Ahead of the series opening Monday in San Francisco, a struggling Joey Votto spoke to reporters about his need to hit ‘gap balls, balls off the wall, balls over the fence’.
Votto does not mention ‘balls into McCovey Cove’, but he did hit one of them in the sixth innings of the Reds’ 3-0 win over the Giants at Oracle Park.
Between Votto’s first big swat of the season and Jesse Winker’s triumphant return of a calf edition with a two-stroke homer in the third, a Reds series that was rolling earlier seems to be deeper than San Francisco Bay. And to get Wade Miley’s second pointless performance in so many starts, 3 2/3 pointless innings of relief from Tejay Antone and Lucas Sims’ first save certainly doesn’t hurt either.
However, Votto is always a solution to this Reds offense. And during the first week and a half of the season, the point of fixation was a point of frustration. Votto entered this series with one of the lowest percentages (.162) and OPS points (.367) of any regular in the major leagues, despite its best Statcast performance rate (39.4%) since 2016.
“I’m not where I want to be,” Votto said before Monday’s game. “The ball has to go over the fence, and I have not done it yet.”
Votto last year adjusted his stance to hit the ball with more authority and sacrifice some of his elite discipline for power. But last season, pitchers threw fast balls for him 61.1% of the time.
This year it was only 49%.
“Not only that, some of the fast balls were most higher in the zone,” Votto said. ‘I have to burn the other options that burn pitchers, and I have to burn higher fast balls. And then at some point I will get quality heights to beat. … I just have to make that adjustment. It will come. If it does not come, I’m in the wrong league. ”
Votto clearly had decided to counter-attack when they could. At that, Jarlin García was noted down for a hat trick! The scorched 104 km / h wall in the water makes him the first Reds player to ever hit one in the Cove.
So this is one for the books. But more importantly, the solo recording was good for the soul. Votto has hit 10 balls 100 mph or more this season, but only three of them have hit for hits. Two of the playoffs were hosted on Monday night on a third track and an eighth innings.
The poor volleyball luck made Votto the lone Reds regular with an below-average OPS + entering Monday’s game. The Reds had the most runs (69) in the Majors with at least 11, and they had the highest OPS (.857) with 10 points. They did so with very little contribution from a future Hall of Famer in Votto and with Winker, who has been their best hit so far, to just 16 innings.
Although the victory on Monday did not yield or require an offensive explosion, the sources of the only offense were very welcome. Winker is off the bench, and Votto is off the bag. This is good for a dangerous Reds offense.
‘It’s really important [for Votto] to just stick with it and try not to change anything and just keep hitting the ball hard as it is, ”said manager David Bell.
Votto still received little consolation from his hard hit rate.
“No matter how hard it gets off my bat, I’m supposed to do it,” he said. ‘I made the change last year. That change is already being talked about. I want to do it. But the ball has to go over the fence, the ball has to go into the gap. ”