Aaron Hicks Has His Breakout Moment

Hopefully you were able to watch the Twins beat the White Sox like a drum in a 10-3 victory last night, if not, you missed what became the Aaron Hicks breakout party. The young center fielder finally showed why fans and the Twins front office were so excited about him coming into the 2013 season as he clubbed two solo home runs and robbed Adam Dunn of a game tying home run in the 5^th.

To call Hicks’ first 6 weeks in the Majors “rough” would be an understatement. Through 31 games, Hicks’ triple slash is a dismal .152/.256/.286 and he has struck out 35 times in 121 plate appearances. The fact that Hicks’ 2 for 4, 2 home run outing only raised his average to .152 and his slugging percentage to .286 is a testament to just how badly Hicks had played to begin the season.

Hicks’ ended April with a triple slash of .113/.229/.127 with 26 strikeouts in 78 plate appearances. He looked lost at the plate for much of April; he struck out in just over 31% of his plate appearances due in large part to his inability to take the bat off of his shoulder.

In April, Hicks only swung at 22.91% of out of the zone pitches – a number that is actually pretty solid for a leadoff batter. (He is in the top 20 in all of baseball with that percentage). The drawback was that Hicks was only swinging at 53.89% of pitches IN the zone. His swing percentage for April was an absurdly low 37.27%. Hicks was simply taking too many hittable balls, falling behind in the count and then was at a disadvantage when the time came to work out of the hole.

Hicks began turning a corner in May, he has seen his O% drop to 19.79% while his Z% (In the zone) swings have increased to 74.57%. He’s making contact on 78.29% of all of his swings, relatively close to the 80% rate he posted in April. It’s clear the problem wasn’t bad swings, it was simply his inability to swing.

Over the past 14 days, Hicks has posted a triple slash of: .235/.316/.618. Even better, over the past 7 days, Hicks’ slash reads: .333/.412/.800 with 3 strikeouts and 2 walks. The numbers indicate that Hicks is starting to see the ball better and starting to do more with it.

It will be a big hill to climb for Hicks to bring his numbers back into respectable big league levels, but his recent performance seems to indicate he’s turning a corner. A big game like last night can only help boost his confidence and show him (as much as the fans) that he really is capable of hanging around the big leagues.

Almost as important as his offense breakout was Hicks’ robbery of Adam Dunn’s would be game tying home run in the 6^th inning. With a runner on, Dunn crushed a Josh Roenicke pitch to straight away center. Hicks measure the ball, timed his leap perfectly and plucked the ball from the top of the fence. There was a bit of drama, as Hicks forgot to show the ump he caught the ball right away leaving the fans on TV and Dick & Bert in the booth wondering what exactly happened – the only people who knew for sure were the fans in the outfield, who erupted in a cheer as Hicks plucked the ball from its flight path.

Hicks’ defense was one of the most talked about tools the young CF was brining to the big league club. His arm strength and range were supposed to make him the perfect blend of Denard Span and Ben Revere. Through the early part of the season, we had yet to see any of those defensive qualities develop. Hicks had been caught on more than one occasion misreading a fly ball or allowing a ball to drop in front of him instead of charging to make a play (akin to Ben Revere).

Through 31 games, Hicks’ UZR (Ultimate zone rating, the metric used to rate defensive players) is a -3.2, due in large part to several misreads on playable balls early in the year. (For comparison, Ben Revere’s UZR with the Twins last season was 14.5) Last night, Hicks not only read the ball perfectly off of Dunn’s bat, but he also showed the raw skills to bring back a well hit ball. If he continues to develop this skill and starts making the routine plays, alongside of a few spectacular ones, we’ll likely see Hicks’ UZR return to the positive side of the scale.

Last night’s breakout performance certainly does not mean the struggles are over for Hicks, as a rookie who had never even played in AAA, Hicks is going to struggle. However, last night’s great performance may finally be an indicator that Hicks is turning a corner and turning into the CF the Twins had hoped they were getting when they made him the starter out of spring training.

For one night at least, it was good to see the young man smiling and enjoying the game once again. After a bumpy start, you have to feel good about Aaron Hicks finally getting a break.