Dodgers’ Yasmani Grandal has been on a tear this month, but don’t ask him why
Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal has never been one to overly scrutinize his swing.
“This game is hard enough as it is,” the six-year veteran said before Thursday night’s 7-2 victory over the Miami Marlins. “If you get into analyzing why you’re not hitting this or that pitch, why you’re doing better here and not there, I think you’re going to have a really hard and short career.
“I come in, I try to do my job on a daily basis. If it doesn’t come out the way I want it to, it doesn’t. I try to perfect it the next day, but not by overanalyzing it.”
Grandal’s approach explains why the switch-hitter struggles to come up with an explanation for why he has been on such a tear this month.
Grandal hit .194 with a .677 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, three homers, three doubles and seven RBIs in 22 games through April 29, but a three-hit game against Philadelphia on April 30 sparked a hot streak he has carried well into May.
Grandal enters Friday night’s game with a .404 average (21 for 52), a 1.022 OPS, one homer, seven doubles and 13 RBIs in his previous 14 games, including a key two-run double in Wednesday’s win at San Francisco. The surge boosted his season average to .286.
“If I could pinpoint the exact thing that triggered it, I would tell you, but I have no idea,” Grandal said. “I don’t think it was anything out of the ordinary that I did.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts believes the difference in Grandal’s April and May is that “he’s swinging at pitches in the zone. When Yasmani conducts a professional at-bat and stays in the strike zone, he’s very elite.”
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