Days earlier, before Adley Rutschman bent double and yelled in frustration following a strikeout with two runners on base, he looked out at the outfield and expounded on his recent hitting struggles.
He can be an elusive character, who in group settings reverts to the plural team rather than focusing on his own performances. But at the edge of the dugout, bat in hand, he gazed out and talked.
“Baseball’s an interesting game,” Rutschman began slowly. He’s feeling it now, with two strikeouts Sunday and an average that has fallen to .197 since the All-Star break. His frustration was obvious in the eighth inning of the series-ending loss to the Tampa Bay Rays — a strikeout, a scream, a walk back to the dugout.
“Hitting is as much a mental thing as it is a physical thing, so I think there are so many aspects,” Rutschman said on that sunny Wednesday afternoon, with the stands empty and critical plate appearances — and the pressure that comes with them — hours away.
Because there are so many aspects, Rutschman has trouble pinning this monthslong slide on one thing in particular. He has a checklist in his head to determine, apart from results, whether his approach and swing decisions are as they should be.
First, he asks himself whether he’s swinging at good pitches. Next, if he’s putting himself in pitcher-friendly counts, why? Is he whiffing? Is he not being aggressive early in the count?
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And his introspection continues from there.
“Is my load not allowing me to get my best swing off when I do get pitches in the zone?” Rutschman wondered. “It’s such, like, minor things in your swing that can make you miss the ball by a fraction. That’s why I think hitting sometimes is kind of waves, because sometimes getting that feel, once you have it, you’re like, ‘OK, I got it.’ You take things from the cage and you apply them in the game, but obviously, it’s different in the game; you have all those external factors.
“I think for me right now, we’re trying to look at stuff from a fundamental standpoint, and then swinging at quality pitches,” Rutschman continued. “But, yeah, just riding the wave, man. Riding the wave. Being positive, and the things I can control are my effort, attitude, and that’s what I’m going to do. I know I’m going to get a lot more at-bats and I can hopefully look at this and be like, ‘That sucked,’ but we’re going for a playoff run, and that’s the most important thing.”
“It’s such, like, minor things in your swing that can make you miss the ball by a fraction.”
Adley Rutschman
If this is a wave, Rutschman is in a trough.
He claims to be healthy, although he admitted that, by playing catcher, he is “getting beat up every day.” The lower back discomfort that forced him out of the lineup once in August hasn’t recurred, he said, and although Rutschman was hit on the hand June 27 (and has since hit .176), he said there are no lingering effects from that.
To Rutschman, this skid feels more like a timing issue than anything else, particularly when pitchers alter speeds from a fastball to a changeup. That’s part of why he’s popping up the ball more than ever before. According to Statcast, Rutschman is hitting under the ball 33.1% of the time. He was under the ball only 23.8% of the time last year.
“Over the course of the season your body gets more tired. And a lot of times, when your body’s breaking down like that, unconsciously you do things different,” Rutschman said.
For instance, if his shoulder is sore, he might draw his hands lower and closer to his body than he normally would.
“I’m starting to compensate a little bit here, and then, a week later, you’re like, ‘Oh, shoot, my hands are right here now,’” Rutschman said.
The change in stance can play a role mechanically in why Rutschman is hitting under the ball more. But timing is a main focus, requiring him to work on his load to react to various offerings.
“Faster pitches, if you’re a little bit late, your body’s going to compensate to make some moves to be able to get to the ball, and that’s where we’ll see him get out of his posture a little bit,” said Ryan Fuller, one of the Orioles’ hitting coaches. “It’s the same thing when you’re doing rounds in the cage. You’re doing fastball-changeup, little different timing, finding the move that lets you be on the hardest pitch you’re going to face while adjusting to the softest pitch you’re going to face. And he’s been working extremely hard on that.”
When Fuller, Matt Borgschulte and Cody Asche work with Orioles hitters, they comb through every at-bat from the day before. They ask questions, such as what pitch a player was looking for, and analyze even the smallest movements.
Those sessions often shine a light on whether the issue was with the approach or with a hitter’s mechanics. They dig in from there.
But, as part of those question sessions, the hitting coaches present Rutschman with a simple prompt: “Who is Adley Rutschman at his best?”
“And he has a very clear answer of controlling the strike zone, like he has been doing an incredible job at throughout his career,” Fuller said. “Making hard contact, line drives, all across the field. And then those line drives turn into home runs like we’ve seen when he’s at his best. It’s definitely been the fastball-changeup speed differential giving him a little bit of trouble.”
Rutschman hasn’t been at his best for some time. His decline in the second half coincides with an overall slump from Baltimore’s hitters. And, with 18 games remaining and the American League East up for grabs, there’s less and less time for a turnaround to occur.
But that’s where his focus lies. As he looked out in the distance one recent afternoon, his thoughts centered on the postseason.
“I’d like to be at my best when October hits,” Rutschman said.
And if hitting is a wave, as Rutschman says, perhaps there’s a crest just around the corner.
