He knew he had to go back out there. But he couldn't go back out there and swing at everything. He had to be patient. |
He's getting a lot of base hits to the opposite field, which is a positive. He stopped hitting the lazy fly balls to right field. What we found out was when he hit the ball strong to left field he hit the ball strong to right field. |
He's given himself a much better chance. |
He's not in screaming distance of what he was. It's just a matter of him committing to doing it. It's not difficult to (fix). It's nothing new. It's just something he's gotten away from. |
I think it's his drive. He wants to achieve a lot. He has some goals that he doesn't talk about. |
If somebody else tried to do what Jimmy does, they'd leave here in a straightjacket. He's different. What works for him probably wouldn't work for somebody else. He's so gifted, and that's probably made what he's going through worse. |
If the guys around him are swinging the bat well, he's naturally going to get better pitches to hit. Now he's been overanxious because they're not coming after him. We don't have enough guys around him swinging the bat really well. |
In a nutshell, offensively we're struggling. The nuts and bolts of what's going on - that's it. We're struggling. |
It was taboo to strike out a lot. Now there's so much emphasis on the home run, guys can make good money even if they swing and miss a lot. |
It's fun to win and you play to win. Amazingly, when I went to spring training, the thought was to win it all. The thought has always been to win it all. So far, we've continued to win. We've won all year. But there was no thought of playing .500 or being competitive. The only thought was winning it all. It's fun. |
It's tough. The key for me is him keeping his head back. I saw that as the cause of his inconsistency. ... Hopefully he'll get into form before the year's out. |
Jimmy's been off and on, and we know how capable he is. He either bats before or after Albert. It's going to be important that we hit around Albert so he gets pitched to, so he feels he can take his base on balls and another guy will do it. It's going to be important for (Edmonds) to have a good week. |
Make them pitch into his strike zone. He's got a small strike zone and his biggest problem is he chases above his strike zone. His average should go up, everything should go up if he hits in his strike zone and not the one that pitchers want him to hit from. |
Nobody could hit like that. Plus, the league is not going to let you hit that way. You might get a few hits, but you're not really going to hit that way. |
On-base percentage is No. 1. If you strike out a hundred times, but you also walk a hundred times, you're a pretty good hitter -- like Bobby Abreu. Yeah, he'll strike out. But his on-base percentage is always over .400, which is what you want. |