Pena locks self in room to lift weights after hitting HR to win it

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Originally Posted by missionhockey21

Wily Mo will never be the high OBP kind of guy but he has improved and hopefully he'll continue to. We often see the count at 2-2, 3-2, etc (with often having fouled off a few as well) before he gets the pitch he crushes. Wasn't too long ago that Wily saw much past the 3rd or 4th pitch.

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I agree, I'm just saying it would do some good for him to learn to walk a bit more, just so he has something to fall back on if he goes through a streak where he's not hitting the ball very much.

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Originally Posted by Sea Ray

Yeah I love his work ethic and that's likely how he's improved so much but seriously he doesn't have to build more muscle. A higher OBP as mentioned previously and other baseball related drills would probably help more but I'm not complaining. His improvement is almost unheard of. I just don't want him to get too bulked up and lose flexibility ala Rueben Sierra and Jose Canseco

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I don't think that WIly Mo is trying to get any bigger, that was just a comment from an earlier post. Lots of people lift or run after a game, because being warmed up, the excersise is more effective.

As far as OBP goes, it's going up for sure. i think that his plate discipline will continue to improve and he will work deeper counts and more walks as he gets a little older. But the real improvement in OBP will come when people start walking him intentionally or obviously pitching around him all the time. If he keeps hitting balls out at a Ruthian pace, people will stop pitching to him quick, especially in a situation like last night. I'm going to predict that if he hits like he has for another month that we will start to see a lot of IBB, even if guys like dunn are behind him. At this point i'd much rather face dunn with the game on the line.

Improving the defense will be the hardest thing for Wily Mo i think.

With Pena' power, a .350 OB will be fine by me.

I still wouldn't give up on Kearns. remember how long it took Casey to return to form after shoulder surgery?

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Originally Posted by AdamDunn#44

With Pena' power, a .350 OB will be fine by me.

I still wouldn't give up on Kearns. remember how long it took Casey to return to form after shoulder surgery?

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i agree on not giving up on him, i just wish that he didn't have such a bad relationship with the club these days and wanted to work harder. I really think the breaking point for kearns was the whole third base thing. They had him working on something totally new, and he worked hard at it, and then they just told him it wasn't enough. He already didn't get along with O'brien, and that just added to it. They either shouldn't have asked him to do it and gotten randa, or gone all the way with it, and if he didn't look ready at ST, gone with EDE.

Obviously at this point it seems clear that they should have gotten randa since he's doing so well and kearns is struggling so much, but who knows how it would have worked out. Maybe if Kearns had kept working on 3b all winter he would have come into camp in better shape and hit like he used to. Then we'd have a cheaper and better hitting 3b, and Wily Mo would have played the whole year. Who knows, maybe everything would be different and we'd be in first place, that's not the point. The point to me is that I'm sure kearns can be great again, but i don't know what it will take to get him there, and it might take a change of scenery.

The only thing I worry about with Pena is that when he goes into a slump, it will involve him not getting on base or doing anything at all really.