FORT MYERS, Fla. - Bobby Dalbec did it again Thursday afternoon.
The Red Sox' first baseman - who dabbled at third in the team's most recent spring training game - came away with a pair of hits, including a mammoth solo home run. The blast was Dalbec's third of the spring and boosted his batting average to .370 with an OPS of 1.229.
But there was one part of the equation which truly pushed the growing optimism further in Dalbec's corner. The home run came with two strikes.
"I think I have more hits with two strikes than I have pre-two strikes this spring, probably," he told WEEI.com prior to the Grapefruit League game against the Twins.
The two-strike is undoubtedly a hurdle for Dalbec to get over heading into 2022, having managed just a .156 batting average and .540 OPS on such counts last season. Most painful was the fact that he struck out 156 times in the 283 plate appearances he got to two strikes.
Something had to change. So Dalbec made sure it did.
For the first time in his baseball-playing life, the slugger has decided to disregard his leg kick with strikes with two strikes, spreading out his stance in the process.
"It just slows me down. It feels good. Keep working on it. Feel better every day. Just want to make some adjustments to stay through some off-speed pitches longer. Other than that, it’s pretty gravy right now," Dalbec said.
"It feels good. It just simplifies it. Pretty much see ball, hit ball. Just trust my eyes and if it’s out of the zone, let it go. Don’t feel like I’m going to rush to get the at-bat over with. I feel comfortable going deeper into at-bats. I don’t feel like I have to get the at-bat over with early so I don’t strikeout. That’s not what I was thinking, but subconsciously it was probably there. I wasn’t activity thinking that, but there was probably an internal clock saying, ‘Let’s get this over with.’
"First time I have done this no-stride, two-strike thing. I think it’s just the mentality part of it. Slowing it down. Seeing the ball down. Me doing that eliminates worrying about what my body is doing."
Whatever Dalbec is doing, it's working, with Thursday's blast serving as the latest example.
"Less is more. That’s true," he said. "I’m OK with pitchers in the strike zone go. Last year I was trying to cover everything. I’m just looking right down the middle. Now I feel more comfortable with two strikes. I shouldn’t say comfortable. It’s not like I have a La-Z-Boy up there. I would like to have a La-Z-Boy."