SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- As hitters crowded around the batting turtle on George Brett Field late Thursday morning, Royals hitting coach Alec Zumwalt explained the drill and situation.

¡°There¡¯s a runner on second, and you¡¯ve got to get him over,¡± Zumwalt said. ¡°First round will be fastballs. Second round, breaking balls.¡±

• Wolters turning heads on Kansas City's backfields

This was the extra hitting work taking place for position players not scheduled to play in Thursday¡¯s eventual rainout against the Rockies at Salt River Fields, and each hitter had six pitches per round to work with with two machines feeding either fastballs or breaking balls. The hitter got to choose which type of pitch he got in the third round, and hitters didn¡¯t know what pitch was coming in the fourth round.

Their job is to move the imaginary runner over or drive them home with hits or sacrifice flies scattered around the field.

Or, of course, a home run.

¡°That will work,¡± Zumwalt yelled when MJ Melendez crushed a ball over the fence.

¡°Hard-hit line drives play everywhere,¡± Nick Pratto said.

Practicing situational hitting is nothing new, but the Royals are putting more of an emphasis on it this spring. In 2023, the Royals¡¯ .246 average with runners in scoring position ranked 23rd in baseball, their 455 RBIs ranked 25th and their 83 wRC+ ranked 29th. The latter wasn¡¯t much better than their 84 wRC+ with the bases empty, which speaks to their need for an improved overall offense this season.

• Royals' Spring Breakout roster revealed

However, Leverage Index shows the Royals struggled much more in the moments that mattered most. According to Fangraphs, the Royals had a 92 wRC+ in low-leverage situations and an 89 wRC+ in medium-leverage.

When it came to high-leverage situations, they dropped to 52 wRC+, by far the worst in the Majors (the Padres¡¯ 66 wRC+ was second-worst).

While that comes with the caveat of a small single-season sample of 554 plate appearances, it illustrates why the Royals want to see improvement with runners in scoring position this year. They did perform better later in ¡®23: Their 73 wRC+ with runners in scoring position in the first half jumped to 95 in the second, and they saw some gains in those high-leverage situations.

¡°There were times that, because of who we were playing and because we weren¡¯t playing very well, when that situation came up, we pressed so hard,¡± Zumwalt said. ¡°That¡¯s natural. Every hitter can say they had opportunities they wish they had capitalized on more last year.¡±

Some improvement should come internally, as the young hitters gain another year of experience and awareness of those big moments when they need to slow the game down to execute. Some improvement, the Royals believe, will come from the veteran hitters they added.

¡°The first time you¡¯re in that big moment, your mind is racing,¡± Hunter Renfroe said. ¡°Your heart is racing. But the more you do it, you¡¯re able to say, ¡®I¡¯m calming down. Take a deep breath.¡¯ And the more you fail, the more you understand. Experience is the best thing for that.¡±

It¡¯s difficult to practice those moments because nothing compares to an actual game. Still, Zumwalt wanted to try to up the ante this spring. There are different variations of the drills seen Thursday; sometimes the hitter is done with his round as soon as he doesn¡¯t execute, other times music is blasting to cause distraction.

The fourth round Thursday also turned into a decision-making drill with the hitters not knowing what pitch was coming, where it¡¯d be or how it¡¯d move.

The Royals have done this before, but it¡¯s mostly in the batting cages, not on the field in front of onlookers.

¡°To me, it¡¯s all about the competition,¡± Zumwalt said. ¡°I want to split them up in groups, I want to talk trash, I want to stir them up. We want their brains spinning. Just saying we¡¯re doing it as we go through our BP routine, that doesn¡¯t translate to the game. You¡¯ve got to practice it. Hard. You¡¯ve got to be OK with failing when you¡¯re practicing.¡±

Feedback so far from the hitters has been positive.

¡°That stuff is awesome,¡± Bobby Witt Jr. said. ¡°We¡¯re all competing. We want to go 6-for-6. It speeds you up. You get thinking. You want to get it done.¡±

And when it comes to games, the Royals will be looking for intent rather than solely success. Being aware of the situation and hitting the ball hard are two aspects they can control. Decisiveness and ¡°selling out to their approach,¡± as Zumwalt puts it, will help when the pressure is on.

¡°You always have those voices in your head as a hitter,¡± Michael Massey said. ¡°It¡¯s really about that discipline: This is what we need to do. This is what we¡¯re doing. That¡¯s what I like about those drills. This is part of the game. So when you have those thoughts of, ¡®Hey I know this guy is going to try to work away, what if I just crowd the plate a little bit and try to hit it over the fence?¡¯ It¡¯s like, ¡®No, keep it simple. I¡¯ve done this.¡¯¡±