Arenado's frustration grows: 'My swing is not good'

CINCINNATI – Frustrated and admittedly at a loss for answers after going through the worst power outage of his illustrious MLB career, star third baseman Nolan Arenado admitted following the Cardinals' 3-1 loss to the Reds on Monday that he’s tried everything from watching old video of himself to tinkering with his swing to analyzing every piece of statistical data he can get his hands on.

The results, Arenado stressed again and again on Monday, all point to one obvious area for the eight-time MLB All-Star: He is having tremendous difficulty in regaining the stroke that helped him hit at least 30 home runs and drive in 100 runs for seven straight seasons from 2015-22 (excluding the shortened 2020 season).

“It’s bad. The swing is not good, my swing is not good,” Arenado said after an 0-for-4 day at the plate dropped his batting average to .258. “I’ve been working on it and trying to figure this thing out, but my swing is not good.

“I’m a guy that pulls the ball in the air and I haven’t done that all year. I don’t know what the answers are. I’ve got to continue to try to find it. I can see the difference of when I was good and when I’m not, but trying to apply it in games right now is really hard for me.”

The raw data isn’t pretty for the 33-year-old Arenado. The owner of an .864 OPS through a career that already has made him a strong Hall of Fame candidate, Arenado has a career-worst .663 through Monday -- his 11th straight game without a homer. He didn’t homer until the 14th game of this season -- a three-run smash at Arizona on April 12 -- and then went another 19 games before going deep. Now, he hasn’t homered since smashing a long ball on May 13 in Anaheim (near where he works tirelessly throughout the offseason to try to remain one of the game’s most feared hitters).

Four days remain in May, and Arenado has some work to do to ensure that it’s not his worst start to a season in terms of his power production. Arenado ended the month with just four home runs in his rookie season of 2013, and he had just six home runs going into June in 2014. Over the past three years, he had nine (2023), nine (2022) and 11 home runs (2021) after play in March, April and May. It’s a far cry from his dominant days of 2016 (16), 2019 (15), 2015 (12) and 2017 (12) when he punished pitchers early in seasons with long balls.

“I think it’s a mixture of mechanics, but mentally it’s been frustrating,” said Arenado, who stressed that past back and wrist injuries aren’t to blame. “I mean, I’ve gone through struggles, but I’m still able to hit the ball in the air. But what I’m going through now is something that I’ve never gone quite like this. But my at-bats have been just terrible.

“I haven’t felt like me all year. It’s been a while. I don’t think it’s gone. I still move fast, and I’ve gone through all the numbers -- and the [random] numbers -- and they still tell me I’m moving as fast as I ever have, but there’s a mechanical issue and approach thing. I haven’t been me in the last five months of baseball.”

Sensing Arenado’s frustration is growing, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol attempted to give Arenado what he called “a breather” on Monday by dropping him to fifth in the order behind rookie catcher Iván Herrera.

“In hitting in the middle of the lineup there, at the No. 3 or 4, as he has, we’ve had conversations and I felt like getting Herrera up there today made sense,” said Marmol, who was clearly choosing his words carefully.

Particularly at issue with Arenado is his ability to jump on fastballs and pull them out of the park. From 2021-23, he pulled a staggering 87 of his 90 home runs into the seats in left. His lowest percentages of pulled home runs came in 2018 (55.3 percent) and 2017 (67.6 percent). This season, while two of his three homers have been pulled, he’s regularly been late to pitches while spraying them to right and center field.

“I’m a guy who flirts with [his swing] too much and I’ve always been that way, but I also know what I’m doing now is not good, so I don’t want to just sit there and not [work],” Arenado said. “I always watch old video of myself and mimic those good moves. But sometimes when you create bad habits, they’re hard to break. This one is taking a long time.”