Major League Baseball

Pirates' Alvarez searching for power

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 3:34 p.m. ET

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Watch Pedro Alvarez take batting practice or look at some of his past highlight reels and it's evident that he can hit for a lot of power.

However, Alvarez has run into a power shortage in 2015, something the Pirates need to change if they're going to fight for a third straight trip to the playoffs.

"It's contact point more than anything," Pirates hitting coach Jeff Branson told the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review. "The ground-ball rate is up because it's a lot of off-speed. ... The ground-ball rate is up because the contact is going to be out front because of the off-speed pitches and not letting the ball travel in the zone enough."

And when Alvarez does see a fastball it's not necessarily one that he can drive.

"A lot of time with him, fastballs are more for show; they are trying to make him susceptible for the off-speed pitches," Branson said. "It's probably sequencing more than anything."

The Pirates know Alvarez's power is there. It's not as if he lost the gift to hit the ball hard, but he needs to have more quality at-bats and when those come the numbers should improve as well.

(h/t Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

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