Let’s just say Brian Dozier has had a slow start to his 2013 season.

Repping a less than stellar.189/.279/.243 batting line through his first 44 plate appearances, the Twins’ second baseman has been extremely inoffensive and has statistically continued where he left off during following his demotion in August of last year. Despite this slow beginning, there is reasons to not lose hope that Dozier’s career will fall into a no-hit middle infielder that has plagued the Twins for the better part of the new millennium.

The first encouraging sign from Dozier is that he is (1) sporting a much improved strikeout-to-walk ratio.

This is supremely important to any future success for the middle infielder. As a minor leaguer, Dozier owned a decent 1.2 strikeouts-to-walks ratio – meaning he drew nearly as many walks as he did strikeout. When he was promoted to the majors last year, that ability to hone the zone dissipated. He took just 16 walks in 340 plate appearances while striking out 58 times - or a 3.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio – a true indicator that he was not completely comfortable at the major league level. But, through 13 games this year, he’s had a much improved walk rate and has a 1.8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, closer mirroring his minor league track record. 

Those few free passes in 2012 resulted in a 4.7% walk rate which placed him in the bottom third in that category. Much of that derived from overextending the strike zone (35% out-of-zone swing rate compared to the 30% league average) and having an overall overzealous approach at the plate. Again, in the small sampling this year, he’s increased his walk rate to a significantly improved 11.4% - the fifth-highest among qualified second basemen. 

The story has been slightly different for Dozier in 2013. He has trimmed his swing zone down to a more manageable area (chasing just 26% of out-of-zone pitches) and has been able to fight off a high number pitches to extend his at bats. So far this year, he’s 39% of his strikes have originated from foul balls while the rest of the league’s average is 27%. 

Consider this: When Ron Gardenhire put him in the lead-off spot after Darin Mastroianni was pushed to the DL on Tuesday, Dozier’s first at bat against the Angels’ Jason Vargas consisted of him fouling off five fastballs – working the left-hander over for ten pitches total. While the at bat resulted in an out, Dozier got Vargas’s pitch count rising from the get-go. In the fourth inning, he got enough of Vargas’s 0-2 down-and-dirty curve in order to see a fastball the next pitch which he drilled into right field for a base hit. 

Fouling off pitches is not a repeatable skill, per se, but it has aided him in prolonging his at bats which has led to a higher frequency of walks. The end game -- more walks and high on-base percentage -- bodes very well for Dozier’s contributions for the rest of the season.

The second reason Dozier is rather than attempting to pull every pitch, he’s (2) going the other way and back up the middle.

Check out his breakdown of batted balls by direction hit from last year to this year: 

Without question, Dozier is going the other way with the pitches that are on the outer-half of the strike zone rather than trying to yank everything under the sun. As I outlined at Twins Daily last year, opponents recognized this tendency and lambasted him with fastball away and an abundance of sliders. I concluded that analysis by writing: 

“Specifically for Dozier, offensive progress means trying to re-calibrate his swing zone. If pitchers are going to continue to pound away, make sure you start going with that pitch instead of turning it over (CC: Danny Valencia). If they are trying to get you to fish, try to wait for something in the zone (which is always easier said than done). Being a successful everyday contributor means being able to make adjustments quickly.”

As mentioned above, Dozier’s keying in on pitches in the zone better. Additionally, what we see out of him is a much better ability to go with the pitch rather than turn on everything. He is allowing the ball to travel deeper into the zone before contact. As such, he keeps his weight ack well and that helps drive the ball to center and opposite field.

Here’s a still comparison of the point of impact and his improved mechanical balance. The first two images are his swings in 2013. Notice how he has a firm front side and keeps his weight back on these pitches middle-up and middle-away:

There are examples of swings that Dozier displayed in spring training, in which I advised to watch for this year. While the results have been not been there, the form is much better.

Compare those two examples to two from 2012. Both instances came against left-handed pitches, both locations were away and both wound up grounders to the left side. In both cases, Dozier’s weight gets out in front of him as he reaches for – and pulls – both pitches thrown on the outer-half of the zone. Notice, too, that his front foot comes unglued in the samples. This is creating a less than solid base to swing from.

Dozier has a much more solid fundamental approach at the plate this season - something that was not present a year ago. With a more discriminating eye at the plate and now functional mechanics in place to drive the ball to all areas of the ballpark, his numbers should steadily improve as the season progresses. 

More at TwinsDaily.com:

Seth Stohs looks at the minor leagues and provides a recap of yesterday's events. 

