George: Making more consistently good throws, just throwing the ball and hitting my cut-off man, getting the ball and getting rid of it fast. Hitting-wise, it’s just something I need to keep doing over and over until I just become more consistent and put the ball in play. And full concentration on every pitch. You know, I’ll make a great catch one play and I come back and miss that same ball. And, you’ve just got to become consistent where you’re making that catch every time. Following it all the way into your glove. Royce: Here’s something from a scouting report, a very recent one praising your good season. It says, "Basically, he has to keep command of the strike zone." All right, what does that mean? George: Keeping command of the strike zone means narrow your strike zone, I think, to being a little more pitch-selective. I can’t swing at all the bad pitches. It’s where I’m always ahead in the count and where you’re always in command. I think the hitters most of the time get themselves out by swinging at bad pitches. Royce: All right, so get me a little bit closer to the situation here. When you’re up there, are you thinking, "Keep command of the strike zone?" Is that one of the thoughts?
Royce: But if you’re just going up to see the ball and hit the ball, when are you thinking about the strike zone? Before at bats? In the dugout? When is the self-talk about patience? George: During batting practice. All that. When I go up to hit, depending on the situation, usually I’m looking for one pitch. If that pitch is there, I swing at it. I try to make a good pass at it. And, if it’s not, even if it’s for a strike – if I’m looking for a fastball, right in this one situation, one spot, or even a breaking ball in this one spot, then I’ll swing at it. Early in the count you can do that. Now, later in the count, you’ve got to open your strike zone up a little bit and just try to stay alive and foul pitches off. But when you’re actually up there, you want try and narrow that zone down to a smaller zone. Royce: Is getting and keeping command of the strike zone something that any player could learn, or do you have to have some ability to see the ball particularly well. Do you think Wade Boggs or Tony Gwynn sees the ball better than you do? George: I think there are definitely players that see the ball better than other players. I think I saw something like Mickey Mantle in vision testing was rated higher than a lot of other people. Royce: And where are you on that? George: I have no idea. A lot of it’s a concentration-level thing, you know. You can’t let anything distract you. If you’ve made a bad swing at a pitch before, you can’t let that affect you. I think right now still sometimes I may take a bad swing. I know earlier on in the year, when my swing was really going well, I wasn’t striking out much at all, and with two strikes I was hitting the ball and getting a lot of hits with two strikes even being behind the count. It’s pretty much a consistency thing, which you hear so much in baseball, but it’s true. When I can learn to do what I was doing earlier, you know, on a more consistent level, that’s when you’re ready to play in the major leagues. |
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