Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Mier and his "growing pains"

Mark Maloney at the Lexington Herald-Leader offers up a good article about Jiovanni Mier's struggles this season.

Manager Rodney Linares, on dropping Mier from the #2 spot to #7:
"He was thinking way too much when he was hitting second. He didn't show that he was able to see a lot of pitches early, and he was getting behind in the count early. And he wasn't producing. We talked and, as a consensus, we agreed on dropping him down, and you see the results. He's driving the ball. He's getting his hits."

Since bottoming out on June 17 with a .199 average, Maloney notes, Mier is hitting .289 (22x76).

Linares:
"He's as good as advertised. I said it at the beginning of the year — he's a pretty special player. He's just going through growing pains. At 19 years old, playing 'A' ball for the first time, just finding out what his swing is. I didn't expect him to struggle as bad as he did in the beginning but, to his credit, he just works on it, and his defense hasn't slowed down."