How J-Rod rebounded: 'Going through tough times is fun'

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

SEATTLE --Even if the start to Julio Rodríguez’s 2023 season was just a blip, Scott Servais offered that it might be a good thing in the grand scheme of his player development.

“He's going to play this game for another 15-20 years, he's going to struggle again,” the Mariners’ manager said. “I hate to tell people that, but it will happen. And when it does, you look back at, 'OK, how did I get out of this last time?' Did I press too much early? Did I panic a little bit early?’

“It'll pay dividends in the future, but I love him this way when he’s smoking two or three hits every day and hitting the ball out of the ballpark. It's fun.”

Indeed, Rodríguez has been swinging one of MLB’s hottest bats. He's now 16-for-34 on the homestand, with three homers, seven runs scored and 10 RBIs. He’s been worth more wins above replacement in this stretch (0.9), per FanGraphs, than the first seven-plus weeks combined (0.7).

First 44 games: .204/.280/.376 (.656 OPS), 0.7 WAR, 94 wRC+, 40.4% hard-hit rate

This homestand (8 games): .471/.486/.853 (1.339 OPS), 0.9 WAR, 264 wRC+, 66.7% hard-hit rate

It’s perhaps been no coincidence that the Mariners went 6-1 last week, too, before Monday’s loss to the Yankees.

“I feel like going through tough times is fun,” Rodríguez told reporters. “It's fun to be able to come on top. And it's definitely been a lot of work with the people close to me. And I'm feeling excited with where things are heading.”

Asked what’s behind his turnaround, Rodríguez put his finger to his lips and good-naturedly preferred not to divulge. But a combination of swing decisions, driving pull-side balls to the air and tapping back into his rare back-spinning, opposite-field power are among primary causes.

A look at each, but going back further, when he was moved out of the leadoff spot on May 10:

Swing decisions

Rodríguez was striking out 28.9% of the time before moving down in the order, which was the 24th-highest rate among 173 qualified hitters, and up from 25.9% last year. It was more the how than the what that proved alarming, as the formula against him became explicit: fastballs on his hands early in counts, which he could do virtually no damage with, and offspeed/breaking pitches out of the zone when he fell behind, which led to non-competitive chases.

Rodríguez’s K rate is 23.8% since dropping in the order. There’s still chase in his game, but it’s probably always going to be there. It’s how he harnesses that weakness into a strength when the sequence calls for it -- hitting a pitcher’s pitch, for example -- that makes it a much more effective attribute.

Quality of contact

Rodríguez is hitting 58.8% of his pull side balls into the ground, above the 54.9% league average for righty hitters and a correlation to just four hits. He’s improved marginally here, but the bigger takeaway has been the massive uptick in hard-hit rate (anything 95 mph or higher) and its link to damage.

A whopping 18 of his 27 batted balls this homestand have been hard-hit, MLB’s most since last Monday, and he’s turned 12 of them into hits, including all three homers.

Behind the scenes, one front-office official described Rodríguez as swinging more north/south rather than east/west, which perhaps has helped him “get inside the baseball” better.

“You can't walk up and say, 'OK, I'm trying to hit this ball in the air,'” Servais said. “Oftentimes, it's tied into your swing path and what's going on there.”

Opposite-field power

Half of Rodríguez’s 16 hits this homestand have been to the opposite field, perhaps the most telling sign that he’s heating up. A sizable 81 of his 145 hits last year, more than half, were hit in those directions.

“I feel like that's where my strengths lie,” Rodríguez said. “I feel like that's where I'm really good. I like being able to drive the ball the other way and I feel like that's what I'm doing … just sticking to my strengths and playing my cards and not trying to do too much. I’m just taking what the game keeps giving me right now.”

Raw athleticism

A more than 200-point uptick in on-base percentage this homestand has also Rodríguez’s elite speed and baserunning play more often. Take his impressive slide between the catcher’s legs on a sacrifice score on Saturday, a play in which he was initially ruled out before Servais challenged.

“He knows that when he's rolling, our team is just that much better,” Servais said. “He adds such a different dynamic to our offense when he's on the bases and doing all the things he can do.”