A Test of the Nationals' Patience
Young Hitters' Struggles Have Pushed Inexperienced Harris to Get Results

By Chico Harlan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Just before 9 p.m. last Wednesday, in the fifth inning with a runner on third and one out, Philadelphia's Jamie Moyer threw an 0-0 pitch to Lastings Milledge right where a pitcher wants it, four inches outside, the precise overlap in space where a pitch looks hittable but isn't. Every word the Washington Nationals' outfielder had heard earlier that day, and every sentence in a scouting report he had read, told him not to swing. And still, he swung.

Some six hours earlier, Milledge, 23, had arrived early at Nationals Park for extra work with hitting coach Lenny Harris -- a burly motivator who credits at-the-plate patience for his own 17-year career. "If a guy chases a ball," Harris said, "that makes me hot."

The Nationals' internal scouting report on Moyer, photocopied onto 8 1/2 -by-11-inch sheets and made available to all players, sketched the simple strategy during at-bats: Wait, and wait some more, until Moyer, baseball's most caricaturized control pitcher, had no choice but to cross the plate with his 80- to 82-mph fastball. "This guy shouldn't get you out in the strike zone," one bullet point on the report stated. "Make him bring it on the plate."

Moyer's approach, both because of the velocity he lacks and the precision he lives by, doubles as a referendum on a lineup's patience. And this season, Washington's entire lineup has swung too often and hit too little.

Chronic ignorance of hitting's oldest chestnuts -- wait for your pitch; sit and drive -- have fostered questions about Harris's ability to teach and Washington's ability to improve. Then again, improvement, or its inverse, can be measured even in the moments otherwise forgotten, which is why Milledge's one swing in his fifth inning at-bat Wednesday, in a game Washington already trailed 7-3, is emblematic of an entire season.

That inning, Milledge had walked to the plate feeling urgency. Since returning from the disabled list just five days earlier with a strained groin, he'd gone 2 for 15, including two flyouts earlier in the game. "I mean, I can't keep doing this bad forever," he said.

Four weeks of lost time while injured had shaken all the muscle memory from his mechanics. During recent swings, his head flew up, as if spinning out of orbit, and his body lunged forward. As it turned out, those same flaws -- especially in this at-bat -- would keep Harris awake at night, and bring him, along with Milledge, to the ballpark early the next day.

Milledge and Harris have spent the season forging a necessary, but close, relationship. Harris himself never had Milledge's talent. Milledge always had the talent to negate the need for technique-based coaching. Until age 17, he didn't study hitting as a form; he just did it. "I'd always been successful," he said, "so nobody wanted to tamper with me."

Ask Harris about his influences as a hitter, and you'll get an ode to the old artists of bat control -- Tim Raines, for instance, and Pete Rose. Ask Milledge the same question, and in translation, something rearranges: "Well, my dad taught me how to hit, how to be aggressive," Milledge said. "And my older brother, too. He went all the way up to rookie ball. I guess I learned my aggressiveness from him."

During the offseason, Washington traded for Milledge, drafted 12th overall in 2003 by the New York Mets. The team knew of Milledge's shortcomings at the plate but loved his potential. "He's got to learn how not to chase," General Manager Jim Bowden said.

Milledge's acquisition, along with the decision to play him every day, demonstrated Washington's willingness to use its big league roster as a teaching ground. Milledge would learn from Harris. Occasional failure would be tolerated, so long as it promoted a tangible long-term payoff.

Harris himself had been on the job for only a half-season, installed in the middle of 2007 when Mitchell Page left for personal reasons. Harris believed, and lamented, that some modern hitters advanced to the big leagues without first mastering the fundamentals. A player can get to the big leagues on ability, Harris said, but that alone won't suffice once he gets there.

At 45, Moyer knows his limitations. "Do I have above-average stuff? No," he said. "Do I have average stuff? No. I have below average stuff. But" -- and here, Moyer pointed to his head -- "I can beat you with this." Moyer's two-word scouting report on the Nationals? "Overaggressive. Sometimes."

On the first pitch he saw, Milledge flailed. He tapped the 0-0 pitch -- "It was two feet outside!" Harris said later -- right back to Moyer, who took several steps off the mound and fielded it just as its forward momentum died. Teammate Willie Harris, who had tripled before Milledge's at-bat, remained at third. Milledge returned to the dugout and put his helmet back on the rack. That's when Lenny Harris, who views himself as equal parts motivator and technician, told his center fielder to keep his head up. To Harris, Milledge looked dejected.

