The night after the hardest hit of his career — a screaming line drive that made it over the Wrigley Field wall with an exit velocity of 115 mph — Seiya Suzuki hit another home run. This one, the only long ball in the Cubs’ 9-8 win Wednesday against the Rockies, had a little more loft and clocked in at 105 mph.
“Home runs on nights like the last two nights is not expected, for sure,” manager Craig Counsell said. “And so to get a couple home runs, some well-hit line drives, essentially, certainly bodes well. And he’s getting into a spot where hopefully we can get some men on base in front of him and drive in some runs.”
With such small sample sizes this time of the year, taking too much from early trends can be a trap. Suzuki, though, is hitting the ball just about as hard as anyone to start the season. Entering Thursday, he was in the top 7% in average exit velocity (95.2 mph), according to Statcast. And he has an eye-popping 63.2% hard hit rate.
Two homers in two games for Seiya Suzuki! 💥 pic.twitter.com/RkBwaDzuju
— MLB (@MLB) April 4, 2024
Those numbers won’t necessarily carry throughout the year. They would represent an extreme jump from his 91.4-mph exit velocity last season and 48% hard-hit rate. Suzuki, though, has improved in both those categories every season he has been in MLB.
More than anything, Suzuki’s power to start his third MLB season suggests his surge in the last two months of 2023 wasn’t a flash in the pan. He made changes to his mechanics and approach that carried over into this year.
“I feel like I’m getting my ‘A’ swing in without any hesitation,” Suzuki told the Sun-Times through interpreter Toy Matsushita, “and I think that’s one of the big parts of my increase in exit velo.”
At midseason last year, Suzuki worked on streamlining his routine and mechanical cues. He cut down his pregame reps and focused on controlling his leg kick and steadying his head. Those tweaks helped him take advantage of a more aggressive approach at the plate.
That’s part of why he’s hitting the ball so hard now.
“When you get behind in the count, you’ve got to put into perspective all the other different pitches the pitcher has in his arsenal,” Suzuki said. “So when you swing aggressively early in the count, then you can get in your ‘A’ swing, and that’s what I’m able to do right now.”
He’s also clearly seeing the ball well, which is evident in the .379 on-base percentage he’s carrying, along with a pair of home runs.
As crucial as his second homer ended up being Wednesday, in what turned into a surprisingly close game,, his first had the Cubs’ clubhouse abuzz.
“I didn’t know that was going to go over the wall,” Suzuki said. “I thought it was just a lineout to center.”
That’s because it had a 16-degree launch angle, which is usually too low to make it out of the park. But because he hit it with such authority, it stayed up long enough to land in the center-field basket.
Cody Bellinger, who hits right behind Suzuki in the batting order, shook his head in disbelief after the game when asked about Suzuki’s homer.
“Missile,” Bellinger said. “I had a pretty good view of it. And 115 off the bat is just truly special. It’s really hard to do that.”
Bellinger, a power-hitting former MVP, doesn’t have a hit registered at 115 mph in his career, according to Statcast.
“I think that he’s just trusting himself,” Bellinger said, “and it’s really fun to watch.”
