Riley Greene has by no means seen the ball like this earlier than. You by no means know the way somebody will react to their first postseason expertise – gamers have been recognized to press or freeze up – however Greene has carried out no such factor. He’s chasing pitches outdoors the strike zone about as ceaselessly as he did within the common season. In the meantime, he’s locked in when pitchers problem him. He’s swinging at 85% of pitches within the strike zone, up from about 66% in the course of the common season. And when he will get one proper down the center, he’s going for it: He’s taken 13 swings at 15 such pitches, additionally an 85% swing price, up from 73% earlier than October.
Only one drawback: Greene is hitting .133/.278/.200 within the playoffs. He’s strolling at about the identical clip, and his strikeouts are barely down. In the meantime, his energy has fully disappeared. He has one extra-base hit, a double. He hasn’t barreled up a single ball. His bat pace is down two ticks from the common season, and down practically 2.5 mph from his second-half mark. He’s making extra weak contact and fewer arduous contact. These items don’t fairly make sense collectively. Are we taking a look at a fluke of batted ball luck or a development?
Now, let’s be trustworthy with ourselves. It’s most likely a minimum of partly a fluke of batted ball luck. We’re speaking about 4 video games right here, 18 plate appearances. You’re not alleged to learn an excessive amount of into samples that small, and if you happen to do, you need to give attention to essentially the most secure indicators you will discover. On-base share? Slugging? Heck, strikeout price? We haven’t seen practically sufficient to take these at face worth. However I do suppose one thing’s improper, so I believed I’d dig slightly deeper.
I’ll inform you immediately, the bat pace bit I discussed was a purple herring. Bat pace and swing size are correlated to hit course: pulled batted balls come from swings that meet the ball out in entrance of the plate, with typically longer swing lengths and sooner swing speeds. That’s simply physics. Listed below are Greene’s batted balls this postseason:
Wish to register decrease bat pace? Begin going oppo with all the things. I watched all of these swings to get an concept of what’s occurring right here. A few of them are simply Greene being a very good hitter. Right here he’s in a 1-2 depend in opposition to Tanner Bibee:
That’s nice work. With two strikes, he each shortened up and waited on his swing for a greater probability at pitch identification. It’s arduous to show round a 94-mph fastball on the outer third, so he didn’t attempt to; he simply stayed on airplane and “hit the ball the place it was pitched,” to make use of teaching parlance.
This Matthew Boyd sinker then again:
That’s a slower pitch, in a better location, in a friendlier depend. Greene didn’t publish his greatest skilled season by capturing balls like that the opposite manner; he sprayed them to all fields with authority, notably when he didn’t have his again in opposition to the wall. However, effectively, he additionally hit them the opposite manner typically. He simply acquired higher outcomes:
I picked that clip to point out the inherent problem of evaluating hitters based mostly on a small pattern. These two swings are strikingly comparable. They each got here on 91-mph fastballs that had been simply off of useless heart. They each got here in even counts, when Greene might hunt a pitch to hit. His swing in opposition to Boyd makes me suppose he was anticipating one thing smooth after which adjusted to a fastball. I’m unsure I might have made that alternative in opposition to Boyd, who began lefties with fastballs greater than half the time this yr, however I can perceive the pondering. One simply went out, and the opposite wanted ever so barely extra juice.
Whereas I used to be capable of finding different occasions that Greene poked a fastball the opposite option to nice success, I do suppose there’s one thing right here. Small pattern or no, not sufficient knowledge to stabilize however, it’s simply true that Greene is sending the ball the alternative manner way more ceaselessly within the final 4 video games than he often does.
Possibly it’s associated to the way in which he’s being pitched. Greene has confronted two lefty starters and a few lefty relievers already. A 3rd of the pitches he’s seen have include a platoon drawback, far increased than his profession price. That places him on the defensive proper from the beginning; like just about each lefty, he hits worse and pulls the ball much less ceaselessly in opposition to same-handed pitching.
It will get a bit weirder from there. There’s a common pitching rule that any youth coach can inform you: arduous in and smooth away. It refers to attacking hitters with fastballs inside after which secondary pitches that break free from them, to the skin fringe of the plate and even outdoors. It’s arduous to do this each time in follow, however as a common rule, most pitchers comply with it. Right here’s the place the fastballs Greene noticed this common season had been situated:
And listed here are all of the fastballs he’s seen within the playoffs:
To place it one other manner, 15% of the fastballs Greene confronted within the common season had been strikes within the interior third of the zone. Within the playoffs, he’s seen 39 fastballs. Precisely a type of has been on the interior third, and that was a demon cutter from Emmanuel Clase that dotted the interior edge at 101 and broke Greene’s bat. Usually, Greene feasts on these pitches. He doesn’t whiff usually, makes a ton of arduous contact, and slugs .691 when he places the ball in play.
He’s not getting an opportunity to do this up to now, and I think about that has made for a tough adjustment. To make issues much more complicated, pitchers are venturing inside with secondary pitches at double the speed they did within the common season. Lefties are front-dooring him with sliders, whereas righties are throwing them to his again foot, or a minimum of attacking the within edge to maintain him guessing when he leans out searching for fastballs.
It’s manner too early to say that that is the way in which to beat Greene. Once more, it’s been 4 video games. Change the batted ball luck simply barely, or let him catch that Boyd sinker only a tiny bit extra flush, and we could be speaking about how he’s adapting to the way in which he’s pitched and punishing pitchers for his or her unconventional strategy. However none of that has occurred, and truthfully, I don’t suppose he’s discovered how one can deal with it but. He actually has hit with much less authority, and he actually does appear to be getting rotated making an attempt to deal with all these outdoors fastballs.
Right here’s the excellent news for Tigers followers: Riley Greene is a famous person and a hitting genius. If he may very well be defeated by a easy tactic like finding fastballs someplace else, he wouldn’t have popped 24 homers and slugged .479 in cavernous Comerica Park, a subject that’s a depressing 16% beneath common in the case of lefty house runs. For those who present Greene the identical search for per week straight, it’s a fairly good guess that he’ll regulate to it.
Whenever you watch Greene bat as we speak, keep watch over the place the fastballs are. If the previous few video games are any indication, they’ll largely be up and away. And if they’re, it’s Greene’s job to make the opposition pay, both by punching them the opposite manner like he did in opposition to Bibee or by hammering those that leak over the center of the plate. To this point, he hasn’t been as much as the duty. But it surely’s solely a matter of time earlier than he figures it out. The one query is whether or not it should occur in time to rescue Detroit’s moribund offense, which has scored fewer than three runs a sport this October. He’ll have to regulate shortly – or hope for some extra Tarik Skubal shutouts to present him extra time to be taught.
