News
Comfort level helps Inge settle in
Batting mechanics come together for third baseman
By Jason Beck / MLB.com
04/30/09 4:17 PM ET
DETROIT -- One of the quirks of Brandon Inge's new hitting approach is the angle of his bat towards the pitcher as he awaits the delivery, a mechanism that he says keeps itself in line. If Inge's hands fall out of position, or his bat out of angle, he would basically bonk himself on his helmet.It's an approach that has powered him through an opening month that left opponents scratching their heads. It's the latest turn in a Tiger tenure with enough twists and turns to make a fan dizzy.
It has taken 30 days, Inge explained Wednesday, to break bad habits from muscle memory and feel comfortable, and he's now there. His comfort level as a Tiger, on and off over the years, is back.
"Maybe we're just a good fit," Inge half-joked recently.
Six years ago, Inge caught 17 of the Tigers' first 21 games, and saw just two wins in the bunch. A year ago, he started 18 of the Tigers' first 21 games at center field, third base, even catcher.
Inge was once a potential center fielder and twice has been Detroit's supposed long-term catcher. Now, he has started each of Detroit's first 21 games at third base, and reached base safely in all of them. It matches his streak to start 2005, the first full season he was Detroit's starting third baseman. No Tiger has had a longer streak to start the season since Alan Trammell's 22-game streak in 1990.
The stats are similar to '05, but all the changes Inge has endured in between make it feel like eons ago.
"I've learned from last year," Inge said. "The best years that I've had are the years that I go out and have fun."
When Inge played in his 1,000th career game on April 13, he joined a group of now 14 active players to reach the mark entirely with one club. The list includes such franchise faces as the Yankees' Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, Atlanta's Chipper Jones, Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins and Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols.
To put Inge in that category seems almost bizarre. But the fact is, just seven athletes on any of Detroit's major pro teams have as long of a tenure in the city as Inge: Longtime Lions Jason Hanson, Jeff Blackus and Jared DeVries, and Red Wings stars Nicklas Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Kris Draper and Pavel Datsyuk.
"I'd say I'm more appreciative of it," Inge said of his time. "I try to represent this team, this organization very well, the city, the state. I try to play like I think every kid, fan, mom and dad would want to play if they had a chance to play this game. I play as hard as I possibly can. To be able to stay here, for them to keep me around as long as I have, I'm very flattered. Obviously, for them to keep me around as long as they have, they've appreciated it. It makes me feel very good."
Unlike a year ago, when the Miguel Cabrera trade put Inge on the trading block and then in a utility role, Inge had stability this winter. The decision to start Inge at third again came near the end of last season.
Manager Jim Leyland, who believes the frequent shifts in general hurt the Tigers as a club last year, believes stability helped him relax.
"I think relaxed players are always better players," Leyland said.
Inge spent the winter working on swing changes that he's thought about for years, but never fully embraced. He grasped what hitting coach Lloyd McClendon taught him and started retooling his swing at home.
"It's easier to get prepared and get focused when there's not as much stuff going on," Inge said in Spring Training.
But it also helped him appreciate what he has needed to do for a while. His offense has been questioned as far back as 2002, when he lost the Opening Day catcher's job to now-journeyman Mike Rivera. Inge knew what he was doing wrong mechanically, he says, but he couldn't grasp how to go about changing it.
Given another chance at third base, he had to try.
"Once you lose something that you love, and you get an opportunity to make it right, you almost feel like you don't want to let it go, don't want to let it slip away," Inge said going into the season. "You want to make sure you take every advantage of it and just enjoy it. Because knowing how bad last year was, I don't want to go through that anymore."
Inge has been on hitting tears before, but never quite this sustained. No Tiger had ever homered in the season's first three games until Inge did it during the season-opening series at Toronto. His seven homers are nearly twice as many as his best previous April, and enough to share the team lead. He never posted a 1.000 OPS in any calendar month with more than 80 plate appearances; he ended April at 1.114.
Time will tell if Inge can keep up anything close to this, but Inge's feel for his mechanics make him confident he can hit well.
"Right now, it feels like I would be able to pull myself out of slumps pretty quickly," Inge said recently. "I don't even think about [mechanics] anymore, to be honest with you."
He has the comfort level, in more ways than one.
Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
