San Francisco Giants rookie Bryce Eldridge is enduring a difficult period in his young Major League Baseball career, marked by a significant slump and a series of strategic adjustments from opposing pitchers. Despite an initially strong start, the team's overall struggles appear to be coinciding with a challenging phase for the highly anticipated first baseman. Eldridge, who is still nearing his 22nd birthday, is learning to manage his emotions and adapt to the higher level of play.
"It’s a mental battle," said outfielder Heliot Ramos, who has experienced similar adjustments breaking into the majors. "I’m guessing he feels [frustrated] because at the end of the day we’re humans. But he has very good control of his emotions."
Eldridge has noted a shift in how pitchers approach him. In May, fastballs constituted over 51% of pitches he saw. That number dropped to 47.1% in June, with an increased mix of breaking and offspeed pitches. Recently, pitchers have been locating fastballs lower in the zone, prompting Eldridge to swing at subsequent breaking balls that start similarly but end up out of the strike zone. This has led to an increase in ground balls and strikeouts.
"A lot of offspeed, not many challenge heaters," Eldridge said. "I think it’s just been a mix of the slow stuff trying to get me to go down, which unfortunately I’ve been doing a lot more recently... I think that’s why I’ve slowed down with my results."
Over his last 12 games entering Saturday's contest against the Rockies, Eldridge batted .163 with a .475 OPS, striking out 16 times in that span. This follows a previous stretch where he went five games without drawing a walk, his longest such streak.
To combat this, Eldridge has been consulting with hitting coach Hunter Mense before each at-bat. "I go up to Hunter like, ‘Whattya got?’ He’ll just tell how he pitched me previously and what he’ll try and do off that," Eldridge explained. "Every time I go up there, he’s sitting up there. I like having that reminder so I can have it fresh in my mind in the box of what my plan is."
He also sought advice from veteran first baseman Rafael Devers, who debuted at a young age. "He told me, ‘You’ve just got to move in the box. Dance with the pitchers. Stay in rhythm. And just keep fighting. You’ve got a lot of at-bats. A lot of games to play,’" Eldridge recounted.
Despite the recent struggles, Eldridge maintains a .276 batting average with a .828 OPS and six home runs on the season. The Giants, meanwhile, hold the fifth-worst record in baseball at 36-51. Eldridge, however, remains committed to learning from the experience, drawing on past lessons about emotional control from a Little League incident over a decade ago. "I’ll never show that type of emotion on the field ever again," he stated.