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No doubt, Stewart's a hit for Rockies

He's electrifying when given second chance

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 20, 2008 at 12:48 p.m.

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Ian Stewart celebrates his three-run eighth inning home run Tuesday with teammates Brad Hawpe and Garrett Atkins.

Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images

Ian Stewart celebrates his three-run eighth inning home run Tuesday with teammates Brad Hawpe and Garrett Atkins.

Stargazing

Ken Griffey Jr. listened, hearing a tale of hero worship last month that was by no means new.

He was told Rockies third baseman Ian Stewart idolized Griffey growing up in southern California, when Griffey was at his magnificent best with Seattle, and how it might be nice if Griffey could sign a ball or bat for Stewart and possibly even talk to him before one of the games.

"Should I big league him?" Griffey said, smiling. And then Griffey said he would hit a triple, something he hadn't done all year and, indeed, had done twice since the start of the 2002 season.

It was July 25, hours before the Rockies began a series at Cincinnati in what turned out to be Griffey's waning days with the Reds. Stewart was six days into what has been a very successful second tour this season with the Rockies.

In the sixth inning, Griffey drove a ball into the right-field corner. The ball skipped away from Brad Hawpe. Griffey ended up on third base with a triple.

Watching the game from their home in Garden Grove, Calif., were Cindy and Steve Stewart. They knew what it meant to their son just to be on the same field as Griffey. And now this. "I told Steve, 'Ian has got to be dying,' " Cindy said. "Here is Ken Griffey standing on third base."

Griffey had sent an autographed ball to Stewart before the game, so Stewart "just immediately thanked him" for that gift as Griffey stood at third base.

"He said, 'Yeah, no problem, man. Congratulations for being up,' " Stewart said. "I said, 'Thank you. I followed you a lot growing up when you were with the Mariners.' He kind of chuckled at that."

It's not farfetched to imagine a decade or so from now, some young player telling Stewart he watched him while growing up.

"I've already had kind of a minor experience like that because Cameron Maybin used to come around a lot and see us play," Stewart said.

That was in 2004, when Stewart played at low Single-A Asheville, N.C. That's where he met his future wife, Susan Mikulik, whose father, Joe, manages Asheville. That's also the home of Maybin, an outfield prospect in the Florida organization who played 24 games with Detroit last year before being part of the December deal that sent Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera to the Tigers.

Stewart, 23, and Maybin, 21, attended an annual rookie development program last winter, sponsored jointly by Major League Baseball and the players' union.

"He was like, 'Oh, man, it's so cool seeing you here. I followed you in high school when you were playing for the Tourists,' " Stewart said. " 'I thought so highly of you then and it's great to see you out there.'

"That was kind of odd. He's only maybe two years younger than me, but it was kind of a cool experience. And just to think that some day you could have a kid say that he looked up to you or watched you play growing up - that'd be a good experience."

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The strikeouts had become epidemic, occurring about every other at-bat for third baseman Ian Stewart by mid-June and signaling an end to his stay with the Rockies.

He recalled the pitchers "kind of exposed me a little bit to some things I needed to work on."

But they never shattered his confidence.

When he was demoted to Triple-A Colorado Springs on June 23 after a one-month stay with the Rockies, Stewart was hitting .218 with three homers and five RBI in 18 games and 28 strikeouts in 55 at-bats.

It would have been perfectly understandable if Stewart had gazed at his future and been a bit uncertain - if he had sized up the major league landscape and wondered whether he was good enough to play there.

That never really happened. Doubt never crept into Stewart's mind, never clouded his thoughts.

"When I was struggling when I was up the first time this year," Stewart said, "I was like, 'I'm not this bad of a player. This is not me.' So I was never like, 'I'm not going to be a good player.' I never doubted myself. I just knew that wasn't the type of player I was. I just needed to fix something."

At the suggestion of Rockies hitting coach Alan Cockrell, Stewart made an adjustment with his hands and worked with Sky Sox hitting coach Rene Lachemann to implement that adjustment.

The results have been significantly better for Stewart, 23, on this tour with the Rockies, which comes as no surprise to Rockies special assistant Walt Weiss.

He met Stewart shortly after the Rockies took him 10th overall in the 2003 draft. Weiss said because some young players "don't realize how special their skills are," he told Stewart, " 'Your hands with the bat . . . it's hard for me to think of many that I've ever seen that are better.' "

Likened to Holliday

Weiss said the whip Stewart creates with the bat, which Weiss first saw when he scouted Stewart at La Quinta (Calif.) High School, "is a gift that he's got, and I just wanted him to be aware of that."

As Weiss watched Stewart play in the minors - and now this year - he likened him to Matt Holliday in that both possess "kind of a special talent" and, like Holliday, Stewart was going to "rise up" and perform well in the majors without dominating in the minors.

"He's just getting settled in up here," Weiss said. "His confidence isn't going to get shaken, even when the strikeouts were high. He's not a guy that's going to panic, because of the confidence. And you can't really teach that or talk to somebody about that. You got to just have that. He's going to figure things out."

Stewart has done a much better job of that since rejoining the Rockies on July 19, in no small part because, upon returning, he has had the chance to play every day. That situation arose because third baseman Garrett Atkins moved to first base, replacing the injured Todd Helton.

Stewart, who played more second base than third, his natural position, in his earlier stay with the Rockies, is hitting .292 with nine homers and 37 RBI in 48 games and is 20-for-48 (.417) with runners in scoring position.

