SEATTLE -- Julio Rodríguez was as amped as anyone when Mariners teammate Cal Raleigh crushed his way to the Home Run Derby title on Monday night, with in-the-moment Instagram posts to prove it.
But that was about all that Seattle’s center fielder wanted to reveal about how he spent his All-Star break after opting not to partake in this year’s festivities in Atlanta, exercising some purposeful privacy as he gears up for the second half.
“Just exactly what I needed,” Rodríguez said ahead of Seattle’s 6-1 win over Houston to open the second half on Friday. “I feel like I needed a mental break and to get my body in the right spot. And I feel I achieved that, and I'm ready to go.”
Rodríguez had the unique perspective of watching as a two-time Derby participant, with electric performances in both 2022 at Dodger Stadium and 2023 at T-Mobile Park, when he was the star of each show despite not winning. It made him appreciate Raleigh’s performance that much more.
“All I could think about was like, [dang], he's with his dad and his little brother right there,” Rodríguez said. “And he looked like he was having so much fun.”
Rodríguez and Raleigh have spent more time together in recent weeks, through pregame drills with hitting coaches Kevin Seitzer and Bobby Magallanes. Specifically, Rodríguez has adopted the tee drill that Raleigh began using in batting cage work during Spring Training, in which he raises the tee to an extremely high level off the ground, about chest high, then attempts to elevate the baseball from there.
The tactic, Seitzer said, was to help Raleigh be more vertical and less horizontal in his follow-through while leveraging his back leg more. And the longtime coach said that Rodríguez, who homered in each of Seattle’s three games in Detroit leading into the All-Star break, is already showing similar results.
“It’s really starting to click,” Seitzer said.
Raleigh pulled the ball in the air on a healthy 34.7% of his batted balls in the first half, the highest rate among 234 qualified hitters, while Rodríguez ranked 193rd among that group, at 11.9%. Rodríguez is at his best when using the entire field, with more opposite-field power than anyone on the team -- a laser of a 363-foot homer to inside the right-field foul pole in Detroit being a prime example. Yet, his most optimum contact was regularly going into the ground.
Rodríguez actually had more hard-hit balls (anything 95 mph or higher) than Raleigh in the first half -- 137 compared to 120 -- but a sizable 62 of those were on the ground, more than all but six hitters, while Raleigh had just 23.
Rodríguez has a 51.5% line drive and fly ball rate in July, easily his highest for a single month this season, and way up from his 37.7% clip from Opening Day through the end of June. In the Detroit series alone, Rodríguez raised his OPS by 47 points, to .731 on the season, which probably would’ve been more reflective of All-Star-caliber production than the .687 OPS he had up to that point.
“I thought his swing looked as good as it has almost all season,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said.
Rodríguez has no regrets over not going to Atlanta, believing that a mental and physical reset was necessary -- even if it came with FOMO.
“It was very tough, because it’s a first,” Rodríguez said, “I’ve never had to [make] a decision like that. But at the same time, I feel like I stayed true to what I truly felt in the moment, and I feel like a lot of good things [will] happen after that.”
If he soars in the second half, as he has in each of his first three seasons, it will look even more the right move. Rodríguez has a career .903 OPS after the All-Star break compared to a .737 OPS in the first half.
“We're about to rock, man,” Rodríguez said. “Like, that's what we came to do. We came to play. I think it's going to be a fun second half, that everybody should pay attention to.”
What gives him that confidence?
“The team that we have,” Rordriguez said. “We went through a few rocky points, but that didn't change our identity. We faced the [Tigers, who have] the best record in the league, and we were able to play our game and just kind of do what we did against them. I feel like we're in a really good spot, and there's a hell of a lot of games to go.”