DETROIT -- Last weekend, under sun-soaked Seattle skies five hours before first pitch, Ty France stepped into the batter¡¯s box at T-Mobile Park and asked an empty stadium for answers.
Mired in arguably the worst offensive rut of his career, going on nearly a full month, France reported way early, shoved the velocity machine out to the mound, turned the trigger to the highest level and began taking cut after cut.
It was as therapeutic as it was mechanical.
¡°When you turn the machine up that high, you don't really have time to think about anything,¡± France said. ¡°Your body just gets in a good place and kind of just shows you when you're taking good swings and when you're not. So that was the main focus of that, to go out there and stop thinking and just go out and try and feel the good swings.¡±
France didn¡¯t want to get too ahead of himself after recording a hit in five straight at-bats from Sunday into Tuesday -- including homers in two consecutive plate appearances -- but he did allow himself to be more optimistic after Tuesday¡¯s win, speaking with finality as if his slump is over.
"The game, you go through waves,¡± France said. ¡°Unfortunately, that one took a little longer, but we've put in a lot of work and it's nice to finally flip that switch."
France¡¯s homer on Tuesday was emblematic of the adjustments he¡¯s worked on, specifically trying to make better contact against non-fastballs while not chasing pitches out of the strike zone as much. On the first pitch from Matt Manning, who¡¯d dazzled all month with his slider, France connected on the breaking ball and sent it into territory that Comerica Park has rarely seen.
That followed his deep fly on Sunday, when France yanked a middle-in fastball in a 1-0 count for a towering, 398-foot homer. In total, since that afternoon with the velo machine, France is 5-for-10, and five of his seven batted balls have been hit harder than 100 mph.
In a prolonged slump such as his, players tend to try and swing their way out. France, one of the game¡¯s better contact specialists, admittedly reached that point, which became more exacerbated because he¡¯s already swinging more regularly than the average hitter. Before Tuesday, France was hitting .143/.191/.221 (.411 OPS) over 84 plate appearances in August, with his chase rates ballooning drastically in congruence.
Some of those chases were significantly out of the zone, too, as Statcast shows:
¡°Do you do that, or do you become so passive that you're waiting for the perfect pitch before you put your best swing on it?¡± Mariners manager Scott Servais said. ¡°It depends on what your personality is and how you're wired, but I do know to hit in this league, you¡¯ve got to hit to take. You can't take to hit.¡±
Part of what makes France so successful is that he can get to nearly any hittable pitch, and he doesn¡¯t sell out for power. For example, 10 of his 16 homers, including Tuesday¡¯s, have been with zero strikes, prime hitter¡¯s counts, and he has just one with two strikes, when he's usually protecting the plate.
Yet his unique contact ability is correlated with how much more complicated his swing is than the average hitter. France is at his best when he gets out in front of the baseball, which allows him to make mid-swing adjustments based on each individual pitch.
This at-bat on May 28 against Houston is a prime example:
France¡¯s struggles began just after returning from a minor wrist injury, which led to speculation that the injury and his slump might have something to do with each other. Yet France insisted otherwise, and the fact that he wasn¡¯t regularly receiving treatment validated as much.
Rather, the Mariners say that France¡¯s issues were more related to his complicated setup in the box, beginning from the ground up, which in turn led to his hands -- and his timing -- being off. That¡¯s where the velo machine came in, and turning it to full blast created a mental trigger to go up prepared to swing.
¡°We definitely went back and watched the film, but I don't want to say it was one particular thing,¡± France said. ¡°I think the body was out of sync and we got on the velo machine and I think that helped.¡±
France spoke with conviction that his slump is behind him, and thankfully for the Mariners, it occurred in August instead of September -- or worse, October.