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Malcontent sez,

I know Sunday you were saying the swing was coming apart, in at least that one at bat you say he looked good. Do you feel he looked good in every AB? He also had that Deep Fly to Center that died 5 feet short of retying the game as well.

Tuesday night, he hit the ball very well three times.  On the first one, it looked to me like he lowered his CG, kept his front knee in and his intentionality more up the middle.

Every swing he took after that, that I saw anyway, he flew open again, keying the swing with his front hip, "floating" his weight, and hooking the ball.  The one to CF, not AS much, maybe.

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In aikido -- and in Nippon baseball -- they talk about things like "keep one point" and "keep weight underside" and it sounds like mumbo jumbo.  Keep weight underside is like ... have you ever tried to pick up a baby that didn't want to be picked up?  And it glued itself to the crib's pad?  Have you ever tried to lift an unconscious person?

In aikido, one of their 4 golden rules is "keep weight underside," sinking your weight so you're "glued" to the floor, and can avoid "floating" your weight in a fragile, reactive manner -- very possibly Saunders keeps weight underside better now than he did in 2011, even when you can't see it.

We're always "floating" our weight, if we're not unconscious, and this causes an unstable factor in our movements.  A boxer who gets scared might "get stood up" and if he does, he's toast.  Obviously no NFL player wants to be caught with his weight high.  You get the idea.

On the other hand, a doggy jumps forward and snarls, and what do you do?  You go AAAAAAHHHHH!, lift your hands, float your weight, open your eyes and mouth, because you're about to scamper off to safety.  Not because you're about to apply energy to an enemy. 

The human body is fluid, mostly water.  You can float it or sink it as if raising and lowering a bag filled with silicone.

Baseball example?  Pitchers "stand tall" in the windup, floating their weight, so that their parts move lightly, easily and gently into alignment with their spines ... and so that their floated weight then sinks back down into an increased "keep weight underside" drive forward.  Imagine a pitcher trying to throw powerfully while floating his weight?  Well, why would a hitter try to do that?

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Swinging with a 60-oz bat would have had an effect that Saunders may not even have been quite aware of.  It's impossible to lift a weight, levered at the end of a pole, without rooting yourself into the ground to do it.  Take a double-weight bokken (or bat) and swing it, and you will automatically grind your shoes into the ground and you will drop your hips a bit.

Saunders gets into the game and boom :- ( his belt buckle is as high as it could physically be off the ground, his lead shoulder is above his ear, and he's floating his weight.  This shrill reaction is fragile and unstable.  We might add:  one cannot possibly concentrate when inhaling and raising the weight in panic reaction to a dog attack.   Relaxed concentration is possible, when one lowers the weight and exhales.

Bet you my blog that Ichiro would sign off on all this, with gusto, if he were asked about his own hitting.  You don't see Ichiro "expand" like nitrogen gas when the pitch is incoming.

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I had thought, from (1) March articles like this one and (2) my own training with over-weighted equipment, that...

.... the Big Idea was to get the CG lower, to get "short-stroking" knees, and use your lower body more but with less actual movement.

But like I say, I must be misunderstanding.  Because in games, now Saunders does this rarely, at best.

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When Saunders does hit the ball well now -- which is more rare than it was in March, that is for sure -- maybe it is just because he's so talented.  Or maybe it is from "residual" effects that occur "below the skin" despite the fact that the movements are the same as they were in 2011.  He's probably keeping weight underside better than he was in 2011, whether or not he's hooking the ball.  

And pitch selection, taking the ball the other way, is an independent variable.  Just because he's shril-ly floating his weight doesn't mean he might not be looking for an outside fastball.  Hitting is complex, with many variables, not just the mechanics Saunders uses.

............

Swinging the heavy bat probably trained him, some, to sink his weight and to direct his energy back through the box, even though the movements don't reflect that much (anymore).  So maybe he's getting SOME benefit.

We keep hoping that Saunders will swing the bat the way that he did in mid-March.  The man's physical gifts are so immense that you can't pry him out of the Mariners' cold, dead fingers.

My $0.02,

Jeff