On Tuesday, Nate McLouth was the tenth inning hero, but it was Chris Dickerson‘s two home runs that tied the game twice allowing the Orioles to walkoff and end their six-game losing streak.
After the game, the former Yankee was asked about what it felt like to beat his former team. Unlike most players, who give the cliche “I played equally hard against opponent” answer, Dickerson confessed the truth.
“Yeah. Yeah, just the fact that I was — you know as soon as I saw the starting lineup I was already fired up,” He said. “But, that first one, that was huge I was pretty fired up for that one. You know, once I signed, you know it’s been a long way to get this opportunity to come back and do something like that against them. [I've] been waiting for four months — five months for that so it’s exciting.”
After his second home run, Jim Palmer briefly talked about some of the adjustments hitting coach Jim Presley has made to Dickerson’s stance since his arrival in Baltimore on April 9. I took a look at some of his early at-bats compared to those last night and noticed a few subtle changes.
The left side of the image shows Dickerson at the plate on April 11 in Boston against Alfredo Aceves. The right side was grabbed during his ten pitch at-bat against Phil Hughes last night.
While the changes are small, they are certainly noticeable. Earlier in the season Dickerson had more bend in his knees which caused him to slouch more in the box. His bat has some slight wiggle, but overall he’s holding it more straight up than he was in April.
Dickerson tucks his front shoulder in and leads with his hips when he swings through. I believe the higher angle of the bat gives him more explosiveness as shown during his two homer game last night.
It’s tough to argue against the numbers. He’s 9-for-22 with a pair of doubles and three homers in seven games in May after starting the season 1-for-8 with four strikeouts.
The best news about Dickerson’s changes in his batting stance is that they resulted in this:
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