'He's rolling': Meyers' adjustments, resilience paying dividends

This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

HOUSTON -- At last year’s Winter Meetings, general manager Dana Brown proclaimed that Jake Meyers would be the team’s starting center fielder, a somewhat surprising declaration considering Meyers posted a .678 OPS last year in 341 plate appearances. The club was banking on Meyers recapturing the form showed when he broke into the big leagues in the 2021 season.

Meyers seriously injured his shoulder in the 2021 American League Division Series against the White Sox, which led to surgery and cost him most of the 2022 season. Last year, he slashed .227/.296/.382 with 10 homers in 112 games, including a career-low 27.9 percent hard-hit rate (and ranking in the 86th percentile in average exit velocity).

Through the Astros’ first 51 games of this season, Meyers was second on the team behind Kyle Tucker with a .914 OPS, slashing .300/.369/.545 with six homers and 21 RBIs in 123 plate appearances. A closer look at the numbers reveal that Meyers is doing almost everything better at the plate this year than last year.

“For me, that’s how I feel I can play the game at any time,” Meyers said. “To say I’m back or whatnot, yeah, sure, but I felt like I could play that way the entire time. Maybe it didn’t look that way on the outside, but that’s how I feel about it and I’m just in a good spot. I want to keep playing this way.”

Meyers’ average exit velocity is 92.2 mph this year, compared to 86 mph last year. His strikeout rate has plummeted from 25.8 percent last year to 17.9 percent this year. Meyers is hitting .354 with a .646 slugging percentage against fastballs.

“I really like when he just swings at what he knows he can handle,” manager Joe Espada said. “When he gets away from that approach, now he chases and tries to do too much. Now he’s not the hitter we know he’s capable of [being]. When I see signs like that, you’ve got to pull back a little bit and regroup and [say], ‘Let’s get you back on what we know you do best,’ and that’s what we did here. Now he’s rolling.”

Meyers said his success at the plate reinforces the work he’s been putting in before games and reminds him that he’s focusing on the right things.

“I would say trusting in my process, trusting my work in the cage and separating that from in the game, and just kind of going out there and competing in the game,” he said. “In past years, I was trying to be a little bit too perfect, or trying to hunt for the perfect pitch or whatnot. Now, just let the game come to me and play the game like I know how and try to keep getting better in the cage and before the game.”

Being able to hit the ball harder this year was a product of trying to get the barrel on it more consistently, and proper timing and pitch recognition had a lot to do with that. Perhaps more than ever, he knows his strengths and weaknesses.

“It’s really all about focusing on the day-to-day stuff, the process vs. the results, and the results will come and go,” Meyers said. “There’s ups and downs, but if you have a solid process you’re going through every day and you can focus on getting better and playing the game like you know how, that stuff will take care of itself.”