00:00For the Detroit Tigers faithful, there is perhaps no feeling in baseball more agonizing than
00:05watching a hitter with clear, undeniable talent square up the baseball time and again, only to
00:11watch the box score refuse to cooperate, it is a sport of cruel geometry and invisible wins,
00:16where a 106 mph rocket can find a glove just as easily as a bleacher seat, the early weeks of
00:22this season have provided a masterclass in that very frustration, centered squarely on first
00:27baseman Spencer Torkelson. But as Wednesday night at Comerica Park demonstrated, patience and process
00:34have a way of silencing the noise, provided you are willing to wait for the right pitch and trust
00:38the data, Spencer Torkelson was not worried, even if you, understandably might have been worried for
00:45him, the metrics suggested his first home run of the season was coming, just as important for him,
00:51the way he felt at the plate suggested the clock was ticking, on the first torque bomb of the year,
00:56the reason many on the outside felt a creeping dread was rooted in history, after his breakout 31 homer
01:02season in 2023, he did not hit his first home run of 2024, until the Tigers 40th game of the
01:08season,
01:09and his 147th at bat, surely that particular piece of history could not repeat itself could it?
01:15Torque's great, manager AJ Hinch said prior to the breakthrough, he's been working incredibly hard,
01:21we're just wanting him to continue to believe, and continue to fight, and he does, he was waiting
01:26for his pitch and hitting the ball hard, he just was not hitting the baseball far, or at least not
01:31far enough to clear the fence. Then came Chad Patrick's sinker, a pitch that wandered just enough
01:37over the heart of the plate, Torkelson lined it over Comerica Park's left field fence for a two-run
01:42home run, that gave Detroit the lead for good in an eventual 5-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on
01:48Wednesday night. Finally, I kept reminding myself, it's coming, Torkelson said afterward, it felt amazing,
01:54Torkelson's first home run since September 20th of last year had seemingly been imminent, at least to
01:59anyone who'd glanced at his baseball savant page entering Wednesday's action, that page was awash in red
02:04and pink, visual signals of above-average data, his elite chase rate, which sits in the 97th percentile,
02:11and his walk rate, which is in the 93rd percentile, illustrated a patient approach, even as his strikeout
02:17rate climbed to a career-high 30.2 percent. Additionally, his bat speed, hard-hit rate,
02:23and sweet-spot rate were all up or comparable to last year, demonstrating that he had been
02:28consistently striking balls with the capacity for significant damage. There was, however,
02:33one notable difference in the profile, Torkelson entered Wednesday batting just .2-1.
02:4114.75 percentile slugging percentage against fastballs, despite a higher average exit velocity
02:51of 93.1 mph against that specific pitch type, the culprit appeared to be trajectory. His average
02:56launch angle against fastballs had dropped from 22 degrees last year to just 16 degrees so far this
03:01season, what helped Torkelson navigate through that stretch of unrewarded contact. Just knowing that this
03:06is a tough game, and you're not always going to see results. Torkelson explained. I was seeing the
03:12ball great, I was hitting the ball decently hard, just got a little bit of bad luck, but I knew
03:17it
03:17was going to come. For a brief moment on Wednesday, Torkelson seemed headed for more of the same
03:22outcome, after laying off a pair of change-ups to work a favorable 3-1 count in his first at
03:28-bat,
03:28he received a 93.4 mph sinker from Brewer's left-handed opener D.L. Hall, Torkelson crushed
03:34it on a line drive to left field, the resulting exit velocity of 106.2 mph was his highest recorded
03:41figure of the season to that point, but the 18-degree launch angle directed the baseball
03:46directly into the glove of Brewer's left fielder Brandon Lockridge for the first out of the second
03:52inning. It was Torkelson's 13th ball in play this season, with a triple-digit exit velocity, yet only
03:59three of those prior Rockets had fallen for hits. That's a win in my eyes, Torkelson said of the
04:04first at-bat contact. Obviously it's in 0-for-1 in the book, but what are you going to do?
04:08You can't
04:09totally manipulate where the ball goes every time. Two innings later, Torkelson stepped to the plate
04:15against Patrick, a right-hander who entered his bulk assignment on Wednesday, with just a 12%
04:21strikeout rate this season, but a mere 152 batting average against, 5-for-33 when facing right-handed
04:28hitters. Patrick's success this year against right-handers had been predicated on a simple
04:33formula, attacking them with an array of fastballs to the outer half of the plate. According to
04:39StatCast, 84.5% of his pitches to righties had been four-seamers, sinkers, or cutters, and better
04:46than two-thirds of those offerings had been located on the outer half. You really just pick one of them,
04:51because he's got three different shapes of fastballs. Torkelson said of his approach against Patrick,
04:56can't really complicate it too much, just pick one of them and not try to do too much with it.
05:01Once more, Torkelson worked himself into a favorable count by laying off pitches that
05:06strayed outside the strike zone. Patrick spotted a 2-0 cutter on the outside corner that Torkelson
05:12managed to foul off to stay alive. Then, Patrick's 2-1 sinker wandered back over the middle of the plate,
05:18and Torkelson did not miss it. He crushed the baseball with an exit velocity of 106.4 miles per hour,
05:24which was actually a tick harder than his first at-bat. This time, however, the launch angle was
05:30higher at 24 degrees, a trajectory that allowed him to send the ball sailing over the visiting
05:35bullpen and into the front row of the left field seats. The baseball nearly dropped into the enlarged
05:40glove hole of the Little Caesars mascot, situated between the bullpens.
05:44We've been aiming for that for a while, Torkelson said with a nod to the mascot's oversized prop.
05:50They even made it bigger. That was the swing Torkelson has been putting on the baseball for
05:55much of the year. Finally, this was the validating result so many had been waiting to see.
06:01We all know how good torque is, said infielder Kevin McGonigal, whose RBI double off Patrick and
06:07subsequent runs scored in the fifth inning provided additional support for starter Casey Mize,
06:12who improved his record to 2-1. It's part of baseball, I've never seen a bad day from him off
06:17the
06:17field or in the clubhouse. As we watch this team navigate the long grind of the season,
06:21seeing a player of Torkelson's caliber finally get that tangible reward forces a question we often ask
06:27ourselves as fans. When you see a hitter squaring up the ball with this kind of authority, do you
06:32find more satisfaction in the loud out that proves the process is sound, or in the fleeting moment when
06:39the launch angle finally cooperates and the ball disappears over the fence?
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