Burger hopes big HR marks turning point as season nears

JUPITER, Fla. -- Marlins third baseman Jake Burger figured he was close to righting the ship when he laid off a nasty slider during his first at-bat on Monday afternoon. A couple days ago, it would have been a pitch he whiffed on.

Burger was right, and shortly afterward -- in the sixth inning of Miami’s 6-5 walk-off Grapefruit League win at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium -- he took Astros closer Josh Hader deep. Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed Burger with a solo shot of his own.

With camp set to break on Sunday, this would be the perfect time for Burger to regain form and find peace of mind. Before the homer, he was 4-for-35 (.114) with just one extra-base hit (a double), 13 strikeouts and one walk in 13 Grapefruit League games. Burger, who cut down on the strikeouts once he was dealt from the White Sox (32%) to the Marlins (22%), entered Monday with a 38.2% K rate (it dropped to 35.1% after his performance).

“I'm a competitor and I want to get results, but sometimes I've just got to take a step back and analyze what I'm doing,” Burger said. “[It] felt like my sequence was out of whack a little bit in my swing. My hands were firing before my back hip. It's one of those things where you're going to be jumping at the ball all the time, and you're going to have to make decisions a lot quicker and almost out of hand in a sense. So it's definitely harder to make solid contact when you're doing that.”

But the 27-year-old stuck with the process and as a result, he sent Hader’s 93.5 mph inside sinker a projected 432 feet to left field, according to Statcast -- the farthest-hit ball of any Spring Training game on Monday. With a 109 mph exit velocity, it was the game’s hardest-hit ball.

Another encouraging sign was the location of the pitch. When Burger came over in the White Sox trade, hitting coach John Mabry worked with him on a bat path that could get to more pitches -- not just ones over the plate.

Miami’s lineup, which could be one of its deepest in years, will need Burger’s power to help offset All-Star slugger Jorge Soler’s departure. Healthy for a full season for the first time, the 27-year-old Burger slugged 34 homers and drove in 80 runs in a career-high 141 games.

“Chasing hits, pressing, swinging at everything,” manager Skip Schumaker of Burger this spring. “I think when you start to do that, then that means you're not seeing the ball and you're not trusting the process. And it's March 18. The last thing you need to do is chase hits and hope for that type of thing to happen. He's a really good hitter. He's going to be a big part of this team and this franchise for a long time.

“So the 30 at-bats in Spring Training -- he cares, and that's why he's like pressing, probably -- but remembering how good of a hitter he is. Sometimes it just takes the one hit -- and it doesn't matter if it's a homer or blooper or whatever. Just to remember that you can get a hit and you've done it before and it's going to be OK. There's peaks and valleys in this game, even in Spring Training. If you're a competitor, you want to get hits, so I totally get it. I was a hitter once, too, and I didn't like seeing my average .150 or whatever it is. But it's time to remember how good of a hitter you are and not worry about that so much. It's easy for me to say that.”

Funny enough, it is easier said than done. Burger doesn’t take anything for granted, not only because he didn’t make the White Sox 2023 Opening Day roster after doing so in ‘22, but also because of the journey he took to achieve success.

“It's crazy thinking back a year ago, where I was at, both mentally and physically with everything that was going on,” Burger said. “I think that for me, it's kind of a motivator. That's always going to be in the back of my mind. I always feel like I'm going to have to keep proving myself no matter what. So that's the mindset always every single day I step into this clubhouse. I'm going to try and get 1% better and let my natural ability take over.”