John Axford

I know you can see the frustration.

It's not like he's not trying.

He's still hitting the ball hard.

Like you said, the average was still there.

For anybody else that's other than Vlad and the contract that he has and the October that he had and even the spring in WBC that he had, everyone would think that this is just a good season with a guy in a little bit of a rut, but it's Vlad and it's

Sure, you're hitting the ball, but we need more production.

We need more home runs.

We need more RBIs.

And also, what on earth is happening right now?

So he has a much bigger weight on his shoulders about this situation, about what's going on right now.

And I'm just curious if that...

is just pulling on him a little bit too much right now, and he just needs a little bit of a step away from it.

I think so.

I mean, he was...

Like you said, if he's getting pitches in the zone last year and he's still showing that he could hit the ball and do well and put up the production that he was, why would you not adjust as the pitcher on the mound or as the team facing him and change kind of your approach and what you're discussing pregame as to what we're going to do here?

And if he's not going to change his approach as to swinging at pitches outside of the zone, whether it's first pitch, whether it's behind in the count ahead, whatever it may be, you're going to stick with that as long as you can.

Because until he proves otherwise and he's going to start damaging those baseballs, you just keep doing what you're doing.

I think in the playoffs, too, there were opportunities.

where damage could be done, but there weren't people on base.

I think you got quite a few like solo shots, right, where they were going after them.