Back in spring training, I had a chance to talk hitting with Kyle Schwarber. As fate would have it, our conversation was brief. The Cubs’ clubhouse closed a few minutes after we began chatting, and I was airport-bound by the time it reopened.

In May, I arranged a follow-up phone interview while Schwarber was playing at Triple-A Iowa. We spoke for a little over five minutes, but fate once again intervened. Upon disconnecting, I discovered that the frayed cable – the one I should have replaced months earlier – leading from ear to Digital Voice Recorder had failed. Not a word spoken by Schwarber was audible on tape.

I opted not to call back and ask if he was amenable to a re-do. Rather than aplogetically impose, I decided to wait for my planned visit to Wrigley Field in late June, knowing there was a good chance he’d be called up by then. He was, but as luck would have it, three days before I arrived in Chicago, he was returned to Iowa.

The slugger is back with the big club, and given his offensive explosion, he’s likely to be sticking around this time. But even though I’ll be returning to Wrigley in a few weeks, I’m not going to tempt fate yet again. Here is what Schwarber had to say in Mesa:

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Kyle Schwarber on hitting: “There are technical things to hitting. I want to be as flat through the zone as I can. Being flat through the zone gives the bat a better chance to make contact with the ball. If you’re in and then you’re out, you have to hit the ball perfectly to do anything with it

“You want to be aware of what your top hand doing. Is it dragging a little bit or is it strong on contact? Sometimes an uppercut can get you to topspin balls. That’s why I try to stay flat. If I can sit as flat as possible, and catch the ball right, it will backspin.

“Kris Bryant is uppercut – he’s got that down to a science – so you have to know what kind of hitter you are and what works for you. Different styles work for different hitters. My swing isn’t exactly the same as Bryant’s or David Ross.’

“If the ball is down, you’re going to have to take more of a downward angle to get to it, and lift it. If the ball is at your letters, you have to go a little bit up to stay on top of it – we all try to stay on top of it – to get the right trajectory for a line drive.

“Trust me, we’re not up there to try to hit home runs. We’re trying to make square contact and drive the ball hard. Home runs are mistakes. They’re balls we just got under, but got enough of for them to go out. The best balls are the line drives that keep rising and go out of the park. The ones that are hit really high are kind of mis-hits.

“Approach-wise, I’m going to hunt my pitch. I’m not going to hunt the pitcher’s pitch. Until he shows me that I have to make an adjustment, I’m looking for my pitch and not giving him too much credit. I try to be patient and aggressive at the same time. I like to work counts, but if I get my pitch early, I’m going to attack it.

“If I can tell what a pitcher is trying to do, I’ll try to take advantage of it. At the same time, I don’t want to think too much. That just screws you up. Thinking too much can get you really mental, and really jumpy. When that happens, you’re more likely to miss your pitch.”