The adjustment made by Nolan Arenado that has him sizzling

DENVER – Baseball is a “stuff happens” kind of game. Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black is famous for encapsulating this idea with the phrase, “that’s baseball.”

And the reason he says that so often is that so many things in this game can defy explanation. Line drives get caught, broken-bat pop-ups go for extra-base hits, umpires miss calls, and Gold Glovers make errors.

Players who have dominated the league for years can suddenly lose the touch, and guys who looked like afterthoughts can emerge as superstars after years of futility.

Stuff happens.

Even players as phenomenal as Nolan Arenado can fall into slumps that go on for days.

Take, for example, the Rockies most recent road trip, Arenado fell into the worst slump (at least in terms of consecutive at-bats) in his entire career, going 0-for-19 before finally snapping out of it in Texas.

Since then? He is 16-for-45 (.355) with five doubles, six home runs, and 18 RBI in 10 games.

That’s some spicy run production.

So what gives? How can a guy make an out in 19 consecutive at-bats then turn into Superman at the plate?

While manager Bud Black downplayed the notion that anything specific needed to take place in order for one of the best players in baseball to, y’know, play good baseball, Arenado himself was giving credit to hitting coaches Duane Espy and Jeff Salazar, both of whom caught a ton of flack in the early-going of 2018 when most of the offense struggled.

The adjustment is one Arenado has made before and it’s one that is often at the core of an ironic yet integral struggle in the game of baseball. You have to be ready to hit. You have to be aggressive. You have to keep in mind all the information given on the scouting report.

But you also have to be relaxed.

“I’m really slowing my body down,” says Arendo. “That’s what I’ve been focusing on, slowing my body down so I can get my swing off and it’s been working out lately. I was talking about it with the hitting coaches and I was in the cage and I wasn’t hitting well and [they] were saying how my body was just jumping a little too much.”

It just goes to show that even the very best sometimes need an outside influence to show them the way. Even if that way is just the path to getting back to being themselves.

In addition to mechanical adjustments to his motion in the box, Arenado has also found inspiration in a place we know he has been comfortable before. Call it what you like—the “clutch” or “RBI opportunities” or “RISP”—the King of Clutch eats when the table is set.

“What’s also been helpful,” he says. “Is that guys are getting on base in front of me. I feel like when you’ve got first and second with no outs, they don’t want to walk me, you’ve gotta throw the ball over the plate.”

And when you throw the ball over the plate against Arenado, stuff happens.