Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports
When the Giants have been down, as they have shown in four four-run comebacks, they can be at their best.
When the Giants have been down, they show repeatedly with two strikes, they do not go away easily.
Amid all the swing tweaks and overhauls and hand changes and front steps and lower-body focuses that have dominated the conversation around the three new minds working with the Giants’ hitters, is an approach with two strikes that is proving lethal.
From a few accounts, though, the new approach is not new — at least compared with their no- and one-strike mentalities.
Wilmer Flores has typically cut his swing a bit shorter with two strikes, a more contact-oriented goal — and admitted he wants that to change.
“I want to keep my approach like the one I have with no strikes, one strike,” Flores said recently, “which is do damage.”
The Giants want to do damage in all counts, which means choking up and changing approaches may be on the outs.
Donnie Ecker, Justin Viele and Dustin Lind, the three heads of the team’s batting tree, want their pupils to funnel in on zones they know hitters can crush pitches. Even if that means a hitter takes a borderline pitch that could be strike three — if the hitter isn’t going to pulverize it, the hitter can let it go.
“They’ve been relentless in their pursuit of a good pitch to drive — whether we’ve been down late in the game and it seems like we’re out of it, they’ve continued with that approach, or whether we’ve been looking to tack on runs,” manager Gabe Kapler said over Zoom before the Giants began a three-game series with the Diamondbacks at Oracle Park. “It’s been fairly consistent. That approach has stayed the same. Even when we’ve had a runner on second base with less than two outs and we’ve been looking to move the runner or drive a runner in from third base or keep a rally going — it just has been very consistent.”
The results have been remarkable. Entering Friday, the Giants’ 19 two-strike home runs were third most in the majors (one behind both the Dodgers and Angels, California going strong). Their .190 average with two strikes is second best (to Colorado’s .203). Their .343 two-strike slugging percentage is second best to the Dodgers’ .348.
Further encouraging is the Giants have seen the seventh most two-strike pitches in baseball, a signal they are working pitchers well.
“Last year I was probably just a little more jittery and a little more anxious,” Mike Yastrzemski said recently. “Just in terms of being in the big leagues for the first time and overthinking things, trying to guess what guys were going to do to me, as opposed to now just trying to react.”
Reacting has worked out for a slugger who has seen the fifth most two-strike pitches in baseball (503). And within that healthy sample size, Yastrzemski has the third best slugging percentage in baseball (.667) with two strikes.
He’s hit five two-strike home runs, tied for third best in baseball.
“You try to find a way to get on base and that’s the place that I go, trying to do it for someone else as opposed to myself,” Yastrzemski said about his behind-in-the-count approach.
Of course, if he wants to catch the majors’ leader in two-strike dingers, he has to hope his teammate cools off. All six of Flores’ long balls this year have been with two strikes, tied for the Yankees’ Luke Voit for the most.
The Giants are outslugging just about everyone when counts look bleakest. And they’re doing it by not looking any differently.
“Each hitter has a zone that they’re looking to go after and that’s based on their strengths and then also perhaps some of the tendencies of the opposing pitcher,” Kapler said. “So they’ve stayed with that approach, and it actually works in just about every situation.”
