Los Angeles Dodgers utility man Chris Taylor entered the 2018 season looking to build off an unexpected breakout year on both sides of the ball.
However, he struggled early out of the gate and found himself hitting just .232/.271/.424 in 133 plate appearances at the end of April.
After a rough opening month, Taylor has since rebounded in May. He is currently sporting a solid slash line of .278/.409/.407, with four extra-base hits and six RBI in 66 opportunities.
Taylor, confident in his approach, revealed that he tends to ignore pitchers’ approaches against him and instead focus on his feeling, per Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“I don’t think as much about what the pitchers do to me,” he said. “If I’m feeling good and I have the right approach, that’ll take care of stuff. If you get worried about covering that low fastball or start expanding down, you become vulnerable to a lot of off-speed pitches that are down.”
Additionally, Taylor explained that he’s feeling more comfortable at the plate:
“I think early on my swing wasn’t feeling great, balls were getting on me,” Taylor said. “I was late on fastballs and I think when you’re late on fastballs you feel like you have to speed things up and that makes you vulnerable to off-speed. But recently I’ve felt pretty good. I feel like I’ve had better at-bats for a couple series. That’s baseball. It has its ups and downs.”
Taylor returned to the leadoff spot on Thursday after serving as the Dodgers’ No. 6 hitter in four of the previous five games. He was dropped in the batting order by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who called it “imperative” that the 27-year-old return to his usual self at the plate.
He collected two hits in four at-bats and continued his offensive resurgence in the month of May. All-in-all, Taylor has provided roughly league-average production this season behind a slash line of .246/.317/.419 (102 OPS+) with 10 doubles, three triples, five home runs and 16 RBI.
His downfall has been a high strikeout rate, particularly looking.