Speaking of prospects, Twins Daily contributor Jeremy Nygaard gives an International Signing preview. 

The Twins will square off against the mighty Whities tonight in Chicago and TD has all the info you need on the upcoming series. 

Finally, DiamondCentric has GAME SIX tees in presale. (I know it doesn't feel like t-shirt weather but it will happen soon enough.)

Let’s just say Brian Dozier has had a slow start to his 2013 season.

Repping a less than stellar.189/.279/.243 batting line through his first 44 plate appearances, the Twins’ second baseman has been extremely inoffensive and has statistically continued where he left off during following his demotion in August of last year. Despite this slow beginning, there is reasons to not lose hope that Dozier’s career will fall into a no-hit middle infielder that has plagued the Twins for the better part of the new millennium.

The first encouraging sign from Dozier is that he is (1) sporting a much improved strikeout-to-walk ratio.

This is supremely important to any future success for the middle infielder. As a minor leaguer, Dozier owned a decent 1.2 strikeouts-to-walks ratio – meaning he drew nearly as many walks as he did strikeout. When he was promoted to the majors last year, that ability to hone the zone dissipated. He took just 16 walks in 340 plate appearances while striking out 58 times - or a 3.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio – a true indicator that he was not completely comfortable at the major league level. But, through 13 games this year, he’s had a much improved walk rate and has a 1.8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, closer mirroring his minor league track record. 

Those few free passes in 2012 resulted in a 4.7% walk rate which placed him in the bottom third in that category. Much of that derived from overextending the strike zone (35% out-of-zone swing rate compared to the 30% league average) and having an overall overzealous approach at the plate. Again, in the small sampling this year, he’s increased his walk rate to a significantly improved 11.4% - the fifth-highest among qualified second basemen. 

The story has been slightly different for Dozier in 2013. He has trimmed his swing zone down to a more manageable area (chasing just 26% of out-of-zone pitches) and has been able to fight off a high number pitches to extend his at bats. So far this year, he’s 39% of his strikes have originated from foul balls while the rest of the league’s average is 27%. 

Consider this: When Ron Gardenhire put him in the lead-off spot after Darin Mastroianni was pushed to the DL on Tuesday, Dozier’s first at bat against the Angels’ Jason Vargas consisted of him fouling off five fastballs – working the left-hander over for ten pitches total. While the at bat resulted in an out, Dozier got Vargas’s pitch count rising from the get-go. In the fourth inning, he got enough of Vargas’s 0-2 down-and-dirty curve in order to see a fastball the next pitch which he drilled into right field for a base hit. 

Fouling off pitches is not a repeatable skill, per se, but it has aided him in prolonging his at bats which has led to a higher frequency of walks. The end game -- more walks and high on-base percentage -- bodes very well for Dozier’s contributions for the rest of the season.

The second reason Dozier is rather than attempting to pull every pitch, he’s (2) going the other way and back up the middle.

Check out his breakdown of batted balls by direction hit from last year to this year: 

Without question, Dozier is going the other way with the pitches that are on the outer-half of the strike zone rather than trying to yank everything under the sun. As I outlined at Twins Daily last year, opponents recognized this tendency and lambasted him with fastball away and an abundance of sliders. I concluded that analysis by writing: 

“Specifically for Dozier, offensive progress means trying to re-calibrate his swing zone. If pitchers are going to continue to pound away, make sure you start going with that pitch instead of turning it over (CC: Danny Valencia). If they are trying to get you to fish, try to wait for something in the zone (which is always easier said than done). Being a successful everyday contributor means being able to make adjustments quickly.”

As mentioned above, Dozier’s keying in on pitches in the zone better. Additionally, what we see out of him is a much better ability to go with the pitch rather than turn on everything. He is allowing the ball to travel deeper into the zone before contact. As such, he keeps his weight ack well and that helps drive the ball to center and opposite field.

Here’s a still comparison of the point of impact and his improved mechanical balance. The first two images are his swings in 2013. Notice how he has a firm front side and keeps his weight back on these pitches middle-up and middle-away:

There are examples of swings that Dozier displayed in spring training, in which I advised to watch for this year. While the results have been not been there, the form is much better.

Compare those two examples to two from 2012. Both instances came against left-handed pitches, both locations were away and both wound up grounders to the left side. In both cases, Dozier’s weight gets out in front of him as he reaches for – and pulls – both pitches thrown on the outer-half of the zone. Notice, too, that his front foot comes unglued in the samples. This is creating a less than solid base to swing from.

