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It's pay wall so I'll post it
After hitting three balls 100 mph or harder from his left-hand side, including a 457-foot blast that put his season line up to .137/.384/.363 (124 wRC+), White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal provided the most straightforward explanation yet for how his spring training right knee injury has fueled his profoundly weird and weirdly productive season.
“I got into some bad habits, not being able to put as much torque as I wanted on the front knee,” said Grandal, whose right knee is his front knee in his left-handed swing. “Started flying open. The league kind of noticed. But now that it’s getting better, that’s what we are working for. Transfer that weight to the front side and make sure that front side is stiff and put as much torque as I possibly can put on it. We are going to continue to work on that. Once we get that going, that’s the last piece.”
Grandal’s tangible cause-and-effect explanation of how physical compromise contributed to mechanical issues is complemented by hitting coach Frank Menechino’s explanation of how such a struggle to drive the ball with authority, even amid his ability to get on base, affected Grandal mentally.
“Yaz, he’s a competitor. He really wants to get out there and show everybody that he’s a really good hitter, and the walks prove that he’s got a good eye, but now it’s time to use that good eye and just try to get base hits,” said Menechino. “Here’s like, a process: You get mad, you break shit, you say, ‘Fuck it, I don’t care anymore,’ and then you say, ‘I really don’t care; I’m just going to go up there,’ and that’s the cycle. So once you get to the point where you don’t care if you get a hit anymore, ‘I’m just going to barrel the ball,’ your swing calms down, your body calms down, your mind calms down.”
Grandal’s absurd 2021 walk rate (28.6 percent) actually balloons to 40 percent from the right side, but he has always expressed confidence in his right-handed stroke, even earlier this season when he was being coy about the depth of his left-handed struggles. Grandal has spoken about his right-handed swing being linked to his throwing mechanics, where both call upon him to drive off his right leg. That’s not unaffected by a knee injury either, but shifting his weight into that right knee, keeping it stiff and finishing his swing through it, has taken more time and strengthening to master.
“There’s always going to be some frustration when you’re hitting .130,” said Zack Collins. “But there’s a lot more that goes into it behind the scenes. He’s in here working his butt off every day. He’s taking his walks. His OPS is not as bad as people think.”
What Grandal did to get on base at a tremendous rate in the absence of his left-handed stroke was impressive, unprecedented and useful if deployed properly. But he’s been batting sixth the bulk of the time because the Sox keep expecting him to snap back to being a power bat and not just the guy who has hit half of his 14 hits out of the park over a two-month span. And as he shows his first signs of getting on track, it’s clear that’s what Grandal expects too.
“Whether it was a home run that barely made it or went as far as it did, I’m glad I got something up in the air,” Grandal said of Thursday night’s blast. “You can see what happens when I do that.”
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