The Rangers’ Worst Swings Against Marco Estrada

When I used to come in to pitch, I’d take my eight warm-ups from the mound, and almost without fail I’d hear loud shouts from the other dugout that “this guy’s got nothing!” For the most part this was because they were right, I had nothing, I should’ve been terrible, but what I think kept me from being truly terrible was their own overconfidence. I was never the best pitcher on my team, and opponents would swing like I was the worst pitcher on my team, but thanks to that overeager aggressiveness, there were surprising numbers of clean whiffs and pop-ups. I was as surprised as they were, but at some point it stops being a fluke.

Marco Estrada is better than he’s ever been. When he was younger, he threw about a league-average fastball. Now he’s four ticks below the league mark. Marco Estrada is a finesse pitcher, and as a general rule, finesse pitchers are worse than non-finesse pitchers. But the best ones — they succeed in part because of their own abilities to locate, but they succeed also by turning hitters against their own selves. Power pitchers force a hitter to shorten up. Finesse pitchers tempt a hitter to lengthen. They tempt hitters to come out of their shoes, as if a 500-foot homer means more than its 400-foot equivalent. Facing a Marco Estrada is a test in self-discipline. As we’ve all experienced for ourselves, when pressure starts to mount, self-discipline can unravel.

Estrada dominated the Rangers on Thursday, Texas hitters frequently swinging out of their shoes. Even knocking Estrada around might not have done much: The Blue Jays won by nine runs. But Estrada came close to a complete-game road shutout, and his finesse-y repertoire worked out just peaches. Too often, the Rangers couldn’t help themselves but overswing. Here now are their five worst swings, along with one honorable mention.

Honorable Mention

I think my favorite thing about Marco Estrada’s changeup is that when it works — and it usually works — the hitters look like, “wait a minute, this guy throws a changeup?” It’s like it’s some kind of secret, something that Estrada just busted out out of nowhere for the one game alone, but of course Estrada’s whole deal is his changeup. It’s one of the best changeups in baseball, and it causes hitters to do silly things until they start to sit on it, in which event Estrada can flip to the high heater that suddenly looks like it’s buzzing 100. Mitch Moreland wasn’t counting on a 1-and-1 changeup. Why the hell not? Who did he think he was facing? As Moreland finished his swing, he was basically facing Estrada square. In the image above, Moreland’s head is looking toward shortstop, while his front foot is trying to get in the car and go home.

I love how casually Russell Martin called for the pitch, like he didn’t need to bother.

Martin: just throw the-
Martin: right
Martin: yeah
Martin: forget about it
Martin: I don’t need to be doing this

Fifth-Worst Swing

Let’s say you don’t know anything about Rougned Odor. Let’s say you understand most of how baseball works, but you don’t really know Odor, and all you have to go on is the above-embedded screenshot. Do you assume that Rougned Odor bats left-handed, or do you assume that Rougned Odor bats right-handed? If you look really carefully, you might be able to figure it out — the left side of his helmet doesn’t have a flap, and his right hand is holding the bottom of the bat. But you’d really have to look. And then you’d wonder what could possibly cause a left-handed batter to turn completely around while oddly having moved forward. Maybe, I guess, bees?

Fourth-Worst Swing

Shin-Soo Choo is usually one of the more disciplined, controlled hitters in the game. The consistency of his approach is almost boring, and though we can all roll our eyes at the term “professional at-bat,” we also all kind of know what it means, and Choo has those kinds of at-bats over and over. He’s got his flaws, for sure, and he’s not what he was at his peak, but he’s good and he’s steady and he stays within himself. Except for the rare occasions when he goes outside of himself. Sometimes, on those occasions, Choo ends up so out of balance he turns around and backs up and nearly knocks the opposing catcher over with his own butt.

Third-Worst Swing

I don’t know you, I don’t know your hobbies or diversions, but if you’re anything like the average individual, you have a big project you’re working on, and that project is you. It’s your own self-betterment, as you attempt to optimize yourself just as you attempt to optimize everything else. Earlier parts of growing up are about identifying your flaws, or otherwise having them pointed out. Then you get to the stage where you’re motivated to sand away the roughness, achieving a perfectly polished self. Perhaps you’re working on how you deal with stress. Perhaps you’re working on your social discomfort. Perhaps you’re trying to be a better speaker, or a more commanding speaker, or perhaps you want to quit smoking. It can feel like the hardest part is just seeing the problem. Once you know what’s there, you’re inclined to think you can conquer it.

Carlos Gomez has had a problem with overswinging since he was a wee one. His scouting report is just the word “AGGRESSIVE” in big red capital letters, and when aggressiveness gets the best of him, he can come completely undone. It happened to him in Houston, where he tried to do too much, and when he joined up with the Rangers, they worked hard to get him to just chill out. The Rangers didn’t want him to overswing anymore, figuring that he should be able to trust his own talent. In time, Gomez became successful. In time, it looked like the Rangers had genuinely gotten through to him. Gomez was having more controlled at-bats, and his numbers improved as a consequence. The Rangers managed to polish Carlos Gomez.

But Gomez is 30 years old, and at some point you are what you are. Gomez was better for a few weeks, but then his inner self re-emerged. Don’t bother to work on that personal step. You might as well embrace the flaws that you have, because odds are they’re going to be with you forever.

Second-Worst Swing

Just quit trying. You have problems, and your problems suck. If you’re lucky, most other peoples’ problems suck worse. No one’s going to care if you were a lousy desktop paperwork organizer when you’re buried dead deep in the Earth.

First-Worst Swing

Adrian Beltre learned to embrace his flaws. When he was much younger, he got a taste of stardom, and it pulled him in an ugly direction. Beltre held himself to an almost impossible standard, and it would gnaw at him every day. He’d want to be a superstar in every at-bat and when he fell short he’d be ashamed of himself. It haunted him in Seattle and somewhere along the line he came to terms with what he is. There was no sense in trying to hold back, and the Beltre of today simply doesn’t embarrass. He will sometimes look as if he is genuinely the worst hitter in professional baseball, someone who’s never before done what he was asked to do with a bat in his hands, but, you know what, everyone makes outs, and the best ones count the same as the ugliest ones. Adrian Beltre doesn’t just take bad swings. He delights in his bad swings, and because he does, so do his teammates, and so do his rivals. And that’s why Adrian Beltre could cause Russell Martin to laugh about nearly getting a cleat in the face in the instantaneous aftermath of a forward swing at an ordinary curveball. We don’t love the most perfect people. We love the people who understand themselves most perfectly.