Dozier has a much more solid fundamental approach at the plate this season - something that was not present a year ago. With a more discriminating eye at the plate and now functional mechanics in place to drive the ball to all areas of the ballpark, his numbers should steadily improve as the season progresses. 

More at TwinsDaily.com:

Seth Stohs looks at the minor leagues and provides a recap of yesterday's events. 

Speaking of prospects, Twins Daily contributor Jeremy Nygaard gives an International Signing preview. 

The Twins will square off against the mighty Whities tonight in Chicago and TD has all the info you need on the upcoming series. 

Finally, DiamondCentric has GAME SIX tees in presale. (I know it doesn't feel like t-shirt weather but it will happen soon enough.)

During spring training, I observed a trend. It seemed that, all too frequently, a Twins starting pitcher would get knocked around in an outing, and then remark after the game that he felt good about his performance. Executed his pitches and just didn't get results. I asked a beat reporter in Ft. Myers, and he mentioned that he'd noticed the same pattern.

Of course, there's nothing groundbreaking or especially noteworthy about this. Pitchers are generally not concerned with their numbers in March, and often work on strengthening their weakest offerings.

Still, to see shellackings played off with the shrug of a shoulder struck a chord in light of the rotation's performance in 2012, and my fears that the unit grew only more contact-heavy in the offseason.

One particular incident stands out in my memory. The Twins were playing against the Rays in Port Charlotte in mid-March. Vance Worley was facing Luke Scott, and with an 0-2 count he delivered a sinking fastball in on the hands. Scott turned on it and drilled it over the fence for a home run. After the game, Worley expressed little regret over the pitch, telling reporters, "It did what it was supposed to do" and tipping his cap to Scott.

I don't know if I've ever before heard a major-league hurler say that an 0-2 pitch "did what it was supposed to do" if the hitter made any type of contact with it. In that count, the pitcher is in complete control, able to fling anything that might fool his outflanked opponent. Worley's signature pitch did what it was supposed to do, and an unspectacular hitter deposited it in the stands? Not encouraging.

Worley expressed the same type of sentiment after his meltdown against the Mets on Friday night. "They're hitting it where my guys aren't at," he told reporters. "I feel I'm not giving up real hard hits. It's just a matter of where they're hitting it."

Here's the thing about these quotes: they're not wrong. Even when Worley is in his element, he relies on batted balls ending up in gloves. On certain nights the opposing lineup is going to string hits and beat him, even when he's executing his plan. That doesn't make him a bad pitcher, but it's the nature of a guy who throws his stuff around the zone and doesn't expect to miss many bats. Some have voiced frustration over what they see as a lack of accountability in Worley's remarks, but I just see an intelligent guy who knows what he is and realizes that he'll always be at the mercy of his fielders and plain old luck.

Worley was a fitting Opening Day starter and tone-setter for this rotation. Each of the members behind him follows essentially the same blueprint, so it wouldn't be surprising to hear any of them respond similarly to a dud performance.

It's not impossible to excel with this approach, and in fact when it's clicking the outings tend to be longer and more efficient. Nick Blackburn v. 2009 and Carlos Silva v. 2007 are prime examples of this. They logged 200 innings and healthily outweighed their bad starts with solid ones. But these examples also attest to the downside of a pitcher who lives and dies by contact; should he lose the slightest bit of movement on his sinker, or should an injury alter his mechanics a tad, hitters begin feasting. Suddenly those pitches look like beach balls.

It's a fine line, and one the Twins are walking far too much in their starting corps this year. The rotation consists entirely of pure pitch-to-contact guys, and as a result starters have totaled only 27 strikeouts through 13 games.

Defensively, they've proven ill-equipped to handle so many attempts, with bungled plays already piling up. But even with stellar glove support, a starting staff cannot expect to succeed while striking out only 9 percent of opposing hitters, as the Twins have up to this point. I think that number may slightly understate the strikeout proficiency of the current group but not by a whole lot. I just don't see how a rotation with this makeup can possibly expect to stay afloat.

The good news is that the unit's makeup is likely to change as we move forward, and there are some interesting arms on the horizon with a chance to break the contact-heavy trend. Kyle Gibson should be up from Triple-A before long and while not a strikeout machine he'll likely miss more bats than any current Twins starter. Newly acquired fireballer Alex Meyer is off to a strong start in Double-A and has a chance to join the big-league club later this season, as does fellow New Britain Rock Cat Trevor May, who led the Eastern League in strikeouts last year.