"The first opportunity, he didn't show up too well," manager Clint Hurdle said. "Strikeouts (were) way too high, way too many swings and misses, not enough productive at-bats.

"He was patient to a fault. I felt he took too many fastballs, especially against left-handed pitching. One of the things I preach as a hitting coach and I preach as a manager: left on left, hit the fastball - unless you think you're good enough to hit the slider or the curveball or something else. And if it's 2 inches inside or 2 inches off the plate or 2 inches up or 2 inches down, hit the fastball. And that wasn't something he was in tune with early."

Timely hitting

Stewart, who has played very well defensively at third base, has shown the ability to deliver hits when it matters. He hit a two-run, pinch-hit homer in the seventh inning off Washington left-hander John Lannan on Aug. 5, tying a game at 2 that the Rockies went on to win 8-2.

He hit a two-run homer in the second off San Diego ace Jake Peavy on Aug. 8, giving the Rockies a 2-0 lead in a game they won 6-3.

On Sunday at Washington, Stewart hit a three-run homer in the fourth off left-hander Odalis Perez to put the Rockies ahead 3-1 in what became a 7-2 victory.

Stewart drove in a career-high five runs Tuesday in an 8-3 win at Los Angeles, hitting a three-run homer in the eighth off left-hander Hong-Chih Kuo to seal the victory.

Hurdle said since Stewart returned to the Rockies, "It's been more often than not more patience, more often than not better discipline and, obviously, more barrel showing up."

The left-handed hitting Stewart is 14-for-33 (.424) against left-handed pitchers. He has never found it overly difficult to hit against them - Stewart hit .316 in 79 at-bats against left-handers at Colorado Springs and .264 in 178 at-bats against right-handers - in part because of his boyhood experience.

Stewart's father, Steve, is left-handed. And beginning when Stewart was about 6, they would go across the street from their home in Garden Grove, Calif., to Edgar Park, where Steve, standing off to an angle, would throw to his son.

"It was about 140 feet from where he would stand to a fence," Steve said. "Every 50 feet from the fence is a huge sprinkler. He started at the very first sprinkler, and when he could hit over the fence with regularity, I would move him back another 50 feet."

There was a fence in straightaway center field in the park where Stewart would hit his father's pitches. A street, cars and houses were in right field, and some buildings that used to be an elementary school were in left.

"It definitely helped keep me from pulling the ball," Stewart said. "I couldn't really do it, because there were homes and cars along the street. Still, to this day, he tells me, 'Try to take the pitcher's head off,' because that's what he would tell me. He didn't want me hitting it back at him (angled slightly to the plate), so he wanted me hitting it up the middle."

Making adjustments

Stewart wasn't hitting the ball with much regularity when he was sent down to Colorado Springs. Before that happened, he and Cockrell spent a lot of time in the video room, studying Stewart's swings, and that led to a suggestion from Cockrell.

"I thought the biggest thing was just getting his hands in a position to work without a whole lot of (his) body getting in the way," Cockrell said.

So Stewart lowered his hands slightly. That adjustment kept Stewart from shifting his body forward too early, which, in turn, causes his hands to drag and prevents him from getting the barrel of the bat in the ideal hitting position.

"I don't think I was getting a proper load in the swing," Stewart said. "I was kind of just going forward, jumping at the ball instead of staying back."

To be sure, strikeouts are going to come with the territory for Stewart, as they do with any slugger. But after striking out once every 1.96 at-bats in his first tour with the Rockies, that rate has dropped to one strikeout in every 3.41 at-bats.

There is room for improvement, certainly, but that should come, since Stewart has only had 197 at-bats in the big leagues.

Hurdle said that when Stewart returned to the Rockies last month, he was told what was expected of him and that his opportunity to play would greatly increase.

"I think that has helped," Hurdle said, "but he's also moved upon it with performance and embraced it. Teammates have embraced him, knowing he's playing a larger role."

Comments

  • August 20, 2008

    2:40 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    arvada_mark writes:

    We could so get a #1 starter for Stewy or GA...or, gulp, more prospects.

  • August 20, 2008

    3:02 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    SDcat writes:

    I wouldn't give up Stewy, GA or any of our core. Maybe a few prospects, not named Fowler....

  • August 20, 2008

    6:59 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    LunaticFringe writes:

    Stewart makes the trading of Helton a real possibility. This team will do nothing without some quality pitching, and Helton + prospects (not named Fowler) might achieve that.

  • August 21, 2008

    6:32 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Hambone writes:

    Who is going to trade for Todd Helton?

    Yeah, that's what I thought.

  • August 22, 2008

    12:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    NorCalGuy writes:

    Sign Stewart, while it's still cheap, ditto for Atkins. They'd have their two future corner infielders along with Tulo and Holliday. It wouldn't be worth it for the Rockies to trade Helton because they'd have to pay most of his gargantuan salary. ESPN has a player website which posts player salaries. Todd Helton is due $16.6 million from 2008-2010, then $19.1 million in 2011, then $23 million in 2012. I hate to say this because I've admired and respected him as a player, but the best thing that could happen to the Rockies is that he retire. They'd be off the hook for his salary and it would open up salary space to lock up many of their young talented players. I think the team may offer him some sort of buyout if his back condition proves to be career ending. It would be a classy way to send him out.