DETROIT — Julio Rodriguez has been listening.
He’s willingly accepted the advice. He’s shrugged off the compliments. He’s used the criticism as fuel for motivation. He’s heard about who he’s supposed to be as a hitter and what he hasn’t been as a player.
He’s collected it all, thrown out what wasn’t needed or wanted, kept what was important and processed it into who he wants to be and made it his own.
Even with all of his success, he’s continually searched for his identity as a hitter to find the consistency that he craves and fans demand.
Has he found it this season? Is it something he can carry into future seasons?
“I would say, yes,” he said. “As a baseball player, you’re always going to have to evolve. You’re always going to have to keep up with the game and make adjustments.
But this feels right to him.
The Mariners are very comfortable with it.
Starting with the Mariners’ last series at Comerica Park just before the All-Star break, Rodriguez has posted a .299/.356/.598 slash line in 295 plate appearances with 16 doubles, a triple, 21 homers, 51 RBI, 15 stolen bases, 20 walks and 62 strikeouts. He’s posted a 3.8 FanGraphs WAR over that span, which is tied for the highest in MLB along with Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo.
That second-half surge will likely put him in the top seven spots in the American League MVP voting.
In recent years, hitting coaches and analysts preached pulling the ball in the air because it provided the best results.
But there was just something in that hitting approach that didn’t mesh with Rodriguez. He never felt comfortable trying to pull everything. That’s not how he was taught to hit as a kid coming up in the Dominican Republic.
“I had to go back to being me,” he said a few weeks back. “I can’t be someone else.”
Given his ability to drive the ball to right-center, Rodriguez has embraced Edgar Martinez’s philosophy of a hitting approach that focuses on driving the baseball up the middle. He’s also used the teachings of hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, whose sole focus is to find a way to get the barrel of the bat on the ball and hit it hard — direction be damned.
“Good things happen when you hit the ball hard,” Seitzer said.
Rodriguez hits the ball as hard as anyone in baseball. He ranks among the top 30 in bat speed, exit velocity and hard-hit rate.
When he has struggled, it’s because he doesn’t hit the ball enough. With the changes to his approach, he’s trimmed his strikeout rate down from 26% to 21%, which is significant.
“I feel like I’m understanding myself a little bit more, not really trying to do too much,” he said. “I’m a strong guy and if I put a good swing on the ball, it’s going to go out anywhere. I like driving the ball to all the fields. I like taking my hits to where I can, too.”
His teammates can see the changes.
“He looks controlled in the box,” catcher Cal Raleigh said. “He doesn’t look off-balance. He’s taking good pitches. He just looks confident — looks confident, looks slow, looks balanced. And usually those are good things. You just tell by guys’ takes and their swings, even their foul balls, how well they’re seeing it. He’s seeing it well. He’s slowing the game down, and doing a good job with that right now.”
The approach has been productive in the postseason. He hit a preposterous solo homer in the first game against Detroit, keeping his hands inside on a 95 mph fastball at the top of the zone and hitting it to dead center. He had three hits in the game.
In Game 2, he roped a double down the left-field line to drive in the game-winning run.
“It was awesome,” he said. “These are things I dreamed of as a kid. I remember just watching the game, and to be able to be here playing baseball for the team is really awesome.