Young struggling to regain early-season form
PHOENIX – Chris Young spent the second half of last season playing through a swing-altering thumb injury that caused his offensive numbers to plummet, but he said this spring that he would do it all again if it necessary.
Unfortunately and perhaps unfairly, it has been.
Baseball is a game of adjustments, they say, but Young must feel that this is getting a little ridiculous. Left thumb one season. Right shoulder the next. After returning at far less than 100 percent from his shoulder problem in mid-May, Young has three RBIs in 102 at-bats with a swing that is not his own.
“I don’t feel like myself right now,” Young said candidly.
“It’s been to the point where it’s embarrassing.”
It is a testament to the value Young adds that even with the Diamondbacks’ added outfield depth this season, he has missed only three of the last 25 games despite hitting .147 since returning from the injury. For manager Kirk Gibson, it is almost a no-brainer.
Young, who finished second in the balloting for the NL Gold Glove in center field last year, covers more ground than any other D-backs outfielder. He runs well. His aggressive base-running set up what proved to be the winning run in 4-3 victory over Oakland two weeks ago, when he tagged from first base on a fly ball to deep center field and scored on a single one batter later. Teammates cite his clubhouse presence, and Gibson lauds his work ethic.
While that is enough for the D-backs, it does not satisfy Young, who was off to the best start of the major league career before suffering a slight ligament tear in his right shoulder when he ran into the left-center field fence at Chase Field catching a ball hit by Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alvarez on April 17.
Young was the among hottest hitters in the league went he went down. He was second in the league with five homers and an OPS of 1.397, third with a .410 batting average and third with 13 RBI.
“I think he is trying to duplicate what he was doing when he got hurt, which was on fire, and he’s had a hard time recapturing that,” said Gibson, who played through numerous injuries in his 17 major league seasons.
“Injury's probably party to blame for that. That’s how this game is, how seasons are. Here you are rolling, and all of a sudden something like this happens and you have something else to deal with. He recognizes something that he is doing, a flaw in his swing, and he is working to correct it. He’s worked very hard. Probably too hard. But it’s just what we do. I do it. He does it. The next guy in the locker room does it. It’s the only way we know how.”
When Young took an 0-for-4 against Seattle last Tuesday, he stayed late and took swings in the batting cage until close to midnight.
Young’s shoulder strength was down when he returned, and the D-backs knew it, but they wanted him in the lineup anyway. Young was happy to oblige, saying, “I strive on being in the lineup. When you have things that are injured, you just to make do with what you have at the time. It hasn’t been to my advantage. It’s tough mentally, but I’m pushing through it.”
With the shoulder not 100 percent, his bat speed was slower through the strike zone. The result was a lesser ability to drive the ball.
Things appear to be improving lately. Young had three doubles in his late eight starts, two down the left-field line. But it was one to right-center on Saturday that caught Gibson’s attention.
“It was good to see him hit the ball hard the other way. That’s what he did early in the season. That’s what he’s striving for. Hopefully he can build on it,” Gibson said.
Through it all Young has continued to bring his upbeat demeanor to the park, whether joking with teammates or playing cards with his best friend, Justin Upton, on a tray set up between their locker stalls.
“I’ve been through struggles before, but it’s just a little different coming off an injury," he said. "When the strength isn’t there, you manipulate your swing to put yourself in a position to where you can get the bat through the zone. But it’s not your swing.”
Thus the extra work. Young got a day off Sunday, when Gerardo Parra doubled, walked and score three runs while hitting leadoff against a right-hander, and Parra provides Gibson the luxury of a quality option.
But Young remains the regular there, and after sparking the D-backs’ offense the first two weeks, he believes he is getting closer to returning to full use.
“The guys have been picking me up a lot lately, which has been amazing. I want to start carrying my own weight again and do what I know I am able to do,” he said.