After a very rough start, Austin Hays keeps working to turn it around

Orioles outfielder Austin Hays got off to a terrible start to his 2024 season, there is no denying that. However, as some around Birdland see a player in decline, others might see a player that has produced an OPS that is above the American League average since the 2021 season.

His 2021 OPS+ was 107 or seven percent above the league, the next year it was 105 and last year it was 114 – his best mark in a full year in the big leagues.

He produced a .769 OPS in the 2023 season and the American League average was .729. In four of six months last season, his OPS was .800 or better.

But that OPS number has plummeted this year, a year when he was batting .073 after his first 17 games. Now, back off the injured list, Hays is trying to improve his personal stats while the team continues to win mostly. He has an uphill climb and he knows it with a batting line right now of .164/.225/.205/.430 through 30 games with just three extra-base hits, all doubles.

But before he went on the injured list on April 22 with a strained left calf, he was feeling better at the plate and taking more productive swings. He felt his bat was slowly trending up.

“I think my last 10 to 15 at-bats before I strained my calf, there was a ball I hit in Boston off (Brennan) Bernadino. It was a fastball kind of down and in. I was able to stay inside it, get on the barrel and drive it through center field. Before that, all of my swings had been around everything. I was hitting a ton of ground balls (as they say rolling over pitches) but I was just hitting everything off of the barrel and my swing was getting too flat again.

“So, I have been working to try and shorten it up, stay inside the ball, get a little more angle through the zone so I could drive more balls through the middle to center field.”

Over his last 13 games, since just before he went on the IL, Hays is batting .281 at 9-for-32. And that includes his taking an 0-for-6 with four strikeouts in his past two games on Sunday in Chicago and Tuesday against Boston. He did not play last night.

He had a brief rehab stint with Double-A Bowie from May 7-12 where he went 5-for-14 with a double, two homers and three walks.

“When I picked up my rehab in Bowie, I just felt like myself again,” he said.

Hays had gotten into some bad habits and needed to make some changes, some of which he continued to work on at Bowie. Changes he sees paying off over the long haul of the season, if not every day right now.

“Just watching video and seeing why I am just missing balls and hitting it two inches off the barrel and not on the barrel when it was a good pitch to hit. You don’t want to try and change things right away. Give it a few at-bats to make sure it wasn’t just something that day. Then 20 at-bats go by and you can tell something is off here. Let’s look at when I was going good and you see a few small differences. Then you figure out which drills might help you combat those bad moves or wrong moves that you’re making.”

So Hays is putting in the work to turn his season around. And, as he tried to get his bat rolling, his team got rolling with a four-game sweep of the White Sox after losing three to the Cardinals.

“Just because we lost and got swept, it didn’t change our team identity. We did what we’ve done the last two years. We turned the page and went to play a new team. A new day. You fight and fight and look up and we won four in a row and got a sweep,” said Hays.

O's win another AL East series: And last night, behind right-hander Corbin Burnes' seven strong innings and Gunnar Henderson's second career Grand Slam, the Orioles beat Boston 6-1 to win the third and deciding game of their latest AL East series.

Make it now 18 straight series within their division without losing one after this victory. The Orioles are 39-19 in the division since this run began and 9-3 this year in the AL East.

At 35-19, they have played 54 games, are 1.5 games out of first and are on a 105-win pace.

Henderson's slam was his 50th career home run and he is the fourth Oriole with 50 before his 23rd birthday, joining Manny Machado, Eddie Murray and Boog Powell.

Burnes is now 5-2 with a 2.35 ERA and has produced seven straight quality starts with an ERA of 2.08 in that span.

In four AL East starts this year, Burnes is 2-1 with a 1.38 ERA. In nine career starts within the division, he is 4-1 with a 1.31 ERA.

The Orioles are 5-1 against Boston scoring 43 runs in the season series. The Birds get today off and host Tampa Bay for a weekend series that begins Friday night. They are in a stretch of 14 consecutive division games.