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Thread: Slumping Dansby Swanson gets a homer in a wild Braves win and sheds some pressure...

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    Slumping Dansby Swanson gets a homer in a wild Braves win and sheds some pressure...

    Hey guys! Goober here. I mostly lurk and hide in the shadows practicing my Cary Grant impression, but I wanted to share this article from The Athletic website on Dansby. The thing I was most bothered by is that he seems to be reluctant to make changes suggested by the hitting coaches. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy and "Judy, Judy, Judy".


    https://theathletic.com/470140/2018/...ld-braves-win/



    The​ Braves are battling for first​ place and have​ been​ playing​ solid defense, getting generally good starting pitching, improved​ work​​ from a bolstered bullpen and more run production than anyone could have expected from first-time All-Star Nick Markakis at age 34 and from Ozzie Albies in his first full season in the majors.

    So it has been easier to, if not necessarily ignore the gorilla in the corner of the room — Dansby Swanson’s puny offense — at least look past it as long as enough of the the team’s other engines were humming to keep the Braves near the top of the standings in a season when most folks expected them to still be a year away from contention.

    But the gorilla nevertheless has been there, and it has been harder to ignore as the playoff race heats up.

    Then just as more people started wondering aloud what was up with Swanson and many suggested on social media that he be benched, the shortstop came through with a game-tying two-run homer Sunday in the sixth inning of a wild, 8-7 win over Milwaukee at SunTrust Park, which gave the Braves a series win over the Brewers.

    “It couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” said manager Brian Snitker, whose Braves moved back into a tie atop the National League East with Philadelphia, which lost 9-3 to San Diego on Sunday. “Nobody needed it worse than him.”

    Braves starter Sean Newcomb gave up a career-high 12 hits and five runs in four innings, and the Brewers out-hit the Braves 19-9, but Atlanta got homers from Swanson, from rookie sensation Ronald Acuña, who has 15 homers, including eight in 21 games from the leadoff spot since the All-Star break, and Albies, whose game-winner in the seventh inning was his 21st homer and snapped his 20-game drought.

    It was the first time since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966 that they gave up 19 hits in a nine-inning game and won.

    Despite Swanson’s homer – his ninth of the season and just his second in 38 games – many have debated whether it’s time to reassess him as a player and consider the possibility that he just might not project to be the hitter that so many believed he would be.

    Granted, it’s only Swanson’s second full season in the majors. But the 24-year-old from suburban Atlanta and the No. 1 overall pick of the 2015 draft out of Vanderbilt, has not shown many, if any, signs of progress after a disappointing 2017 season.

    In fact, lately Swanson has looked even worse than a year ago, and his auspicious late-season call-up in 2016 has looked increasingly like the aberration. For those who might have forgotten, he hit .302 with a .361 on-base percentage and .803 OPS in 38 games in that first stint in the majors.

    In 242 games since, he hit .234 with a .305 OBP and .652 OPS prior to Sunday.

    At a time when 20-year-old wunderkind Acuña is living up to huge advance hype after coming into this season as baseball’s consensus No. 1 prospect and 21-year-old Albies entered Sunday with as many extra-base hits as Colorado star Nolan Arenado and four more than teammate Freddie Freeman or Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt, Swanson had spiraled offensively.

    Swanson entered Sunday with a .238 batting average, .295 OBP, .378 slugging percentage and a .673 OPS that ranked 65th out of 73 NL qualifiers. It’s unclear if the Braves will decided to move forward with Swanson as their future shortstop, a decision not likely to be made until after the season.

    But if some others lost confidence in him, Swanson has not lost confidence in himself.

    “In the last two weeks especially, I’ve sucked offensively,” he said Sunday morning. “A lot of it is searching (for answers). A lot of it’s like, do you need to make an adjustment because you’re struggling? Or do you just need to keep doing what you’re doing because baseball’s not working? And not overreact on both. Like learning how to be able to say, ‘OK, I need to make an adjustment’ or keep doing what you’re doing.

    “A lot of that is, like, maturing and being able to say, ‘I’m doing just fine, let’s move on to the next day instead of changing something that maybe was working,’ and you just didn’t get the results. So some of it is part of that, and some of it was, I essentially had just gone back to bad habits. And then once you kind of realize that, ‘OK, what we had worked on for spring and what we had done for most of the season until the last month,’ you know what I mean?”