Add in veteran wild cards Rich Harden and Rafael Perez – who both have histories of dominance and should at least get a chance to start when they're fully healthy – and you've got a solid mix of potential options to enter the fold and add an element that is completely amiss in the Twins' rotation right now: intimidation.

Baseball is the greatest of the games for many reasons. It’s great because it’s a marathon and not a sprint. It’s great because it is the world’s greatest players. It’s great because of its willingness to respect and appreciate its great history including on Monday when all players wore #42 on their jerseys in appreciation for all that Jackie Robinson did in integrating the game 65 years ago. Baseball is great for so many reasons.

And, of course, I’m preaching to the choir.

One of my favorite things about the game of baseball over the course of a long season is that anything can happen on any day. A team with a payroll like the Astros can win a series against a team with the payroll of the Angels. A .180 hitter can occasionally get a big hit against a pitcher with a WHIP below 1.00. Anything can happen on every pitch.

Sure, the Twins had lost five games in a row, but tonight’s 8-2 Twins win over the Angels gave me several very specific reminders of what this is such a great game that we all love. Here are a few of them:

OSWALDO ARCIA

As you know, I enjoy following the players through the minor league system. I love that there is no one route to the big leagues, and I appreciate how difficult it is to get so much as a cup of coffee in a Major League game. Because of that, getting to witness a Major League debut is always something that I find pretty special.

On Monday night, Oswaldo Arcia donned a #42 jersey and ran out to left field for the top of the 1^st inning. As a fan and someone who played baseball throughout the first 22 years of my life, I can only imagine the feelings and the pride that Arcia had going through his mind as he was running out to left field. Or how about as he was stepping into the batter’s box? Fortunately, he was able to calm himself down enough to take a ball. Then on the second pitch, he lined a single to right field for his first big league hit. As Josh Hamilton booted it for a while, Arcia advanced to second base on the play.

Arcia was the first Twins hitter to get a hit in his first MLB at bat since Chris Parmelee in 2011. The 21 year (11 month, 6 days) old was the youngest Twins player to debut since Francisco Liriano pitched in a game in September of 2005.

In the 7^th inning, a pop up was hit to shallow left field. Pedro Florimon went out. Arcia looked down briefly to call off Florimon. When Arcia looked back up, the ball had moved on him, and he was unable to make the catch. Considering he had not played a game in the minor leagues in left field since 2009 in the Gulf Coast League, it is no surprised that he would struggle, though he would likely make that catch 99 out of 100 times in a game situation.

Arcia had a great at bat against lefty Michael Roth. With runners on second and third, Arcia ripped a first-pitch fastball to the left centerfield gap. Unfortunately, Mike Trout was able to run it down.

Aaron Hicks came in as a defensive replacement in the 8^th inning, ending Arcia’s night. It would be found out later that it would end Arcia’s time with the Twins… for now. After the game, the Twins reinstated Wilkin Ramirez from the paternity list and optioned Arcia back to Rochester.

Arcia is one of the top prospects in the system and he represented himself well in his debut. He will most certainly be back at some point this season, whenever Terry Ryan finds a way to clear up a roster spot.

KEVIN CORREIA

When the Twins signed RHP Kevin Correia, we all let out a collective groan. Why would the Twins sign this guy who gives up a ton of hits, doesn’t have impeccable control and rarely misses bats? I had no problem with bringing him in for the 2013 season. I get that 2013 is a rebuilding year. But why give a guy  who has not pitched in the American League and who has so few strikeouts that second year?

Some people chose to remark any time other free agent pitchers signed elsewhere, comparing the other team’s move favorably to the Twins signing of Kevin Correia.

On this night, Correia worked seven innings and gave up two runs on eight hits and a walk. He struckout five. The two runs came early in the game when he gave up solo home runs to Peter Bourjos and former Twins infielder Brendan Harris. He has made three starts for the Twins and gone at least seven innings in each of them.

No one is expecting him to maintain a sub-3.00 ERA for the season. In fact, no one is expecting him to have an ERA below 4.00. In reality, I expect his ERA to be closer to 5.00 than 4.00 at the end of the year. However, that is no reason not to take a step back and say, Hey, he’s been pretty solid so far this year. Leave it at that.

