Espinal performed daily drill work during spring training to hone his swing decisions, using high-velocity pitching machines to simulate game-like speeds and challenge his pitch recognition. And since the season began, he’s used the daily TrackMan reports Toronto makes available to its hitters to measure his progress and ensure he’s staying consistent.
And Espinal's holding his own. So far this season he’s swung at 25.8 per cent of the pitches he's been thrown outside the zone, fourth on the Blue Jays and within the top-third of qualified MLB hitters. And thanks to his excellent contact ability, he's whiffed on only 29 per cent of those pitches, a top-20 mark league-wide. On the occasions he does expand, he's at least getting his bat on the ball.
That’s the right approach. And even as Espinal's search for results continued last week, he never wavered from it. In his first plate appearance the day after Eddings tormented Blue Jays hitters with his abstract strike zone interpretation, Espinal led off the game with George Springer out of the lineup.