Blue Jays' Horwitz being rewarded for plate adjustments

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Spencer Horwitz felt down after a rough night against the Baltimore Orioles last week, beat up mentally in a way he hadn’t experienced yet this season. It’s not just that he’d struck out three times that irked him, it was the way he’d struck out — fouling off or swinging through a handful of good pitches to hit — that left him frustrated. So he went to Toronto Blue Jays assistant hitting coach Matt Hague, and told him, “Something needs to change, I need to work,” and the two of them stayed late into the night finding a patch.

They came up with a drill from the 2022 season, when they were together at double-A New Hampshire, designed to help Horwitz stay back on the ball more effectively. At batting practice the next day, ahead of a series opener against the Oakland Athletics, he wrapped a resistance band around his waist and then anchored it to a couple of 45-pound weights on the ground behind him, holding him in place as he swung at pitches. 

Horwitz had three hits that night, including a double and a homer into the fourth deck, and the drill has been part of his routine since, including prior to Tuesday’s 6-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels, when he and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went back-to-back in the third inning.

In his mind, correlation is very much causation.

“Yeah, absolutely,” said Horwitz. “I feel like I make a lot of contact and sometimes that's at the cost of power. And sometimes, when I'm making a little too much contact, I'm going really forward to the ball. The band is just a reminder to stay back and helps free me up and to be able to hit it more out in front.”

Horwitz’s sixth home run came immediately after Guerrero hit his 24^th during the third inning, when the Blue Jays pushed their lead to 5-0. An Ernie Clement RBI single in the first opened the scoring before Will Wagner extended a remarkable start to his big-league career with a two-run double, part of a 2-for-4 night on his second day in The Show.

Kevin Gausman did the rest of the heavy lifting with seven shutout innings, his sixth outing of at least seven frames this season and second in a row, having held Baltimore to two runs over eight innings his last time out.

Though he allowed only six hits and walked two, Gausman wasn’t nearly as pleased with the process as he was with the outcome.

“That's the weird thing about pitching — I've thought I've pitched better in plenty of starts this year but the results tonight were a lot better,” he said. “To be honest, I missed my spot a lot tonight and got away with it. That's true from my last start as well. To sit here with two wins is great, but as the perfectionist I try to be, it's the realization that it's not as great as the results have shown.”

A steady night took a turn in the seventh when George Springer was ejected for only the second time in his career, after the right-fielder said a Kenny Rosenberg pitch clipped him on the toe but home-plate umpire Manny Gonzalez’s no-hit call survived a replay review. 

Springer muttered a couple times after the decision came down, Gonzalez didn’t stand for it and eventually he had to be restrained, first by manager John Schneider and then by Guerrero. 

"I know it hit me. I'm not going to say it hit me if it didn't hit me. I want to hit,” said Springer, who at the same time added that, “I've got to do better. There are kids in the stands, I can't get that angry. I don't want my sons to see me get that mad. I've got to be better. But it happens. It is what it is.”

While Springer’s frustrations boiled over, Joey Loperfido found some relief with an RBI single in the eighth inning that ended an 0-for-24 slide. He also walked and stole a base in the fourth inning, seeing some results from adjustments he’s been working on, including using the resistance-band to better stay loaded on his back hip.

“I'm doing a lot of that,” said Loperfido. “That just kind of preaches the stability of your back leg, being able to control that. I thought the more that I lifted my front foot in my leg kick, the less controlled and less stable I'd be. And I feel like it's really let me control that weight and forward move a little bit better, a bit less crashing forward. That's a big part of my routine right now.”

The runway for him, Horwitz, Wagner and others to learn and adjust on the fly is how the Blue Jays can derive some value from the remaining portion of the schedule. But as much as it’s a training-ground period, it’s also a time for evaluation, not only of results but also of how players work, carry themselves, ask questions, adapt to what’s before them. 

While certain players are being prioritized, the Blue Jays are also trying to get a read on “how guys are going to fit with guys we already have that are under contract,” said Schneider. “You go into the off-season and you try to have a good feel on who can do what.”

“There's always the opportunity to add externally with us and the kind of organization that we are,” he added. “For some guys, trying to just really identify where the real value is in them. Is it a platoon? Is it every day? Is it a specific spot defensively that's going to be more valuable to us and better for the player? You're trying to mix and match a little bit. And you never say never on anyone. A part of it is you want to see these guys play in situations that may be a little bit uncomfortable on paper and see how they reacting to it.”

To that end, Wagner is going to primarily second base and he made a handful of solid plays Tuesday, again looking right at home in the field. Loperfido keeps getting at-bats even as he tries to make some adjustments while Horwitz continues to get regular at-bats.

The goal he’s striving for now is to eliminate his body moving forward “too early, too aggressively” so he can catch the ball out in front of his body while not jamming himself. A cue he’s using is to keep his head behind his back leg, helping him better track the ball.

In turn, that’s helping to decide when to let his contact ability do the work for more power, and when to take shots with his A swing.

“That's me training it and when I want to (swing for power), I can,” Horwitz explained. “And also, even when I'm not thinking about it, it still just happens sometimes. That's kind of how I've made my career so far, is just letting the home runs happen. But now I want to be able to do both, be able to turn it on and let it happen.”

If he finds success with that approach, he could go from a good offensive player to an even better one. That's precisely why the Blue Jays plan to give him and others reps to see if they can make the adjustments happen.