This story was excerpted from the Rockies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox. Manny Randhawa is filling in for Thomas Harding for this story.

DENVER -- In the seventh inning of the Rockies’ loss to the Giants at Coors Field on Tuesday, Ryan McMahon smashed an RBI double to left-center field off left-hander Sean Manaea.

McMahon’s drive one-hopped the wall for his fifth double in 12 games -- during that span (May 25-June 6), he also had a triple, five home runs and 16 RBIs and batted .438. He had never to that point had a 12-game span with a higher batting average, more hits or more RBIs.

The question with McMahon has always been: Have we seen the best of him at the plate? The Rockies have been waiting to see what the slick-fielding infielder can do if he unlocks all of the potential they see in his bat. He’s shown glimpses in the past, but they were fleeting.

But is this time different? There might be a clue in that at-bat against Manaea on Tuesday.

“[Earlier this year], I would’ve fouled that pitch off,” McMahon said. “If I even touched it. I probably would’ve missed it.”

And therein lies what has been McMahon’s biggest roadblock in trying to find consistency as a hitter: missing his pitch early in the count, immediately digging himself a hole and giving the pitcher leverage.

McMahon has tried different adjustments to his approach, including when he found success during Cactus League play by shortening his path to the baseball and allowing the pitcher to supply more power in the equation.

Those spring adjustments remain a part of his process, but McMahon has returned to something foundational.

“I sat down with Bam-Bam [hitting coach Hensley Meulens] and other coaches and watched some video,” McMahon said. “They noticed that my hands were kind of traveling with my hips, some basic sequencing stuff.”

Sequencing is crucial to success at the plate, and other hitters have also credited the right sequencing with an offensive renaissance -- first the front foot comes down, then the hips start coming through before the hands finally complete the process by setting the swing in motion.

McMahon was straying from that earlier this season and, as a result, he was hitting .212/.289/.371 on May 24.

That’s when it clicked. It was time to go back to something he was taught when he was five years old.

“Luckily, for me, while I was growing up there was this drill my dad and I used to do,” McMahon said. We called it ‘Step, Hips, Hands.’ It’s a drill I did a lot in the Minor Leagues and I just kind of lost sight of it.”

McMahon dug in deeper. He overlaid the swing of one particular hitter atop his own to accentuate the placement of the hands when the hips start creating torque.

“The swing overlay was with Kyle Tucker’s,” McMahon said. “We put his and mine side by side, and he was doing a really good job of keeping his hands back while his hips were going, and my hands were traveling with my hips.”

Keeping the hands back allows McMahon to let the ball travel deeper and to see it longer before making contact. That’s why he has been crushing some of the pitches he used to miss, including the opposite-field double off Manaea.

On the left here is an early-May at-bat against the Brewers’ Freddy Peralta in which McMahon missed a fastball up in the zone, a pitch similar to the Manaea offering he launched to left-center.

Next to that one is the at-bat against Manaea. Notice the difference of where the hands are at the same stage of his loading process.

McMahon is fond of object lessons, and he gave a good one to illustrate “Step, Hips, Hands.”

“What’s faster when you’re driving a car?” he asked. “If you’re going dead-straight or if you have to slow down to make a turn? It’s the same with my hands -- if I have to turn them with my hips, I’m in trouble. If I can see it longer and have my hands go straight to the ball, I’m good.”

McMahon hasn’t been slowing down to make any turns lately. Instead, he’s kept his foot on the gas pedal and he might just have an open highway ahead of him.