Twice is nice: Brennan keeps up hot start to June with 2-HR game

CLEVELAND -- Guardians manager Stephen Vogt went out of his way Thursday morning to mention that Will Brennan has been hitting the ball harder than anyone realizes. It just seems that the ball finds a defender more often than not. That is, until just a few hours later.

Brennan proved just how hard he’s been making contact by recording his first career multihomer game in the Guardians’ 6-3 victory over the Mariners at Progressive Field. As these two teams have emerged as early playoff contenders, the victory secured the Guardians the advantage in any possible tiebreaker scenarios.

“When you’re hitting the ball hard, you want to see it fall,” Vogt said. “I don’t care how much you say, ‘Hey, good swing,’ or ‘Stay right there.’ You want hits. You want results. For Will, his swings the last couple weeks have been phenomenal and he’s getting results. But a three-hit game, two homers, that’s a pretty good day.”

It’s true. If you look at Brennan’s stats, nothing jumps off the page. If you look at his underlying stats, nothing is jarring. But the Guardians have seen a quality hitter all season. They knew that it was only a matter of time before balls started finding more holes. Or in Thursday’s case, finding more seats.

Brennan’s hard-hit rate is up 7.1 percent and his barrel percentage nearly tripled from last season. The minor details tell us it should pay off eventually and yet, he’s had very little to show for it, as he entered the day with a .244 average and .678 OPS.

Brennan has had some success this year; it’s just come in random, short spurts. But in his last 15 games in May, Brennan hit just .171 with a .505 OPS.

That’s when it was time to go back to the drawing board. Guardians hitting coach Chris Valaika was determined to get Brennan to simplify his approach.

“Val has worked really hard with me on not trying to focus so much on the mechanical aspect of things,” Brennan said, “and really focus on the approach and really just slowing things down and trying to make sure that I’m swinging at good pitches in my zones that I can do damage on. It’s starting to show up.”

Before June 1, Brennan owned a 34.3 percent chase rate. Since the month began, it’s dropped to 27.2 percent. In 14 games in June, he’s hit .333 with three homers, five RBIs and a .953 OPS with multihit performances in four of his last six contests.

“You get with the hitting group and they suggest something,” Vogt said. “Or you put your heads together on something then you go out and you see it work, that makes you believe in it and want to keep working on it.”

Nothing boosts confidence more than a two-homer day. Brennan started in the second inning with a 401-foot blast over the “P” in the Progressive sign on the right-field wall. He added a ground-rule double in the fourth before his second home run was hit seven letters to the right of the first one, just clearing the letter “S” in right field.

Not only was it Brennan’s first career multihomer game, but it also marked his first career contest with at least three extra-base hits -- all three of which clocked in with exit velocities over 101 mph.

“You always have to keep your head up and keep your confidence,” Brennan said. “One thing about me, I always love just putting the work in, show up and get ready to do stuff in the cage. No matter what happens the night before, it’s always a new day the next day. The past few weeks -- kind of change of plan -- and it’s starting to pay off a little bit.”

Brennan has watched his season average go up from .229 to .254 this month – the highest it’s been since his ninth game of the year on April 9. The Guardians have watched him deliver in big moments. They’ve seen him string together a couple of days of success. But the last two weeks have been the most consistent he’s been all season long. Will it last? The team is certainly hoping so.

“For Will specifically, he’s had a couple stretches like this,” Vogt said. “He’s in a position to sustain it right now.”