On Monday night, Correia went up against a lineup that includes $240 million man Albert Pujols, $120 million man Josh Hamilton and young starts in the making like Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout. He also was going against another one of this past offseason’s free agents. Correia got two years and $10 million from the Twins. The Angels signed Joe Blanton to a two year, $15 million deal. On this night, Correia was better.

EIGHTH INNING

In the eighth inning, the Twins had a 5-2 lead. Jared Burton replaced Kevin Correia on the mound. For defensive purposes, Aaron Hicks came in to centerfield and Darin Mastroianni slid over to left field. Oswaldo Arcia exited the game. Burton got Mike Trout, Josh Hamilton and Mark Trumbo out (with Albert Pujols singling) to maintain the 5-2 lead.

Aaron Hicks led off the bottom of the 8^th inning. He came into the at bat with an .047 batting average and just three walks to go with 20 strikeouts in just 46 plate appearances. As has happened in so many of his plate appearances this season, he quickly fell behind in the count 1-2. However, he worked a terrific at bat, laying off a couple of tough breaking pitches, before leading off a walk. He proceeded to steal his first base in the big leagues. On the next pitch, he advanced to third base on a ball in the dirt by getting a great read on it.

At the same time, Brian Dozier was at the plate. He was 0-2 with a walk at the time, dropping his season batting average to .152. He managed to get into a 1-2 count as well. However, he took some tough pitches and showed a very good eye in working his second walk of the game.

Pedro Florimon came up. He had bunted for a single and bunted for a sacrifice earlier in the game. He came into the game hitting .278, an average that will likely be at least .040 higher than where he’ll be in another week or so. However, he got a pitch out over the plate and drilled a line drive to the left centerfield gap. Hicks scored, but Dozier could not have run the bases any better. As the fielder grabbed the ball, Dozier was nearing third base. The much-maligned Joe Vavra was aggressive and sent Dozier who scored easily.

Although the final score was 8-2, the game was certain still in question when these three hitters came through with some big plate appearances and terrific base running to give the Twins some extra breathing room. It’s important to get contributions throughout the lineup. Baseball is beautiful because anything can happen. Sometimes big rallies can start with the 7-8-9 hitters.

JOE MAUER

Baseball is also a beautiful sport because its stars shine brightly.
Mauer went 3-4 on Opening Day, but then over the next four games, he went just 2-19 (.105) to drop his five-game batting average to .217. There were actually some fans wondering what was wrong with Mauer at that point. Of course, the answer was “Absolutely nothing.”

Over the past seven games, he has gone 13-29 (.448) to raise his average to .346 on the still-young season.

On Monday night, Mauer went 4-5, just a triple shy of the cycle. In his first at bat, Mauer crushed a double to right centerfield, more than halfway up the wall. He later hit a home run to left centerfield, and in that eighth inning, he drove in Florimon with a single up the middle.

Mauer entered the game with a career batting line of .323/.404/.467. You know that at the end of the 2013 season, his stat line will look something very similar to that.

Be sure to head over to Twins Daily this morning for many reasons:

• Adopt-A-Prospect 2013 returns and on Tuesday morning, starting at 10:00 a.m. CST, the adoption process will begin.
• Minnetonka native and former Gopher baseball player AJ Pettersen is a member of the 11-0 Ft. Myers Miracle. He also has been blogging at Twins Daily for the past year. His most recent blog Early Highlights chronicles his spring training and the start of the new season.
• Nick wrote a terrific article on what Oswaldo Arcia’s short promotion signals.
• Each day at Twins Daily, we write a Twins Minor League Report which provides all the information on each of the Twins affiliates, game scores and highlights. A familiar name was one of the choices for player of the day, and the Ft. Myers Miracle remained perfect.
• You’ll also want to get familiar with the Rosters and Payrolls. In it, you can find the rosters of the Twins and all of their affiliates and learn how they were acquired, how much they signed for, when they are Rule 5 or arbitration-eligible and much more. 
• If you ever wondered how many Twins players or minor league players or the affiliates and their personnel are on Twitter, click here for a huge list of people for you to follow. 

Aaron and John's Minnesota Twins podcast visits a bar for sale. Then they talk about Aaron Hicks historic struggles, their move to KFAN, what went right for the Twins this week, conficting explanations for how the Twins ended up with a low-K pitching staff, Oswaldo Arcia's role this week, what makes Aaron curl into the fetal position, misperceptions about the infield, batting practice misfires, charging the mound and #42. Here are:

• the podcasts
• the rss feed if you want to subscribe and
• the podcast on iTunes.

Or click below to listen.

