News
ST. PETERSBURG — Zion is 8 months old today. A perfect blend of energy and joy.
He arrived just before spring training and is now days away from the end of his first regular season. That means he has had the chance to see Dad round the bases on a pretty regular basis, 26 times and still counting. He has seen Dad hit leadoff and cleanup and every spot in between. He has seen him play at first, second and third, across the entire outfield and at shortstop, too. He has even seen Dad in the uniform of an All-Star.
At 8 months old, Zion has pretty much seen all there is to see of his dad's major-league career.
As long as you don't count the 28 years it took to get to this point.
The greatest season of Ben Zobrist's life is coming to an end, and it is still difficult to explain just how dramatic the journey has been. This game can be measured in a lot of ways, including numbers, salaries and awards. But in Zobrist's case, the most appropriate way may be this:
Eight months ago, all he was looking for was a job.
He didn't care what position. He had no expectations about home runs or slugging percentage. And he certainly wasn't planning on spending the All-Star break in St. Louis with 60 or so of the greatest players on the planet.
Zobrist had worked all, or parts, of the previous five years in the minors, and he wasn't so bold to think it wasn't a possibility again in 2009.
"I knew I still had an option to go down to the minor leagues. I just wanted to solidify my place on the team the best I could," Zobrist said. "I had no visions of grandeur at the beginning of the season. It's been a huge leap from then to now."
Now? Now, Zobrist is an emerging star. If you thought May and June were a fluke, you now know better. If you thought pitchers would discover ways to slow him in the second half, you underestimated his talent and resolve.
With the regular season nearing its end, there is a decent chance Zobrist will be named the Rays' most valuable player. His combined on-base/slugging percentage of .930 is sixth in the American League, and he's closing in on 90 RBIs. In the span of a summer, he has pretty much redefined the utility position, putting up better power numbers than anyone in history to have played seven positions in the same season.
"You normally see utility guys as good defenders, maybe they can run, but you never think about the offensive production being that severe," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "It's nice because he permits you to do different things. Even as the game is in progress he permits you to make moves you wouldn't otherwise make because he can do so many things well. He's really unique."
Players flash on the scene all of the time, only to fade away when the rest of the league learns their tendencies and weaknesses. And while Zobrist has only one full season of star-quality production behind him, there is reason to believe he will continue to progress.
For the first few months of the season, Zobrist caught AL pitchers by surprise. There was little in his past to indicate he was a tough out, so pitchers were giving him a steady diet of fastballs. Using a more aggressive approach, Zobrist began pounding those fastballs over fences.
"He's a dead fastball hitter, and there were pitchers in the league who thought they could just throw the ball by him," hitting coach Steve Henderson said. "Every fastball he saw, he knocked the crap out of it."
By late June, pitchers began adjusting. Zobrist started seeing more and more off-speed pitches. If he saw fastballs, they were usually backing him off the plate. All of which forced Zobrist to adjust his approach. He tried taking more pitches early in at-bats, with the hope of getting ahead in the count. If he fell behind, he still sat on fastballs while trying to adjust to the slower pitches.
"Once they started throwing off-speed pitches, I had to have a good eye and take my walks. It's been a continual adjustment," Zobrist said. "It's been a lot harder in the second half of the season. And it's going to continue that way. Because once I make an adjustment, they're going to change their approach again. But now I have the confidence I can make the adjustments in the future."
Wednesday night's game against the Orioles was the perfect example of the cat-and-mouse strategy. In Zobrist's first at-bat, David Hernandez started him with two off-speed pitches that he took. The third pitch was a fastball that caught Zobrist by surprise for a called strike. Two more off-speed pitches, and Zobrist had struck out.
An inning later, Hernandez started out the same way, throwing two off-speed pitches that Zobrist took. Hernandez tried sneaking a 93 mph fastball past him again on the third pitch, and Zobrist hit it 412 feet into the rightfield bleachers.
This is how a player enjoys the season of a lifetime. One adjustment at a time.
It only took Zobrist a few months to figure it out. A few months, and 28 years.
John Romano can be reached at romano@sptimes.com
The new breed
Ben Zobrist is changing the model for utility players. Of players who have started games at seven different positions in a season the past 50 years, none has come close to Zobrist's power output:
Player Year Team HR
Ben Zobrist 2009 TB 26
Jose Oquendo 1988 STL 7
Cesar Tovar 1968 Min 6
Denny Hocking 2000 Min 4
Denny Hocking 2001 Min 3
Shane Halter 2003 Det 3
Loading...
