Rollins’s Strange Slump Leaves the Phillies Cold
Jimmy Rollins has struggled this year, but on Friday, he was 2 for 5 with two runs batted in during against the Mets
PHILADELPHIA — On opening night, Jimmy Rollins was 1 for 4. His average stood at .250, and it has not improved. A miserable April gave way to a terrible May, which gave way to a horrific June, and here it is July, and Rollins is batting .212. The Phillies are wondering just what in the name of Steve Jeltz happened to their M.V.P. shortstop.
Each time they think Rollins has solved his hitting woes, he plunges into a deeper slump. He has identified mechanical flaws and tried fixing them. He has adjusted his timing. The most drastic measure came last week, when Manager Charlie Manuel gave him a four-game break to clear his head. He fielded some ground balls and took a few swings, but nothing serious.
He returned Tuesday in Atlanta and went hitless in his first nine at-bats before notching two hits on Thursday to end a career-worst 0-for-28 stretch. On Friday, he was 2 for 5 with two runs batted in and a run scored during the Phillies’ 7-2 victory against the Mets.
The staggering Phillies, who have lost 14 of 19 and have let the discombobulated Mets hang around in the National League East, have been hampered by a diminished bullpen, erratic starting pitching and an inexplicable 14-22 record at Citizens Bank Park. But nothing or no one has been as vexing or frustrating as Rollins.
“He’s 30 years old, he can still play, he can still do everything he’s always been able to,” Manuel said. “It’s just that when you go bad, you go bad.”
No one embodies the Phillies’ rivalry with the Mets more than Rollins, who ignited it before the 2007 season, proclaiming the Phillies the team to beat in the division. People scoffed, but Rollins proved to be the Phillies’ oracle, winning the Most Valuable Player award that season. Rollins and the Phillies then won the World Series in 2008 as the Mets sulked after another September implosion.
At the victory parade, Rollins taunted the Mets, intimating that they had little beyond Johan Santana. Rollins is bold and brash, but he is not talking much now. He declined an interview request before the game and, when asked afterward about his two hits, said, “I don’t talk about myself.”
The Phillies’ hitting coach, Milt Thompson, saw progress Thursday night, when Rollins hit four ground balls, all hard, two for singles. Part of that success, Thompson speculated, stemmed from Rollins’s compliance in reverting to an old timing mechanism called a two-tap. Rollins employed it during his M.V.P. season, lifting his front foot, briefly stepping backward, and then striding forward as he swings. Many hitters use a similar technique to transfer their weight, but Rollins, a switch-hitter, exaggerates it when he hits left-handed: his right foot slides so far back that it touches his left.
“He was just struggling for things, and I told him to go back to what worked for him,” Thompson said. “My dad taught me a long time ago, ‘Don’t try to do something that you can’t do.’ As in, don’t get in the box and try to hit. Just hit. He knows he can hit. Now he has to go in there and make it happen.”
Catcher Chris Coste remembered telling Rollins two years ago that if he were to ever teach a child hitting, breaking down a swing from start to finish, he would show videotape of Rollins. Coste cited Rollins’s “incredible balance, his little toe-tap that gives him just enough rhythm and hands that are quiet but lightning quick.”
But as Rollins has struggled, Coste, speaking from experience, said Rollins’s issues could be more mental than mechanical.
“You find yourself at the plate hoping for a hit,” Coste said. “When he was M.V.P., he knew he would hit the ball hard. You try to get four hits in one at-bat because you’re batting .210 or .212 or whatever. It’s kind of like if you’re a gambler, you try to win it all back on one hand instead of getting it back over time.”
Seeking answers, Rollins immersed himself in the batting cage and retreated to the video room, where he thought he detected a flaw: his swing had flattened, causing him to get beneath the ball and generate pop-ups.
The cynical may note that Rollins has tended to hit pop-ups, even when he was thriving, generating questions about his suitability as a leadoff hitter. Manuel reiterated that Rollins, despite hitting No. 6 for two games last month, would continue to bat first.
Never considered a prototypical leadoff hitter because of his strikeout totals and general lack of patience, Rollins began Friday with the second-worst on-base percentage (.253) among 169 players who qualify for league batting titles. Another piece of ignominious history has followed him: Rollins joined Boston’s Dustin Pedroia as the first former M.V.P.’s to have a hitless streak of at least 25 at-bats in the same season since Mike Schmidt and Cal Ripken Jr., in 1988, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“To use another gambling analogy, in roulette, the ball doesn’t have a memory,” Coste said. “It doesn’t matter what he’s done to this point. If he hits .320 the rest of the way, that’s what matters.”
A traditionally strong second-half hitter, Rollins can help the Phillies put space between them and the rest of the division. “Historically, when he goes, so go the Phillies,” reliever Chad Durbin said. “Let’s hope we both go.”
