Glaus Reading His Future Well

He has scored 93 runs, driven in 104, slugged 28 homers and, oh boy, he hears people say, if he could only cut down on his strikeouts, shorten and level his swing and use his power to hit to the opposite field more often.

Troy Glaus is 26, in only his fourth full season as the Angel third baseman after not even one season of minor league preparation, already has a home run title and 416 runs batted in on his resume, and if he is learning on the fly ... well, says Glaus, “Theoretically, we’re all learning on the fly because the learning never stops. I don’t know of anybody who has licked [the game]. If you’re asking if I’d like to be more consistent, the answer is, of course, but consistency comes with time.”

The Angels are eyeing the playoffs for the first time in 16 years.

The process becomes easier when Glaus is producing with a measure of that elusive consistency, but adjusting his naturally long and uppercut swing to make it more disciplined and effective is not an easy process for the 6-foot-5, 240-pound Glaus.

As batting coach Mickey Hatcher strives patiently to accelerate the learning curve, he has received assistance recently from an unexpected source--me.

That is not to say that the third baseman’s power resurgence--he homered in each of his last three at-bats Sunday and again in his first at-bat Monday night--reflects the power of the pen.

Nevertheless, the facts are what they are.

About a month ago, through a circuitous route, Hatcher acquired an article on Philadelphia Phillie third baseman Mike Schmidt that I had written for The Times in 1986.

Schmidt, en route to the Hall of Fame with 548 home runs and 1,549 RBIs, would win his third and last most-valuable-player award that season.

In the article, Schmidt talked about the mental and mechanical adjustments of his early years, the emphasis he put on a focused batting practice in which he didn’t try to hit 60-mph pitches out of the park, and the benefits of a short, level swing aimed at hitting down on the ball and producing line drives.

If much of it echoed the themes Hatcher had been voicing to Glaus, he was not alone in that opinion.

Third base coach Ron Roenicke, a Philadelphia teammate of Schmidt’s, had been discussing with Angel shortstop David Eckstein the similarities between the young Glaus and young Schmidt, and how Glaus could improve by using some of Schmidt’s techniques.

Eckstein told Roenicke that his brother, Rick, the batting coach at Georgia, had an article on Schmidt that he often shared with his hitters and that he would get a copy of it for Roenicke.

Ultimately, the one Angel coach saw in it the same things that the other Angel coach did, and they gave Glaus (and several other Angels) a copy, with the following Schmidt quote circled:

“Think about it. Most hits are either ground balls or line drives. The more times you attempt to hit it on a line, the more hits you are apt to get.”

For Glaus, the article “simplified things, gave me a different perspective. I mean, when you think about getting on top and hitting hard ground balls, it makes sense. But I also believe that the situation in the game, the type of pitch you get, dictates the type swing you try to put on the ball. The picture-perfect swing would be flat for four or five feet through the hitting zone, but is it feasible for anyone to do that on a consistent basis? I don’t know.”

It is definitely easier to read and think about than to put into consistent practice.

If Glaus is also saddled with a bit of stubbornness, that too is something on which the Angels are working.

“No one is asking Troy to cut down on his home runs,” Roenicke said. “Schmidt believed he could raise his batting average and ribbies without hurting his home runs, and he hit more than 500. Short, level swing. Center the ball. Hit down on it. Troy is putting in the effort. He works with Mickey every day. He’ll reach the point where it becomes automatic.”

The Angels believe Glaus will eventually find the consistency enabling him to reduce those inevitable periods when he struggles.

He was batting .286 at the end of May, then hit .182 in June and .217 in July. He hit .276 in August, when he received the article, and he has hit six homers and driven in 15 runs in the first 16 games of September.

“It’s not there every time,” Hatcher said, “but he’s working hard at staying inside the ball with a nice, short swing. He’s using his hands, trying to stay on top, trying to hit it [to the opposite field] when the pitch is there. This is definitely the right time for him to get it going.”

Glaus was hitless Tuesday night as the Angels defeated the A’s, 1-0, in what had been a brilliant pitching duel between Jarrod Washburn and Mark Mulder before Tim Salmon won it with a home run off Billy Koch in the 10th. Glaus is now hitting .249 with 19 fewer home runs than he hit in 2000 and 13 fewer than last year, primarily the result of his midsummer slump.

Hatcher and Roenicke believe there’s no reason he can’t hit .270, .280, which would mean that many more RBIs and, perhaps, home runs, but Glaus said, “People put too much weight on average and home runs. Aside from wins, the only statistics that matter to me are runs and runs driven in. The only thing that matters are your numbers at the end. If we win, I’ll be satisfied with my year.”

Said Darin Erstad, the Angels’ unofficial captain: “Troy has struggled at times this year and he’s still driven in more than 100 runs, still may hit 30 home runs. It just shows how talented he is and how good he’s going to be. I mean, people forget how quickly he came up. He’s had to take his bumps under the bright lights.”

Schmidt encountered similar bumps. It’s all there for the reading.