Selective Abrams quietly Nats' leading slugger

Just over 30 games into the season, who would you guess would be the Nationals’ RBI and slugging percentage leader?

Probably one of their power hitters like Joey Meneses or Dominic Smith. Or maybe even one of their better contact hitters like Jeimer Candelario or Keibert Ruiz.

Any one of them would be a good guess, especially considering how high up the batting order they primarily hit.

But they would be wrong, as the correct answer is CJ Abrams, who is slugging .386 with 15 RBIs over his first 30 games.

“I did know that,” Abrams said with a grin when asked if he knew he was the team’s leader in runs batted in.

“Feels good. I'm just trying to get the job done and win games.”

It’s sort of a surprising development for the 6-foot-2, 191-pound rookie, who has always projected more like the type of hitter to get on base and score runs rather than one that drives them in with his bat.

Abrams only had five RBIs through the first 18 games of the season. But over the past two weeks, he’s been collecting them in bunches by using all fields and a steady approach with runners in scoring position.

“Runners in scoring position, just trying to get a pitch I can drive and put a good swing on it,” he said.

Abrams is slashing .276/.364/.552 with a .915 OPS with runners in scoring position. But overall over his last nine games, he is 10-for-28 (.357) with a double, homer, seven RBIs, one hit by pitch and four runs scored while hitting safely in seven of the nine games.

That stretch started the day before Abrams hit a go-ahead eighth-inning grand slam at Citi Field, the first of his career that looked like it was going to give the Nats a come-from-behind victory. (It didn’t, the Mets would take the lead back in the bottom of the inning.)

Did that swing kickstart this stretch of slugging?

“We'll see,” he said. “I mean, yeah. Just kind of simplifying things. See ball, hit ball. Get the job done.”

His manager isn’t too surprised that the young shortstop is leading the team in RBIs and slugging.

“Not really, because he's getting opportunities,” Davey Martinez said. “It's been great that he's coming through, honestly. He's working really hard to become that complete ballplayer. We tweaked a lot of things. He's starting to grasp what he needs to do. The biggest thing with me when it comes to his hitting is the chase rate, right? And he's really, really trying to work on that. He's aggressive. He wants to swing the bat and I love that about him.”

Abrams is racking up the RISP opportunities because of the hitters ahead of him getting on base. He typically is hitting eighth or ninth, while only hitting as high as sixth twice this season.

“They're getting on base and doing a great job,” he said. “Situational hitting has been good for us, pitchers have been doing good. Let's keep it rolling.”

To keep it rolling, the Nationals are still trying to teach him to be more selective of the pitches he hits. Like Ruiz and Luis García, his bat-to-ball skills are terrific almost to his detriment. He can hit pitchers’ pitches, but that usually results in weak contact and easy outs. They want to see him continue to wait for hitters’ pitches and drive those for hits.

“We're trying to teach them what balls he needs to hit, what balls he's really good at hitting. And he's working on it,” Martinez said. “So the fact that he's getting up and having these opportunities, making the best of them, is great. That's something that, really, you can't teach. When you got a guy on base, he's the same guy as when nobody's on base. He's just trying to get up there and hit the ball hard. I know he talks a lot about hitting the ball in the middle of the field. And he's done really well when guys are on base.”

“Hit it where it's pitched,” Abrams said. “If it's outside, I want to take it the other way and then react inside. So I feel like I've been doing that pretty well.”