Batter up, hands down
Boone adjusted swing during winter
BY SCOTT MacGREGOR
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Two miserable years have caused Bret Boone to rethink his approach to hitting.
Bret Boone often looked lost at the plate last season. | ZOOM |
After seeing his average decline from .320 his rookie year to .223 last season, he believes he has found a solution.
Boone, 28 and entering his fifth major league season, has made adjustments to his swing and batting stance this offseason and hopes he can get his average back to respectability. He has spent most of the winter in California taking batting practice from his father, Bob, the former major league catcher current Reds consultant. Bret Boone said he began his hitting workouts a month earlier than normal.
The changes aren't grand, Boone said, but he has shortened his swing and lowered his hands, scrapping his eccentric bat-wrapped-around-the-head stance and moving his front foot out for a more open look at the pitcher.
It could mean the difference between being the Reds' starting second baseman and sitting behind two younger, versatile up-and-comers pushing for his job.
''I'm trying to get back to hitting the ball the way I know I can hit,'' Boone said Monday from his home in Orlando, Fla. ''That's my objective for this season. It's not that I've changed my swing, but I've made some minor adjustments I think will be a positive thing. I knew what I wanted to do, and I've been working harder this winter.'' Reds' hitting coach Ken Griffey has seen Boone's new approach and said the changes are definitely for the better.
''To me, he's made a big change,'' Griffey said. ''He feels good about himself and about the way he's swinging the bat. We just have to wait and see how he does over the course of the year, but him making the adjustments in the offseason is good.''
The tinkering should pay off come Opening Day, Boone said, but added ''I'm going to need a full spring training to get comfortable with it.''
Boone's average has fallen each full year he has spent in the major leagues, from .320 in 1994 to. 267 in 1995, .233 in 1996 and .223 last season.
''I feel the last year or year-and-a-half I've fallen short of what I'm capable of doing,'' he said. ''Last season was a big disappointment. I can't really explain it. I've been talking about it, but talk is cheap and now I've got to go onto the field and do it.''
Boone, who in the past has resisted any change in his swing, said he tried to make minor adjustments last season but never got in a groove.
He started off in a hole, hitting just .133 through May 5, but then heated up for the next month, hitting .296 over a 29-game stretch. That, however, was followed by a 3-for-45 slump, including an 0-for-26 skid that ranked as the worst in his career.
Boone was hitting .205 with two home runs and 19 RBI when he was optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis June 18, only to be recalled four days later.
''I got out of the gates real slow, and it was an uphill climb from there,'' Boone said. ''I'd try something different, and it would work for two days, and then it wouldn't work anymore. Nothing was consistent. It's tough to change things radically in the middle of the season.''
Griffey said the key to getting that consistency this season will be keeping Boone on an even keel mentally.
''It's more mental than physical, him knowing that he's mentally prepared,'' Griffey said.
The mental difference, Boone said, is that he is confident in what he has changed and confident he can be a productive hitter again.
Boone will need all his newfound confidence. Reds manager Jack McKeon has said Boone will get competition this spring from young infielders Pokey Reese and Damian Jackson, but Boone says he's just concentrating on his swing adjustments right now. If there's anyone better, he says, prove it.
''I'm not really worried about that,'' Boone said.
Boone, who set a single-season major league record last year for highest fielding percentage by a second baseman, plays better defense at second than either Reese or Jackson, both of whom are natural shortstops.
But Boone needs to prove he can still hit at the major league level.
