Yusei Kikuchi was perfectly serviceable tonight. Home run number two should have come long ago. Thus, to not do so would, to Kelenic, be abject failure. He’s aware that he has the raw ability to be one of the best baseball players of his generation. He is a man who, rather than being uplifted by his talent, is imprisoned by it. As he puts his head down and begins to jog, he seems almost angrier than before he hit the dinger. He isn’t an artist who seems to take pleasure in his craft. Kelenic takes a moment, and then another, to observe his work. You blink, and you’re not sure if his body actually moved. In a fraction of a second, all of his power is transferred from his core into the baseball, and the ball finds itself rocketing away from home plate at 108 miles per hour. The moment his foot hits the ground, Kelenic’s arms whip around, carrying the bat so quickly that you’re almost surprised he had time to swing at all. Rather, the leg almost seems to lift of its own accord, gently pulling his foot off the ground before arcing back down. ![]() He lifts his right leg six to eight inches above the ground. If you were designing a video game with a bunch of pre-set batting stance templates, you’d call Kelenic’s stance “Batting Stance 1”. One moment, the bat was cocked behind his shoulders. Two innings later, Jarred Kelenic didn’t even seem to wind up. Your browser does not support HTML5 video. He’s capable of true excellence, and it’s due to his persistence that the success of the Mariners’ rebuild hinges upon his bat. The injury kept him out for the better part of a year, and he never found quite the same success in the minors as he had in the month before the injury.Īs Kyle Lewis rounded the bases, I hope he found himself free of the baggage that carried by the Mariners year-after-year. 530 in Everett a month after being drafted, an ACL tear threatened to derail his career before it ever began. ![]() There was a good chance he wasn’t ever going to experience moments like this. Lewis takes two steps, lifts the bat, and casually flips it back toward the first base dugout. Every single person knows immediately that the baseball is gone, especially Montas, who screams in frustration as the ball is obliterated, leaving the yard at 110 miles per hour. Lewis doesn’t let a single Joule of energy go un-transferred into the baseball. His hands pull the bat, which loops in a perfectly parabolic plane intersecting with the pitch. His arms pull his hands through the zone. Frankie Montas releases the baseball, and Lewis immediately identifies the pitch as positively scrumptious. The movement provides an extra bit of potential energy. As Kyle Lewis lifts his leg up, he takes just one moment to wind back his bat.
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