SEATTLE -- Julio Rodríguez arrived at T-Mobile Park on Saturday afternoon and asked an empty stadium for answers.

In a power drought that no one could¡¯ve envisioned at the season¡¯s one-quarter mark, Rodr¨ªguez took part in early batting practice with Mariners director of hitting strategy Jarret DeHart, leading to conversations that were positive and simplistic:

Be on time for the fastball.

Those efforts paid off in a big way 24 hours later, when Rodr¨ªguez blasted a 409-foot, two-run homer that lifted Seattle to an 8-4 win over the A¡¯s on Sunday afternoon. The deep fly was just his second of the season and first at home, and it snapped a streak of 43 plate appearances without an extra-base hit.

For good measure, Rodr¨ªguez came inches shy of another homer in the fifth, instead settling for a 101.7 mph, 403-foot double that nicked the top of the yellow padding in deep left-center.

Signs had been brewing that Rodr¨ªguez was on the cusp, especially after scorching three balls over 100 mph in Saturday¡¯s loss that all went for outs.

¡°I've been putting all the work in and doing everything I can possibly do,¡± Rodr¨ªguez said. ¡°But sometimes, you think that you're doing everything, but then the game shows you 'OK, you need to do a little bit more.' And that's kind of where I'm at.¡±

For all the Mariners¡¯ efforts to re-tool their offense last offseason, it centered around Rodr¨ªguez being a star. Yet, the .547 OPS that they¡¯re receiving from the No. 2 spot in the lineup that he¡¯s occupied in all but four of his 41 games is MLB¡¯s third lowest.

¡°There's more boxes that I need to keep checking, I guess -- or different boxes that I need to keep checking,¡± Rodr¨ªguez said.

¡®On time for the fastball¡¯
Rodr¨ªguez¡¯s homer was against a middle-away, 88 mph sinker from lefty Alex Wood, which tied back into his grander approach of timing up fastballs. The double was on a 92.4 mph four-seamer up and in from lefty Kyle Muller.

Rodr¨ªguez¡¯s .321 batting average against heaters is well above the .242 league average. But before Sunday¡¯s massive blast, it hadn¡¯t correlated to damage. Of his 121 swings on in-zone fastballs, only three had been barrels.

More specifically, on fastballs over the heart of the plate, 32.4% of his contact had been classified by Statcast as weak/poor, 17th worst in the game.

Then he added two barrels against fastballs on Sunday alone.

¡°If you're on time for the fastball, you can hit anything,¡± Rodr¨ªguez said. ¡°I feel like that's something that I've been struggling with a little bit. And I feel like, little by little, we're definitely getting better at it and figuring out the way that is the best for me to time it up.¡±

¡®Earn your pitches¡¯
To get into more fastball sequences, better plate discipline is vital. Entering Sunday, Rodr¨ªguez has been behind in counts 33.1% of the time, 20th worst in MLB and more than each of his first two years. Sunday¡¯s homer was in a 1-2 count.

There¡¯s always been swing-and-miss to his game, and that attribute at times makes him a threat when he¡¯s able to connect on a ¡°pitcher¡¯s pitch¡± for a knock. But when he isn¡¯t doing so consistently, or not hitting for power, a 28.7% strikeout rate that is tied for 22nd-worst in the game becomes far more exacerbated.

¡°With him, it's understanding how teams are going to pitch him,¡± Mariners manager Scott Servais said. ¡°They're not going to lay the first one in there for him. They're going to challenge him. You have to earn your pitches to hit by laying off the bad ones.¡±

¡®Getting more into my legs¡¯
Rodr¨ªguez¡¯s slugging percentage jumped to .323 on Sunday from .291, which ranked 158th of 172 qualified hitters. That 194-point drop from last year was MLB¡¯s 13th-largest, before the big homer.

Some of it has been mechanical. Rodr¨ªguez installed a new setup in Spring Training, intending for fewer movements into the hitting position, but for whatever reasons, it impacted his balance.

¡°When you get in a hurry to hit and you jump forward -- all of a sudden, you're not going to be able to stay behind the ball and get it in the air,¡± Servais said. ¡°That's when you smother a lot of balls on the ground.¡±

Rodr¨ªguez recently made an adjustment more emblematic of his old setup, ¡°because I like getting more into my legs,¡± he said, ¡°and I feel like I wasn't getting as much out of my body as I would like to.¡±

Aside from Rodr¨ªguez being steadfast with his preparation and confidence that things will turn, the Mariners¡¯ offense depends on it.