If anyone's interested, there's a Ted Williams doc on PBS tonight. In early February, a couple of weeks after turning twenty-one, a minor-league baseball player named Kyle Tucker went to his local batting cage, in Tampa, Florida, and impersonated Ted Williams. He put on, as he recalls, “big, wool, baggy pants,” “old-time cleats,” and a Red Sox jersey from the nineteen-fifties, with the requisite No. 9. He chose from among several vintage bats acquired via eBay, selecting what he felt was “kind of just like a log—like a tree trunk.” His mom accompanied him. He brought a friend to pitch to him. The friend wore wool, too: Orioles garb. The baseballs were contemporary, but white nail polish obscured the M.L.B. logo and the commissioner’s signature. Rosin was added for visual effect. Tucker, who is tall and lean, like Williams, made a few minor adjustments to his usual lefty stance. “I had to lower my hands and elbow and try and get into a little bit of a crouch and lean over the plate a little bit more,” he said recently. A camera filmed him as he hit, capturing two thousand frames a second, against a black screen. Nick Davis, who was directing the shoot (and dressed as an umpire, for verisimilitude), estimates that, of the hundred cuts Tucker took, he “smacked the **** out of the ball” ninety-eight times. More at the link: https://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/in-search-of-a-swing-like-ted-williams
What are the odds that he switches to #9 once Marwin is gone... and proceeds to smack the **** out of the ball?
Ted Williams also struggled during his first season in the big leagues. Batting only .327 with a .436 OBP. But, he would improve.
I think Tucker will be fine. It's encouraging that he's been able to sustain his contact% from Fresno following his promotion. Just needs to get the ball off the ground more often.
He actually had a decent line drive rate early on that has vanished. Still making almost no soft contact (6.7%)
I've got faith that he'll figure it out with regular playing time and be a key contributor by September. Hopefully the team keeps winning at a good clip so they can let him play through his early struggles. Facing Yovani Gallardo tonight should help his confidence.
Too many ground balls (stop me if I've said this before). GB/FB: 1.50 (LD included in FB) GroundOuts/AirOuts: 1.78 LineDrive%: 10
Tucker not in the lineup again tonight. That's 3 out of 4 games he hasn't started. Really thought they would give him a little more leash and that once he got here he would be here to stay. If he isn't going to get regular at bats, might as well send him back down and let him play.
