When things go south for the Giants’ offense — including the 16-game stretch from mid-May to early June without scoring more than four runs, and the recent 4-12 nosedive — the basic fundamentals of hitting tend to be lacking, including an all-fields approach.
Whether it’s on display in the next week could figure into how the Giants fare against the Phillies and Dodgers. After they went 5-5 on a three-city trip opposing only sub-par teams, the offense gets a big test with two division leaders in town ahead of the All-Star break.
“You’ve always got to have it in your pocket, because pitchers are really good these days,” said Wilmer Flores, who has used opposite-field hitting to generate many of his team-leading 55 RBIs. “When the situation calls for it, say, man on third base, less than two outs, and the pitcher’s just throwing pitches away, away, away, and the only chance you have is going the other way, that’s when it really helps you. Same thing with man on second, I just want to let the ball get deeper and hit something hard to the middle of the field.
“I think analytics don’t always like that approach, but it’s nice when you do it, and everybody gets happy when you do it.”
Flores is a pull hitter by nature, but when the situation calls to push the ball the other way, he has succeeded. It’s not about exit velocity for Flores — he’s in the 2nd percentile among MLB hitters — it’s simply about hitting ’em where they ain’t.
That hasn’t been the case for Jung Hoo Lee, who supposedly is an all-field hitter. However, his 47.8% pull rate is highest on the team among regulars, and he has gone to the opposite field just 24.6% of the time, lowest on the team among regulars.