By Jack Ankony
Before the Dogs’ series opener with the Houston Apollos on July 16, Dogs hitting coach Joe Dominiak conducted individual hitting sessions instead of batting practice on the field.
Dominiak met with 10 Dogs hitters to break down their swings and work on mechanics. After losing two of three games to the Milwaukee Milkmen in a battle for first place, Dominiak felt the Dogs had begun to deviate from their plan at the plate.
One session that especially stood out to Dominiak was his time in the cage with Anfernee Grier. The Dogs’ speedy outfielder is batting .321 in the month of July, but Dominiak said he noticed Grier had been dipping his head down during at-bats.
Keeping a steady head at the plate is important to Dominiak because it limits body movement and maintains a hitter’s eye level. Dominiak has seen an increase in confidence from Grier as he starts to trust his athletic ability at the plate.
After tweaking mechanics in the cage, trust in that advice is key when the game starts. With this adjustment, Grier went 3-for-5 in Friday’s game with, run scored and drove in two runs on a triple to right-center field.
As a whole, the Dogs reaped the benefits of these individual sessions with Dominiak, hammering a season-high 18 hits on their way to a 13-4 win over the Houston Apollos. The Dogs set another season high by piling on seven runs in the first inning.
Dogs hitters started Friday’s game with five hits in the first six at-bats, keeping Dominiak’s message of simplicity in mind. Dominiak’s edict to his hitters is, “load the hands easy, take an easy stride and let your backside work.”
“I always call it the three-inch sweet spot,” Dominiak said. “We’ve got to get it in the zone to be successful. When there’s a lot more moving body parts, there’s a lot more error.”
The Dogs also succeeded in a statistical category that Dominiak learned when he was with the Los Angeles Angels. Fly ball outs plus strikeouts, or FBOKs, is a stat Dominiak tracks during each game.
Dominiak’s theory is centered around the idea that routine fly balls and strikeouts are the easiest outs in baseball. With too many lazy fly balls and swings and misses, hitters aren’t putting pressure on the defense.
“If you’re looking at 18 [FBOKs], you’re really only looking at 3 innings of offensive baseball,” Dominiak said.
According to Dominiak, if a team keeps the number of FBOKs at less than 13 per game, they will score more than five runs, which results in winning 70 percent of games. On Friday, the Dogs committed 10 FBOKs and plated 13 runs, exceeding Dominiak’s blueprint.
After amassing a season-high number of hits, Dogs hitters are seeing the ball well.
“18 hits when they look at it, they probably can’t wait to hit tomorrow,” Dominiak said.
The Dogs will take batting practice on the field on Saturday, where Dominiak said simplifying the hitters’ approach will continue to be a focus as they look to win their third consecutive game.
“You have got to kind of bring them back down to Earth again,” Dominiak said. “We’ll get a new pitcher and new everything, so we’ll go back to square one again and rebuild it up.”