A few weeks ago, the Phillies hitting coaches sidelined Nick Castellanos. They showed him a series of videos. One was from Castellanos in his prime, around 2022 before the All-Star Game. The other was in an at-bat this season, when he was struggling to make hard contact.
They pointed out a difference in their positioning. When the right fielder was at his best, his bat was flat. He had his feet on the ground. He got to the batting position early. When Castellanos was fighting, his bat was vertical, his front foot was angled and then he came into the batting stance.
Castellanos is not someone who responds to a lot of technical information thrown at him. He is guided by touch. But watching the two videos back to back resonated.
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“For me, the earlier I can start and the more I can flow with the pitcher, the more my direction goes back to the middle,” he said. “Sometimes if I get stuck, my stance will break down and everything will happen at once, and then my swing decisions will fall apart, and then I’ll get in and out of the zone pretty quickly.”
It was a subtle but important change.
“If you’re grounded and your bat is a little bit flatter before you start, that will allow you to get to the position where you want to shoot from sooner,” assistant hitting coach Rafael Pena said. “Sometimes his bat gets a little more upright, it’s not in his legs as much, and then it just takes time. That little millisecond it takes him to get into those positions is what makes throws a little more difficult for him.”
Castellanos has hit .245/.267/.480 with a .747 OPS and four home runs since May 24. That’s a big jump from the .206/.278/.312 and .590 OPS he was hitting since the start of the season. the season until May 23.
He’s also hitting the ball harder and more consistently. Castellanos has a hard hit percentage of 43% since May 24. From opening day through May 23, he was hitting the ball hard at a 38% clip.
The Phillies see this as progress and so does Castellanos.
“It’s helped,” said Castellanos, who went 7-for-13 against the Padres this week, including a double Tuesday night. “Honestly, over the last few weeks there have only been two games where I thought, ‘Man, I was (expletive) today,’ and those were the last two games in Baltimore (Saturday and Sunday). Other than that, I feel like I’ve taken good swings in baseball. Now it’s just about staying in there, finding some gaps and getting some results.”
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The trick is to make sure it stays steady in its proper position. Peña, assistant coach Dustin Lind and hitting coach Kevin Long have helped him with that. During those two games in Baltimore, Castellanos went 0-for-9. Peña approached him afterwards to show him the difference in his positioning.
“He was like, ‘Hey, I just want to point out these two things to you,’” Castellanos said. “And it was like wow, I didn’t even realize those two games… it was drastic. When he did it in London and the first games in Boston and stuff, even then it was better.
“Baseball is difficult. But maybe just a little messing things up without even realizing I’m doing it. And that’s where Raffy is good.”
“It was just certain ABs,” Peña said. “We’re aware of every AB, but there were a few where we thought, ‘Hey, that’s a little different.’ But she has done very well. I just think it will help him stay the course.”
Another difference that impacted those two games was that Castellanos did not hit in the field with Peña before the game. He’s been doing that since he had the conversation with the hitting coaches about positioning, and it’s helped him.
“Going out and hitting on the field is also great for me before games,” Castellanos said. “And I couldn’t do that in Baltimore.”
“It correlates with results and you know this game is about results,” Pena said. “Batting outside helps him see the flight of the ball, it allows him to see when he is doing well. In the cage, you can hit a ball well, but it fools you if it hits a net that’s a couple of feet away.”
These are all pieces of the puzzle for Castellanos, who has struggled to find consistency this season.
“The more inconsistent variables you can eliminate from batting, the simpler it becomes,” he said, “and the easier it becomes.”
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