This story was excerpted from Thomas Harding’s Rockies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ANAHEIM -- Rockies shortstop and inspirational figure for the future Ezequiel Tovar celebrated his birthday on Thursday. His advanced baseball acumen and regularity amid a season that has offered more sinks than swims for his club, made it a surprise that his cake required just 23 candles.

In July alone, Tovar experienced an abrupt turnaround like few in the history of the sport.

From July 1 until a seventh-inning single on July 9, Tovar went 0-for-30. From that hit until Thursday night’s 0-for-5 in a 5-4, 10-inning victory over the Angels, Tovar hit safely in 17 straight games. He became the first player since Hall of Famer Joe Morgan to have a hit streak of at least 16 games after a stretch of 0-for-28 or lengthier.

Since 1900, only Tovar, Jake Daubert (1922) and John Dobs (1905) had hits in 17 straight after a hitless run of seven games.

Tovar has ebbed and flowed, and ebbed and flowed, to a quietly impressive .286 batting average, a .485 slugging percentage and 18 home runs, one off the team lead. The downturns the game brings usually are greeted with the right, subtle adjustment and an emphatic response.

“It’s not new to me,” Tovar said through interpreter and bullpen catcher Aaron Muñoz. “But it’s something I need to constantly work on, and continue to get better.”

You come away feeling as if Tovar has seen everything, but we are talking just 268 Major League games.

“He’s shown over the last two years what he’s made of,” Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens said. “He doesn’t take mediocrity as OK. He wants to be great. He works every day to be great.

“That’s him. He has a good feel for how he feels on a daily basis. He plays every day. He plays hard every day. His mindset is allowing him to make these adjustments.”

On MLB Network on Thursday, former player-analyst Mark DeRosa and former Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd did a deep analysis of Tovar.

It is worth taking a pause from reading to watch:

Let’s delve into some pointers from the video:

Pull-side production (1:25 in the video): Despite the damage Tovar is doing to the left-field side, he is not obsessed with pulling the baseball.

“My goal is always to hit all over the field,” he said. “It just happens that right now, I’m ahead in the count and I want to be early.

“I definitely don’t want to think just to pull. It gets me out front, gets me out of rhythm.”

Getting his legs into the swing (2:03): The narrower, butterfly stance is producing more force. But look at the legs, themselves. Bulk has increased.

Having gone through a full season in 2023, Tovar felt he could safely do heavy lower-half work in the offseason and have a strategy for maintenance during a heavy load of games -- all but three of the club’s 110.

“Our strength and conditioning guys do a good job with all of our guys, and obviously with ‘Tovie,’” Meulens said. “He’s a big-legged guy, but he finds a way to manage the workload. To stay on the field on a daily basis is not easy, no matter if you’re 22 or 32.”

Before his 2022 debut, Tovar missed time at Double-A Hartford with an injury in the groin/hip flexor area. But after a healthy ‘23, Tovar bulked up, judiciously.

The swing is connected (3:36): The way to describe the way the various parts of his swing flow is that each of the parts are singing from the same sheet music.

“I’ve been working to have the swing in one rhythm -- when I get my leg-kick up and my arms are going, I want that timing in the same rhythm,” Tovar said.

Put together the preparation, the swing and the attitude that has allowed him to go back and forth with his front leg kick when it suited him, and Tovar is smooth jazz.

“Just the level headedness of ‘Tovie,’ the consistent intensity that he brings every day, through thick and thin, through the ups and downs that can be troubling for a young player to go through those, he doesn’t show any wavering of focus or intensity,” manager Bud Black said.