Loading ...From today’s Hamilton Journal in an article entitled, “Dunn hitting to all fields”.
On Wednesday, Dunn made contact three times — hitting the baseball to the left side all three, including a double. During the three-game series, Dunn made contact 11 times and hit the ball to the left side five times, including two doubles and a home run.
On purpose? An accident? Reds manager Jerry Narron hopes it’s by design.“I’m trying not to pull everything, trying to not try to do too much with pitches,” Dunn said. “Just trying to hit it where it is pitched, and that’s where they were throwing it (outside). That’s what I used to do, and hopefully, I can get that back.”
Dunn did it his first season (2001), spraying the baseball everywhere. Narron was not with the club, but he has heard the stories.
“I’ve noticed him in batting practice staying inside the ball and using the entire field,” Narron said. “When he is not hooking the ball, he hits. I hate to see him hook a ball foul, because that means he isn’t hitting.“When he’s driving the ball to left-center, gap to gap, he’s a much better hitter. I don’t know if it’s that shift or that he is trying to get back to hitting the ball where it is pitched. Everybody tells me when he first came to the big leagues he used the entire field.”
Narron says he’d like to see Dunn use a little man’s swing. “And with his strength, if he hits the ball where it is pitched, he’d still hit 40 home runs, which is what Frank Thomas did when he was younger.”
I don’t want to see Dunn change a lot of his hitting philosophy, but hitting to all fields would definitely help him battle the shift that seems to have frustrated him so much of late.
It almost seems too good be true. We, the fans, have been waiting for so long for him to do this. I guess we can thank all the Reds’ opponents since it seems to be the Dunn Shift that is responsible for the adjustment.
Let’s not get too excited too quickly though, but we sure can hope.
I just checked Dunn’s MLB.com hit chart for the past few years. I only looked at GABP, since I don’t feel like looking at six seasons X 20 parks, Anyway, in 2001, he was getting a good deal of base hits the opposite way, but all his HRs were to center-right and right. Fly outs were spaced remarkably evenly around the park, while all the groundouts were to the right side. 2002 was almost exactly the same.
Changes came in 2003: The base hits seemed to be a little more toward the right side, but his groundouts were evenly spaced around the infield. The flyouts were still all over.
2004 was goofy too. He had as many doubles to left as to right, though the singles were more to right. He hit more HRs the opposite way than ever before (though not many). The groundouts were pull-crazy, but the flyouts were almost exclusively to left field.
Last year, the singles and doubles trended a little bit more to right than in some years, the HRs were mostly to the right side (though Dunn has never been a guy to hook them down the line. Groundouts were pulled, while flyouts were mostly to center and left, though not as extreme as the year before.
So far at home this year: Singles are spaced all over the field, doubles are mostly to left, HRs are all to right-center, flyouts are symmetrically spaced around the field, and groundouts are to right.
Conclusion: I don’t think there’s anything at all to what Narron and McCoy are talking about – there’s no pattern whatsoever to this stuff – but I think Dunn’s on to the right mental approach here anyway.