging years as a big-league hitter, said in a Zoom call with the media Sunday.
It’s something he said he was working on in the first preseason of the year — spring training — and continued working on in Texas during the break. Overall, it’s an effort to double-down on what he’s good at hitting — doubles and triples — and avoid the perils of his home ballpark, Oracle Park.
“Because of this ballpark, comparing it to a different one, maybe somewhere on the East Coast, (where) the ball travels a little bit better, you don’t want to get the ball too high in the air because it is detrimental to your stats and what your goals are,” Belt said. “My goal is to stay gap to gap and to drive the ball. That doesn’t always equate to home runs, but … I’m not too concerned with the whole home run thing.”
Playing half his games in a park notoriously difficult for lefthanded hitters not named Barry Bonds, Belt is yet to hit 20 homers in a season his nine-year Giants career. If his new approach takes, this shortened season will not break that streak.
That said, despite the thick marine layer often present in the air during night games, Oracle Park’s new dimensions are expected to increase the homerun rate hit this season. The new bullpens have brought the centerfield fence between six and eight feet closer to home plate.
Belt said that he hasn’t noticed the new dimensions in the park — a testament to the quality of the Giants’ retrofitting — but manager Gabe Kapler did.
Kapler, whose two seasons as the Phillies manager included seven games at Oracle Park. said the ballpark Sunday was “playing kind of like a normal hitters park… a middle of the road park .... I did notice some balls go out to center and right-center that might otherwise have been landing on the track.”
Health is another factor that could help Belt this season. He had knee surgery after the 2018 season, but that didn’t prevent the knee from getting inflamed last season.
Belt says the knee is feeling good now, and playing 60 games, instead of 162, can only help.
“I came into this spring training feeling really good,” Belt said. “I felt healthy for the first time in a couple of years. And approach wise, mentally, I feel like I’m in a great place.”