The next day at Nationals Park, before Milledge arrived for another round of early batting practice, Harris walked into the team's labyrinthine video control room, all flat-screen panels and computer monitors, and folded into an office chair.

His video screen subdivided, Harris watched two Milledge at-bats side-by-side, comparing the frame-by-frame sequence. On the left: Moyer pitching, July 30. On the right: Pittsburgh's soft-throwing left-hander Zach Duke pitching, May 1. Given such a frame of reference, Milledge's mechanical difficulties against Moyer appeared in sharp relief. Harris noted them with a series of nods and soft comments.

Harris fast-forwarded the side-by-side pitches until they shared an identical freeze frame -- ball two-thirds of the way to the plate. Against Duke, Milledge hadn't turned his bellybutton toward the ball; his hands stayed back; his body maintained textbook alignment; the "44" on the front of his uniform was still obscured by a sharp angle. But against Moyer? Ball two-thirds of the way to the plate, the "44" stared right at you. "See, right here he's flying open," Harris said. "Right now, he's trying to pull the ball. He's trying to hit home runs."

For several more minutes, Harris analyzed. He flip-flopped angles, studying the nuances. He looked at Milledge's head and hands.

Harris's worth as a hitting coach will be based on his ability to transfer his understanding of such mechanics into improvement. To date, 12 of the 19 Washington hitters with more than 50 at-bats this season are hitting below their career averages. Such a high percentage of failure provides ammo for fans who call Harris unqualified. Earlier this season, the scrutiny stressed him so much that Manager Manny Acta took him aside and told him that he couldn't control everything.

For Harris, teaching at times feels more difficult than doing, because more distance separates you from the final result. "Everything we've got, everything they need to know to succeed, it's here!" Harris said at one point, tapping the scouting report on Moyer. "But I can't do it for them. I take all the heat, but that's okay. I want the heat. They're kids."

When Milledge arrived at the stadium at 2:45, Harris turned his thoughts from Wednesday's failure to Thursday's opportunity. "Well speak of the devil," Harris told Milledge as they met.

They walked together into the bunker-level batting cages hidden in Nationals Park's lowest level. Milledge grabbed his bat. Harris positioned himself 25 feet away, behind an L-shaped cage, and lobbed 40 soft pitches. Milledge remained quiet, but for the crack of wood on ball. The coach, though, filled the air with a roaring commentary.

"It ain't hard," he said, practically singing. "Just real simple."

Crack. Crack.

"See how quiet your head is now? Just keep that head still! That's how you see that outside pitch!"

Crack.

"Easy swings."

Crack.

"Now you're starting to feel it!"

Crack, crack, crack.

"I got four hours of sleep last night watching your [swings]."

"Stay on it! You're coming at me. One more! Nuh-uh; try again."

Satisfied that Milledge had regained some comfort with his swing, the two exited the cages and prepared for the evening's game. Measuring a ballplayer's true progress requires a long view, which is why Milledge's truest tendencies are still evolving. Still, among the 213 major leaguers who've seen at least 1,000 pitches this season, only 34, Milledge included, swing more often than they take. That makes Milledge, who swings at roughly 50.5 percent of all pitches, one of the most aggressive hitters in the game. The line between encouraging such an approach and restraining it requires balance.

One National League scout, who's followed Milledge since 2005, when he played at Class AA Binghamton, said Milledge has become more impatient since making the big leagues. "But that's a natural tendency," he said. "See, playing time takes care of that. He has all the necessary tools."

Said Harris: "Everybody is saying he has all the potential in the world. Maybe so. He has all the potential. Now he has to learn to put it together."

In the next days, Harris fed Milledge a simple message. Stay confident, he said. Swing easy.

Milledge started doing just that. Friday, pregame, he bounced through the clubhouse with the buoyant smile of a player who likes what's about to come. He had no idea that he'd break out with two hits that night, or that he'd homer in each of the two days following. He just felt like he could. His swing, for the first time in weeks, felt just right.

"In about three days," he said, imagining a big weekend, "you'll be writing a big story about me."