LOTS to talk about at Twins Daily, including Arcia's callup and reaction, a ton of minor league news, your chance to Adopt a Twins Prospect, lunch with Josh Roenicke and a review of the movie #42. And you thought you had real stuff to do today.

 Leading baseball in strikeouts probably is not what Aaron Hicks had in mind when he daydreamed about his first week in the major leagues.

He probably has visions of scorching liners into the right-center gap or sending a shot into the overhang in right field. He pictured himself dancing off of first and swindling second with blaze of dust behind him. Instead, he has made so little contact at the plate that his bat is going through separation anxiety.

How has it started this poorly for Hicks and how can he turn it around? The first key to improvement is avoiding falling behind in the count so frequently.

Perhaps pitchers in the Eastern League would tip-toe around the strike zone but major league pitchers have come right at Hicks. With a reputation for being borderline overly patient, opponents have poured in first-pitch strikes and put the center fielder behind in the count 76% of his plate appearance thus far in his young career. By comparison, the rest of the league’s hitter’s have been ahead in the count more often than not, as pitchers have gained a first-pitch strike edge just 48% of the time on average.

Overall, Hicks has not given opponents much reason to avoid pumping strikes, either. While he has swung 11 times on the initial pitch of his at-bats, he’s put the ball in play just twice (one of his two hits, no less). This may evoke comparisons to Joe Mauer’s laissez-faire attitude towards first pitches but even this season in which the catcher has had an unusually high strikeout rate, pitchers have fallen behind him too (45% first-pitch strike rate). While he does not swing often, Mauer does have a .422 career average when swinging on the first pitch, providing pitchers consideration for not living inside the zone. Hicks, however, has built no such reputation.

The second key for Hicks to rebound is improving his pitch recognition – specifically the breaking balls.

Once he falls behind in the count, teams have twisted and turned the ball at him. In counts when behind (0-1, 0-2 and 1-2), Hicks has seen 17 fastballs compared to 26 non-fastballs (curves, sliders and change-ups). According to Pitchf/x data, Hicks has seen 46 non-fastballs from right-handed pitchers. He’s offered at 18 of those pitches. Of those 18 swings, he’s made contact just seven times. His early season lack of contact is one reason – besides falling behind in the count – which he has struck out in 16 of his 37 trips to the plate.

In his second inning at-bat against Kansas City’s Wade Davis on Wednesday night, the pitch sequencing used has become a common theme for Hicks – dominating the strike zone airspace early in the count and then dropping the hammer with two-strikes.

First pitch: Fastball, strike looking.

Second pitch: Fastball, strike looking.

Third pitch: Cutter, ball.

Fourth pitch: Fastball, foul.

Fifth pitch: Curve, swinging strike. Strike three. Goodnight Gracie.

Take a look at the concluding pitch:

Now this pitch had very little chance of being put into play but what you see in these clips is what Hicks has been doing all season on breaking and off-speed pitches. His front side opens up and then his back side drops, effectively eliminating any chance of making decent contact. All of this happens because he over-commits to the pitch.

The way he swings at these grossly unhittable pitches, it is clear that he is having troubles deciphering breaking balls from fastballs. On a basic level, hitters know that breaking balls and other various swing-and-miss type pitches are coming once a pitcher gets ahead in the count. The trick is recognizing the spin. And that part simply comes with comfort and repetition.

This is not an uncommon struggle for younger ballplayers. In a recent interview, Mets hitting coach Dave Hudgens addressed outfielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis’s similar curve ball problem and his advice is very applicable to Hicks as well:

“The key is laying off those pitches you should be lay off, and that comes down to pitch recognition. When you start struggling a little bit, guys start chasing hits, and chasing results.  Whenever you start doing that, you start a little bit earlier. … I try to teach the guys, if you see spin down — knee high or thigh high — if it’s spinning, you have to discipline yourself.  But when you’re hunting hits, it’s very difficult to do. That’s how it snow balled with Nieuwenhuis a little bit. He couldn’t calm himself down and he wanted to hit so bad, he was committing himself early and not recognizing those pitches. My suggestion to [the hitters] is early in the count, we’re tracking pitches. Right now, we’re going down and watching our pitchers on the side and watching that spin. Then when the games begin, hunt fastballs. [He] can hit breaking balls, but it has to be a breaking ball that’s up.”

It is early in the year and management knows that he has plenty of time to turn things around. Still, if this continues for a prolonged period of time, Hicks may have to recalibrate in Rochester.