SAN DIEGO -- The exchange took place during batting practice one day in 2007. Adrian Gonzalez, San Diego's whip-smart, always inquisitive first baseman was discussing hitting with Ryan Howard, Philadelphia's slugger extraordinaire.
Gonzalez was zeroed in on Howard's Paul Bunyan-esque bat. Gonzalez asked: Why do you use a bat that big? How does it swing? What are the benefits?
Howard handed his questioner one from his personal stash. Told him to keep it. Take it for a test drive during BP.
You trade tips at your office, right? Offer insight on the new boss to a colleague? Ask your cubicle-neighbor about that new computer?
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| The way things are going, Adrian Gonzalez will wind up with a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger and a sterling reputation. (US Presswire) |
"Even when we play against each other, guys are still fans," says Howard, the National League home run leader in two of the past three seasons. "I've watched him for a couple of years."
Increasingly, others are watching him now.
Gonzalez started this season as baseball's best-kept secret.
He's on pace to finish it as baseball's newest superstar.
Swinging a supersized, 35-inch, 33-ounce piece of lumber, Gonzalez has grown into a pitcher's worst nightmare: An exceptionally disciplined hitter with serious line-to-line power.
• B/R: Gonzalez's amazing season | Trade rumors
Despite playing home games in pitcher-friendly Petco Park, baseball's answer to the Grand Canyon, Gonzalez leads the majors with 22 home runs. Twice already this season, he has homered in four consecutive games.
"He's fun to watch," says an admiring Howard, whose 35-inch, 34-ounce bat is just a tad heavier than Gonzalez's and appears as hefty as any in the game. "He's so smooth at the plate. Every swing he takes is smooth and easy.
"I think everybody makes a big deal now because of the rise in home runs. It's the same thing he's always been doing, only he hasn't gotten the praise and notoriety he deserves."
Well. The last part of that definitely is true. The first part?
Gonzalez punched out a career-high 36 home runs last season, and added 119 RBI, his first All-Star appearance and his first Gold Glove.
At his current pace -- and if pitchers remain insane enough to continue throwing within three ZIP codes of the plate -- he will finish with 69.
"With his hand-eye coordination, he has the ability to hit a pitcher's pitch," Padres manager Bud Black says. "The down-and-away fastball, the sinker that is tailing away off the plate. He can turn on a fastball, golf the low breaking ball. ..."
The way he's going, it appears he also can catch a speeding bullet in his teeth, while taming the lions at the San Diego Zoo in his spare time.
(And now, we interrupt the superlatives for the obligatory aside on performance-enhancing drugs: Gonzalez says he has been tested in every season since his first as a professional in 2000 and notes that "young guys hitting home runs over the past five years, I think all of them have been tested and proven clean." Besides, he adds with a wry smile, "the only thing I've come up positive for is carne asada burritos.")
Acquired by the Padres along with starter Chris Young and outfielder Termel Sledge from Texas for pitchers Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka and minor league catcher Billy Killian in January 2006, Gonzalez, a San Diego native, has been entrenched at first base ever since.
"He was kind of our target guy in that deal," San Diego general manager Kevin Towers says. "We were searching for a young, defensive first baseman at the time. We didn't have that guy.
"He had decent numbers in the minor leagues, in Florida and Texas. We thought he had a chance to be a 20-home run guy in the big leagues, a solid defender and a popular player among the Hispanics here in San Diego.
"By far, he's exceeded my expectations. His defense gets lost. Everyone talks about his home runs. This guy is one of the best defenders in the game. You literally almost can't bunt on him. He's turned more double plays for a first baseman than I've ever seen."
Talk to Gonzalez and he'll tell you he treasures the Gold Glove he won last year -- it's now displayed prominently in his San Diego condominium -- more than anything he's accomplishing with the bat this year.
And, oh, about that bat. ...
He started using the 35-inch, 33-ounce model in games very soon after talking with Howard in '07 and it has paid extraordinary dividends ever since (though he did hit .304 with 24 home runs and 82 RBI as a rookie in '06, so it isn't as if Wonderboy the Bat is solely responsible for his game).
"I've never been a guy with great bat speed," Gonzalez says. "The bigger bat gives me more leverage, and more length to the ball [meaning, after he re-directs the pitch]."
What's also getting lost amid Gonzalez's homer flurry this season is how the man who is always thinking and quizzing others on the art of hitting has improved against left-handed pitchers. They essentially de-clawed the lefty swinging Gonzalez last year, holding him to a .213 batting average and 12 home runs.
This season, Gonzalez already has seven homers against lefties, and a .284 average. Just one more example of the spit-shine he continually applies to his game.
"Last year, I started pulling off against left-handers," Gonzalez says. "It seemed like I was striking out against them or hitting the ball on the fly -- but not the way you want to hit a fly. Semi-deep, because I was pulling off."
One of his goals in 2009 was to make a conscious effort to stay inside the ball -- not pull away as he's swinging. You can see the results of this discipline in the lack of his chasing sliders away or swinging through high fastballs in.
He has also mostly gotten past being haunted by Petco Park, which is way scarier than the Mendoza Line to most hitters. Through his first 25 games at home, he has batted .270 with seven home runs and 15 RBI. In 27 road games, he's hitting .313 with 15 homers and 28 RBI. Not quite an even split but, by Petco standards, quite heroic.
Especially considering that it's unanimous among opponents that when facing a mediocre (on good days) to weak (on bad days) San Diego lineup, Gonzalez is the one guy you can't let beat you.
"I don't see it as pressure," Gonzalez says. "Pressure, I think, is something you create within yourself. I trust in the Lord and let him take care of everything. I've always had the same mentality. You learn things every day."
In accounting for an inordinate importance to a lineup that ranks 15th in the NL in runs scored, what Gonzalez specifically has learned this year has been to identify situations when opposing pitchers are pitching to him and when they aren't. And by the latter, we're not talking intentional walks.
Gonzalez, who ranks fourth in the NL with 38 walks, sizes up each situation before stepping to the plate and determines whether he should have an aggressive approach and be ready to swing the bat, or a more disciplined approach and look for pitches in certain zones. Be more picky, in other words, when he recognizes times when a pitcher is not going to give him something reasonable to hit.
"In the past, I was so ready to swing that I might swing at strikes and at balls," he says.
The results have been dramatic.
"To me," says Howard, "it was just a matter of time before something like this was going to happen. He's too good."
Now, everybody else is getting a good look at what Howard first began to recognize during that BP conversation in '07.
As San Diego's big bat, both literally and figuratively, Gonzalez clearly is in his zone.
"He's becoming the face of this franchise," Black says. "I think he embraces that. I think he understands the responsibility that comes with it, and I think he's reveling in what that means."
