The Atlanta Braves might have a glimmer of hope for one of their slumping hitters to turn his season around. Michael Harris II has been working on his stance and mechanics to get on a run we haven’t seen from him all season.
Manager Brian Snitker noticed that how Harris looks standing in the batter’s box is an improvement.
“It just looks better,” he said. “Looks more like he’s in a better position to hit. So, hopefully, he stays with it because last night, he had two rockets and tonight – so looks like he might be ready to get on one of them runs we’ve seen him get on.”
The two “rockets” that Snitker is referring to from Monday night are the two balls that came off the bat at over 100 miles per hour. Unfortunately for Harris, both turned into double-play balls.
As for Tuesday night, he tried to help the Braves get a rally going. He went 2-for-4 in the 9-0 loss to the Giants. Both were line drives. One came off the bat at 99.6 miles per hour, while the other was at 107.1 miles per hour. He also had a flyout that launched at 96.3 and went 380 feet, and his groundout was hit at 107.3 miles per hour.
Walks are still hard to come by for him. He still has just the one in over two months that came back on Saturday. However, the results of a change are starting to show.
Since the start of the series with the Cardinals on July 11, Harris is batting .300 with a .789 OPS with a home run, two doubles and three RBIs across eight games.
It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly the stance changed, but highlights from the Cardinals series show a change, and that was where he snapped a 1-for-22 cold spell. He’s had a hit in seven of those eight games. In 20 games played before that, he had at least one hit in five of those games for six total hits. So, he’s already had a hit in more games recently than he had total hits in a larger span before that.
There is evidence building that the changes Harris is making are showing some results. It’s not showing up in the win column yet. The Braves are 4-4 in their last eight, but it has to start somewhere.
Snitker said that Harris had been working on tweaks to his stance and mechanics with hitting coach Tim Hyers, and, more importantly, Harris bought into the changes.
He gave Harris the credit for buying in and making changes, something that every hitter has to do, even the best ones.
“He’s trying now. Good. That’s what this game is all about,” Snitker said. “To be successful in this thing, it never stops. It never stops, making adjustments, and I’ve watched the Hall of Famers we had, and they were doing it up to their last at bat.”
We know what he’s capable of when he gets going. In the final month of last season, he hit eight of his 16 home runs on the year while boasting a .316 average and a .923 OPS in that time. Anything remotely close to that would provide the Braves with some hope, not necessarily for this season, but for Harris’ future.
