The Los Angeles Dodgers have won four straight games, and Kiké Hernandez is a big reason why. Hernandez has gone 8-for-24 since taking over as their starting shortstop while Chris Taylor nurses a minor hamstring injury.
He launched two of the Dodgers’ MLB-record-tying seven home runs against the New York Mets Sunday, then took Chicago Cubs rookie Duane Underwood Jr. deep in his first plate appearance Monday.
All of those solo shots proved crucial as the Dodgers won both games by just one run. Hernandez, now in his fourth year as a Dodger, has been an extremely useful utilityman since coming to Los Angeles.
He never quite could carve out a starting role for himself, however, because of the major hole in his game: inability to hit right-handed pitching.
In a recent article, Eno Sarris of The Athletic included a table showing the biggest difference in wRC+ for hitters when facing left-handed pitchers vs. right-handed pitchers. According to Sarris’s table, Hernandez has the biggest such difference in the entire league since 2015.
He has a 137 wRC+ against lefties and a 55 wRC+ against righties, meaning he rakes against the former and cannot seem to buy a hit against the latter.
That weakness may be a thing of the past, however, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has noticed, via Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times:
“It’s hard to get him out of the lineup now,” Roberts said of Hernandez. “His defense has never been in question. He’s always hit left-handed pitching, but the mechanical adjustment, the approach adjustment against right-handers, for me has been a game-changer.
“He’s hitting good right-handers, he’s hitting homers, he’s going the other way when he needs to, he’s staying away from the punch-out. … On this run, [he] has been as valuable, if not more valuable, than anyone on our club, and those defensive plays he made in eighth inning were game-changers.”
The adjustment Roberts talked about first manifested itself in Spring Training, and has carried over into the regular season.
Hernandez has a 100 wRC+ against righties in 2018, exactly league average and a dramatic improvement from his career norm. He has also hit six of his 13 home runs this season against righties, including Monday’s longball against Underwood.
With Corey Seager out for the year and Taylor still limited by hamstring soreness, the Dodgers need all the production they can get from the shortstop position.
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