Thomas copes with another slow start

Lane Thomas isn’t exactly in uncharted territory here.

The Nationals right fielder has gotten off to slow starts before. It took him 26 games before he finally hit his first home run in 2023. And he sported a .496 OPS at the end of April 2022.

In both instances, everything turned out fine for Thomas by season’s end. So a weeklong slump to open this season isn’t going to induce panic on his part. But it’s still notable just how much he’s struggling at the plate so far in 2024.

With another 0-for-4 showing Thursday in the Nats’ 7-4 loss to the Pirates, Thomas saw his batting average drop to .083. He’s just 2-for-24 through the season’s first six games, he doesn’t have an extra-base hit and he hasn’t even scored a run yet.

The results clearly aren’t there. But Thomas is at least encouraged that his process has improved in recent days.

“(Wednesday) night, I took a couple good swings that didn’t find the grass, but I felt like I was in a better place,” he said. “I think sometimes that stuff takes a while before they start falling.”

Davey Martinez sees a hitter whose timing doesn’t look right yet.

“He’s just catching the ball a little far back,” the manager said. “We’ve got to get his point of contact a little more out front. Yesterday, he lined out a few times. When he tries to get out front, they throw him breaking balls and he pulls them way foul. He’s got to get his foot down early and really start hitting fastballs out front.”

It sounds simple enough, but it’s easier said than done. Thomas, a noted fastball hitter, can’t just sit on that pitch because opponents will exploit it and feed him a steady diet of sliders and curveballs.

As for those foul balls he’s tending to pull? There’s reason to find both positives and negatives from that development.

“It’s better than missing it,” he said. “I think if it’s close to being fair, I guess it’s close. But I think (one particular foul ball Thursday) left the stadium behind us.”

Thomas has always been something of a streaky hitter. In his career, he’s got ugly numbers in April (.574 OPS) and July (.605), average numbers in May (.780) and September (.744) and strong numbers in June (.891) and August (.822).

In spite of that seesaw performance, he still finished last season with career highs in homers (28), RBIs (86), runs (101) and OPS (.783). He has every reason to believe he can still duplicate those numbers, no matter how bad they look through the season’s first week.

“It’s so early,” Thomas said. “It’s frustrating losing games, more than my own individual stats right now. I think both of those things should make a turn for the better here soon.”