This story was excerpted from Justice delos Santos’ Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Tucupita Marcano isn’t the only 23-year-old middle infielder on the Pirates making mechanical adjustments.

Over the last month, Ji-Hwan Bae has hit with simplified mechanics, transitioning from a high leg kick to a more controlled stride -- a change that is bearing fruit over the last month.

“It feels different, but every day, I’m learning,” Bae said through team interpreter Daniel Park. “Today, I’m going to go up to the plate and feel something. Tomorrow, I’m going to think about what yesterday felt like and try to fix what I didn’t like.”

To begin the season, Bae used a very, very, very exaggerated high leg kick, his body coiling and crunching before unloading a swing. He raises his right leg to his midsection and brings his right foot over his left knee. Here’s a clip of Bae on March 30, the first game of the season:

"Once you're coiled up, you have to uncoil,” said manager Derek Shelton. “So you have to uncoil, you have to rotate, your body has to rotate, you end up losing the barrel. I think his path has been way more direct to the barrel because he's more in line. You see that with a lot of young players. They come up to the big leagues and they get away with things in the Minor Leagues that you can't do in the big leagues, and then they have to adjust."

That high-leg kick generates a ton of kinetic energy (i.e. more power), but the tradeoff is mechanical simplicity; trying to hit a rapidly-moving projectile while doing essentially a one-legged squat isn’t an easy task. So, around mid-April, Bae simplified his mechanics.

Hitting coach Andy Haines made several recommendations to Bae. The first was to move a bit off the plate, giving Bae more space to operate. The second was to stand more straight up instead of crunching his body, giving him more space to turn his body. Bae believes that the alterations aren’t just simpler, but also take less energy.

“The coaches asked me if I was doing the leg kick for more power,” Bae said. “They said, ‘If that’s the case, put the leg down and relax instead of trying to put the leg kick in and force more power into it.’” 

Bae eschewed that exaggerated leg kick; now, his right foot just barely rises above the ground. Additionally, instead of coiling his body, Bae stands more upright. The difference is night and day.

"They have to get uncomfortable first because guys are comfortable, they don't make adjustments and they don't hit,” Shelton said. “They want to revert back to all the times where it was like, 'Oh, this feels right,' but it's not right. I said it a lot as a hitting coach, once you get comfortable being uncomfortable, we're going to make that transition.”

There may have been a bit of a learning curve upon implementing the change in mid-April, but the tweak has been bearing fruit since the calendar flipped to May. In 23 games this month, Bae is hitting .288/.338/.364, reaching base in 11 consecutive games in which he started at one point. 

“I’m just very thankful to the coaching staff to give me the opportunity to go out there every day and play the game,” Bae said.