Sean Rodriguez has been a spark for the Pirates offense so far this season. This is how he’s doing it.
Sean Rodriguez is one of many positives that have come up on the offensive side of the slate for the Pittsburgh Pirates going through the month of April. Rodriguez, who has been utilized as a defensive replacement for the Pirates for the majority of his time in Pittsburgh, has already surpassed his RBI and home run numbers from the 2015 season while only having 24 at bats so far.
Rodriguez, like most of the other Pirate batters, is being patient at the plate and taking what the opposing pitchers are giving him. Up until this point, he has a swing rate of pitches outside the zone of 18.3 percent. Compare this to his career average of 30.3 percent.
Rodriguez’s eye has been a huge help for him. While he has not been swinging at as many pitches outside the zone, he is taking advantage of he pitches in the zone that he sees. He doesn’t waste many pitches in the zone, swinging at 58.6 percent of those pitches and he has made contact with 71 percent of those pitches he swings at in the zone.
After the Pirates started off slow with runners in scoring position, they batted .429 with RISP in three games in Arizona. Rodriguez was a big reason why. He is averaging 2.2 at bats between RBIs and has a six run advantage above his replacement.
Rodriguez has been capitalizing on pitches on the inner third of the plate. Especially ones that are from the belt, to his knees. This seems to be a trend in Rodriguez’s career going back to 2014, when he hit 12 home runs for the Tampa Bay Rays. The only difference is, that so far this year, Rodriguez has been able to catch up to the pitches up in the zone. You may credit this to better timing mechanisms in his batting stance and approach.
Still, Rodriguez’s power zone has stayed the same. Both of Rodriguez’s home runs came on fastballs from the belt and lower while in Arizona. Rodriguez has the ability to spray the ball all over the field as we saw in the last series. He hit a mammoth home run to left center in one at bat and was able to keep his hands inside the ball and drive one the opposite way on another.
The key to Rodriguez keeping these numbers up is the consistency in at bats that he is receiving. Rodriguez also had a hot start last season batting .406 through mid may only to cool off the rest of the season. This may be a challenge for him once Jung-Ho Kang returns to the Pirates lineup.
It is almost certain that the first base platoon will then become John Jaso and David Freese, which would leave Rodriguez as the odd man out. However, if his bat continues to stay hot until then, it will be up to Clint Hurdle to get him in the lineup and keep this offense going.
Sean Rodriguez’s highest batting average in a season for his career was .251 in 2010 with Tampa Bay. That year, he had 378 plate appearances, the second most of his career. While he will not get near that many this season with the Pirates, it is important for Hurdle to get him consistent at bats to keep Rodriguez in the zone.
Featured image credit: MLB.com
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
