Crawford reworks swing path after ‘busy’ offseason
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Brandon Crawford had a energetic offseason, however not for the rationale you would possibly assume. Four kids 10 or youthful, every enjoying a number of sports activities and two in hip-hop lessons, can reorder your priorities. Think chauffeur and snack packing containers.
“I was their private driver,” Crawford mentioned with a smile on the Giants’ Spring Training facility on Thursday. “It was busy, but it was fun.”
His private offseason routine was busy, too. Crawford is arguably the perfect shortstop in Giants historical past and positively essentially the most sturdy, with 1,561 video games performed and two World Series rings. But as he enters his thirteenth season — after turning 36 in January — he figured an early begin couldn’t damage.
“Pretty much every other year I have taken a month off for recovery, mental and physical,” Crawford mentioned. “To get away from baseball a little bit bit and be with the household and let the physique get well and the mind get well from an extended season.
“I’m not one of the young guys anymore, so just figured I might as well get going earlier.”
Crawford had two of the perfect years of his profession in 2020 and ’21, however proper knee irritation despatched him to the injured record twice final season and hampered his productiveness. His .652 OPS was a profession low in a full season. He frolicked on the Giants’ Spring Training facility with hitting coach Justin Viele analyzing his swing, periods made simpler as a result of Crawford lives in Scottsdale.
“There wasn’t necessarily one thing we were looking at,” Crawford mentioned. “There had been nonetheless a variety of good components to my swing that simply weren’t all coming collectively final yr till form of close to the tip of the season. I don’t assume it was a coincidence that my knee felt quite a bit higher after the IL stints.
“We just wanted to make sure I was finding the barrel a little more consistently like I did the last month, month-and-a-half last season, and by doing that, just making sure my bat path was close to what it was in ’21 and in ’20, when my swing was feeling pretty good. Obviously, the results were there, too.”
Crawford had the perfect two house run charges of his profession these seasons, with eight in 172 at-bats in pandemic-shortened 2020 and 24 in 483 at-bats in ’21, the results of a decided give attention to lifting the ball. He believes he might need taken that too far.
“The things we worked on before were not hitting ground balls and cleaning up the bat path in a way where I could hit the ball in the air more,” he mentioned. “I feel like maybe there was almost too much focus on that from me. Not from [the organization]. I think there was too much focus on that, and I was in and out of the zone a little bit.”
Crawford considers the Carlos Correa saga outdated news not price discussing now, however Giants supervisor Gabe Kapler mentioned it couldn’t have been simple for him.
“Crawford has been the shortstop right here for a extremely, actually very long time,” Kapler mentioned. “To even must undergo the psychological and emotional train of what quantities to be, in his mind, the tip of that run — that’s an enormous problem in and of itself.
“I believe he dealt with it very effectively. But not at all is that form of factor simple for a participant.”
Crawford is the lone holdover from the Giants’ 2012 and ’14 World Series title groups, and it’s evident that he takes his management function critically. When the Giants did cutoff and relay drills on the primary day of full camp, he went full-out, actually setting the instance for others to observe.
Crawford’s proper knee concern is said to cartilage harm, which he had handled with cortisone final yr for the primary time in his profession.
“It’s cartilage thing, so it is not necessarily going to heal itself,” he mentioned. “I just hope to keep it strong enough around the [joint] to relieve the pain that I feel from it. There are certain movements that still don’t feel great, but if I can keep it to where it is right now, it will be fine for the season.”
Kapler mentioned load administration will think about Crawford’s utilization.
“The No. 1 priority with Brandon is to keep him healthy, keep him strong physically, and things will work themselves out,” Kapler mentioned.
• Right-hander Tristan Beck is scheduled to begin the Cactus League opener Saturday in opposition to the Cubs in Mesa (12:05 p.m. PT, reside on MLB.TV).
“We see him as a future piece of our rotation,” Kapler mentioned. “While these are very much exhibition games, they are also opportunities for our young players to get their feet wet.”
Beck, 26, was 5-9 with a 5.25 ERA in 23 Minor League appearances at two ranges in 2022.
