Hands-on approach working with Twins' Arcia

CLEVELAND – Twins manager Ron Gardenhire interrupted a conversation about Oswaldo Arcia on Wednesday to address a perception about how the club develops power hitters.

"We tell everybody we want them to hit the ball the other way and use the entire field? Are you crazy?" Gardenhire said. "Do you think I don't want a guy to hit home runs? Are they nuts when they say that? I love to see the ball go in the seats. It's the easiest thing to manage.

"I want them to take a nice swing, and I want it to go 8,000 miles."

In Arcia's case, he was swinging and seeing the ball thump into the catcher's mitt. He leads the team with a strikeout percentage of 30.7, with his batting average dropping but showing occasional flashes of power. The Twins want to see Arcia get the most out of his power and have been working with him on his swing.

The results have been hard to see. He's batting .220 with 16 homers and 48 RBI in 87 games. But 11 of those home runs and 30 of those RBI have come since the All-Star break. On Tuesday, he hit a two-run homer that was estimated at 408 feet during the Twins' 4-3 victory over the Indians. But Gardenhire was just as pleased that Arcia singled sharply to center in the ninth inning, taking a pitch on the outer half of the plate up the middle.

"We all said that when he doesn't try to kill the ball, everything seems to work out better," Gardenhire said. "He really stayed on that ball and put a nice swing on it. He realizes that. He says it to himself all the time and he will tell you that he was too amped up. As long as he understands what to do and feels it when he overswings, that's half the battle."

It's a long process, one that began after the All-Star break during extra sessions with hitting coach Tom Brunansky. The Twins believe they have made a little breakthrough with Arcia's swing plane, increasing his chances of making solid contact and thus increasing his chances of hitting home runs. Arcia tends to drop his hands too low as the pitch nears the plate, creating a hitch in his swing.

"What we were doing initially was to eliminate how low his hands got when he gets in his hitting position," Brunansky said, "so we tried to get him to keep his hands up. So that led to an endless amount of drills in the cage. Just so he could feel his hands and make sure he knew where they are at.

"Then we went from there to trying to keep his head still, instead of drifting and going forward. [Between] the combination of his hands going here and his head going forward, there was a lot of pitches [missed]."

For the past several weeks, Arcia and Brunansky have been working on drills during early batting practice. While Arcia's batting average is still low, he is making more solid contact.

"I knew things were better when he stopped swinging at a lot of pitches," Brunansky said. "He started seeing pitches better."

In 24 games since Aug. 8, Arcia has eight home runs and 22 RBI. His batting average is .202 during that time, but his on base-plus-slugging percentage in those 24 games is .808. Arcia, 23, is batting .236 in 184 major league games with 30 home runs and 91 RBI. He's walked 50 times and has struck out 224. The batting average is low and the strikeouts high, but the swing changes are taking effect.

"I feel more confident at the plate," Arcia said. "I'm trying to keep my hands from going too low."

Not a finished product, but making progress. In addition to the mechanical adjustments, the Twins remind Arcia that trying not to hit home runs often is when a player starts hitting them.

"He wants to hit home runs, and he's tried a lot of different ways," Gardenhire said. "I think showing him the video has helped him a bunch, just showing how much movement he had with his hands."