Arden Zwelling

And I think because of

just his approach he's going to be streaky probably for his entire big league career and that's okay because um it feels like one of those hot streaks is coming or maybe we're even in the midst of it now just because he has three homers over the last week and like a i don't know a wobo over 500 uh over that span but you just you look at the on tuesday his first plate appearance against bryce elder and he's down oh two and then that's when like if if you have a high strikeout rate and a lot of

points where you're like going from 02 to 03 and walking back to the bench like that's the problem that's those are just empty calorie plate appearances but he showed in that spot like what makes Okamoto's approach different because he like went to work against Bryce Elder and he took a couple pitches and he fouled off a couple pitches and he like battled and he fought his way back to 3-2 and if in that point he had like

you know whiffed at a slider i mean that would be okay if he had still seen eight nine pitches but what happens when he's three two against elder like he gets a sinker on the plate like maybe the first like really hittable pitch that he'd seen uh and he takes his fastest swing of the night against it and drives it over the opposite field wall and after the game like john schneider's talking about just the professionalism of that at bat and how impressive it was and

And I agree with him.

He's somebody who, on this team, is seeing the most pitches per plate appearance.

He's got the lowest chase rate.

He's got the second highest percentage of pitches seen with count leverage.

And he's also got the second fastest bat speed on the team after Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

So even when he's behind or even behind,

though he's striking out a lot, like he's continuing to get his best swings off and just remain offensive throughout his plate appearances.

He's not being defensive as we were talking about before with other players.

I feel like he's just trusting his approach and he's trusting that he has all fields power.

Um, and even when like he's behind an account, like he was against Elder on Tuesday, even when he has two strikes, he's still trusting that he's still taking an ace wing.

Um, and he's still taking like a, you know, he's still being educated in the way that he's approaching things.

And I think that that is like a big part of the reason why he's leading the team in home runs by a considerable margin.

We'll get to pitching in the second half, but I have one more position player topic I want to bring up with you.

And that is the impending return of Alejandro Kirk, who has been out for two months with a fractured thumb.

And here on Wednesday, as we record this, Kirk is scheduled to be in the lineup for the Dunedin Blue Jays.

tonight uh beginning a rehab assignment and uh we were talking to john schneider about yesterday and he told us kirk's probably gonna need around 20 plate appearances give or take um before he gets back to the majors so that's something that could take like a week because he'll start dhing and he'll kind of ramp up right he'll have three plate appearances in his first game um