After a disappointing 2020 campaign, Carson Kelly spent the offseason reworking just about everything about his mechanics at the plate, but his biggest challenge was still in front of him.
Excited and optimistic about his new approach when camp opened, Kelly struggled at the plate in Cactus League games. He even had trouble in some backfield games. The hits simply were not coming.
Three weeks into the regular season the results have been showing up in a big way for Kelly, who hit his fifth homer of the season on Friday night as the D-backs fell to the Braves, 5-4, at Truist Park to snap their four-game winning streak.
"Trust it," the Arizona catcher told himself. "It will be there. It will work."
With the homer, which came in the fifth inning on a high fastball from Atlanta starter Huascar Ynoa, Kelly has equaled his home run total from a year ago. He's already drawn more than twice as many walks as he did in 2020, while slashing .341/.517/.756.
"I made a lot of adjustments this offseason, just looking back at stuff from 2019 and 2020, and taking things from there making it to what I want now," Kelly said. "And my process is very simple. The [mechanics are] very repeatable. And I've got a good foundation to rely on when things go, you know, off the rails a little bit."
When things went badly last year or even in 2019, Kelly found himself searching for answers. Rather than leaving a good or bad game in the clubhouse behind him when he would leave for the night, he would toss and turn at home.
Over the course of a baseball season that mental wear and tear exacts a toll.
"I would ride the highs," Kelly said. "The lows? I'd wear him pretty hard. I would take them home and I would stew on them and be like, 'What's, what's the problem?' I was always trying to find a [reason] why. Now, getting my swing to where it's at, being mentally strong with my process and my foundation, I don't really need to search for a 'why' every night and that's freeing. It feels free and I'm at peace with it."
On the physical side of things, Kelly is more balanced at the plate. He keeps his weight centered more now, which allows him to keep his bat in the hitting zone longer. It gives him the ability to let pitches travel more if he needs to and helps his swing decisions.
The numbers bear that out -- his chase rate is down, his walk rate is up. In fact, Friday snapped a 10-game walk streak for him, which matched a franchise record.
The belief that Kelly now has in his process is something that Friday's starter Luke Weaver, who has played with Kelly since the pair came up together in the Cardinals’ system, said jumps out.
"When you can really string together some good at-bats or good calls behind the plate, etc., you just can't [help but] have confidence," Weaver said. "So, it's just really radiating off of him right now and I think it's helping the lineup in general, and us as pitchers."