Cabrera going opposite way to heat up bat

PHOENIX -- Everth Cabrera appears to be on the brink of hitting his way out of a monthlong funk, as he has four multihit games in the Padres' last 15 games.

It's not so much the amount of hits that leads hitting coach Phil Plantier to believe Cabrera is back on a right track, but where many of the balls are going -- to the opposite field.

Cabrera, the switch-hitting shortstop, has seen 29 of his 49 hits go to the opposite field this season -- that's 59.2 percent, which ranks him first in the Major Leagues.

On May 23, Cabrera, hitting left-handed, hit two balls hard to left field for singles. Plantier would like to see more of that.

"For Cabby, it's extremely important," Plantier said. "It's always important to remember what you are good at. And from both sides of the plate, he's had success working up the middle and also going the other way.

"He got away from that a little bit."

Cabrera was hitting .329 on April 21, but proceeded to hit .183 with a .222 on-base percentage over the next month in 120 at-bats.

"He's doing it the right way now, with a lot of hard, low trajectory with backspin," Plantier said. "You look at last year and against lefties, he did the bulk of his damage working the big part of the field."