    As you can tell, he has been thinking a lot about this.

    How bad had he been with the bat lately? Every bit as bad as his blunt assessment: Swanson hit .133 (6-for-45) with one extra-base hit, two RBI, a .156 slugging percentage and .356 OPS in his previous 16 games before Sunday.

    “A lot of it was just how I was getting set up — I wasn’t giving myself a chance at all,” said Swanson, who believes an adjustment he made with his hands Saturday, keeping them closer to begin his stance, will help him stay more quiet with his upper body, helping him see pitches better and get back to what he was doing in April. “I had no chance (the way he was swinging before the adjustment). That’s why it looks like, even good pitches I do get to hit, you foul them off. Or you start to not trust yourself as much and start to swing at everything, instead of being able to get where you need to get to and being on time.

    “I wasn’t doing that from the start. I think I’ve got that figured out now, but let’s knock on wood.”

    Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer declined to speak with a reporter about Swanson’s struggles. From talking to others aware of the situation, however, there is a sense that Swanson has been a bit reluctant to make changes that have been suggested to him by Braves hitting coaches.

    It should be noted that Swanson’s defense has been outstanding this season. He was ranked sixth among major league shortstops in Defensive Runs Saved before Sunday and second among NL shortstops in UZR/150, a metric that measures overall defense. Defense was the part of Swanson’s game that general manager Alex Anthopoulos said was most important this season after the first-year Braves GM and his staff evaluated the shortstop’s 2017 performance and graded his defense below average for that season.

    Anthopoulos, Snitker and other team officials have been thrilled with the defense from Swanson and the team as a whole. Swanson and Albies can be spotted every day doing extra work on the field with third-base coach and infield instructor Ron Washington on drills that he employs to make fielders more adept at handling short hops and other situations.

    Swanson credits Washington and the Braves’ increased use of analytics – for positioning and “schematics,” as Swanson puts it – for helping the team turn up its defensive performance in the infield and outfield this season.

    But Swanson’s offense? It has been alarming.

    There was plenty of reason for optimism early on this season, when he hit .352 in his first 17 games with 11 extra-base hits, 12 RBI, a .387 OBP and .577 slugging percentage for a .964 OPS. But that only has magnified his struggles since then, which began about the time that he had wrist inflammation that landed him on the 10-day disabled list and have continued long since he has gotten over that ailment.

    In his 80 games before Sunday, he hit .210 with 21 extra-base hits, 29 RBI, a .272 OBP and .603 OPS.

    “Honestly for the last, like, two weeks it was frustrating every day,” Swanson said, “because look at the beginning of the year – I know what I’m capable of, it’s just a matter of doing it. And it’s something as simple as how I was getting started, I’d gone back to an old habit instead of doing what I had worked on. And (Saturday) was the first night that we had been able to go back to what I was doing before and just felt so much freer.”

    In the game he referenced, Swanson went 1-for-3 with two groundouts and an infield single Saturday.

    “I felt like I was able to actually hit instead of fight my way through it,” he said Sunday morning, “which was a very good feeling and sign to be able to see it for myself and all that kind of stuff.”

    On Sunday afternoon, he went 1-for-3 with an opposite-field fly out one step in front of the warning track, a walk and the game-tying homer that he pulled to the left-field bullpen. That came on a 94-mph fastball from Chase Anderson on a 1-and-2 fastball up and in.

    Catcher Tyler Flowers was asked what it could mean to the team to get Swanson going like he was in early April.

    “It’d be great,” Flowers said. “I think you can throw myself in there and (catcher Kurt Suzuki). Everyone else is seemingly putting up good at-bats and stuff. That’s the reason I mentioned it — I think we all are starting to put up better at-bats, too. So I think that’ll help lengthen the lineup a little bit further.”

    When it was mentioned that it was easier to accept struggling when so many others are producing big offense, Flowers said, “If you win, you don’t have too many complaints. You can be 0-for-4 or 4-for-4, if you win, I think everybody’s pretty happy.”

    The gorilla is still in the room. He’s just not quite as noticeable when that happens.

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    I love Thanh Dansby is at least open and takes responsibility. That’s huge.

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    Great read!

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    It's being reported that Damsby has altered his hand position to enable him to get his hands in a better hitting position during his swing. He has raised his hands higher prior to pitch. That won't help his major weakness-- swinging at sliders 4-6" off the ground and 6 to 8" off the plate.

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