One month into his Miami Marlins tenure, Jorge Soler starting to unleash his power
Jorge Soler said he didn’t even feel the ball as it connected with his bat and soared to the concourse in left-center field Friday at loanDepot park for a two-run home run. He was hunting a fastball. He struck when the time was right — a 96.5 mph fastball over the heart of the plate from the Seattle Mariners’ Matt Brash on a 3-1 count. And he didn’t miss.
“It was impressive,” manager Don Mattingly said through a smile.
That swing, that home run, was a microcosm of the power the Miami Marlins have hoped to get from Soler when they signed him to a three-year, $36 million deal this offseason.
He sent the ball a projected 468 feet — the third-longest home run in MLB this season through games played Friday and the fifth-longest ever at loanDepot park — for his second home run of the season, one that jump-started their sixth consecutive win.
It’s the latest confidence booster for Soler who is starting to produce at the plate after a sluggish start to the 2022 season.
Entering Saturday, Soler has safely reached base in seven of his past eight games since being moved from the leadoff spot to No. 3 in the lineup.
Four of his seven hits in that span have gone for extra bases — three doubles and the home run — and he has a .753 on-base-plus-slugging mark.
It’s not Earth-shattering numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but it is considerably better than how he started the season — a .150 batting average and .511 OPS in his first 10 starts.
“I’m making better contact,” Soler said. “I’m staying in the zone, not pursuing or looking for pitches out of the zone.”
Now, the Marlins have made it clear they weren’t concerned about Soler in the early going of the season. Both Mattingly and bench coach James Rowson have pointed to his track record as reasons for optimism that he would snap out of his funk at some point.
That track record includes a tendency for slow starts — Soler is a career .228 hitter in the months of April and March.
But he’s starting to come around.
Soler is hitting the ball harder. He has put six balls into play over this eight-game stretch with exit velocities above 100 mph — including three that eclipsed 110 mph.
He’s starting to use more of the field as well. Of his 13 hits, all four of his doubles have been down the line (three to the left, one to the right), both of his home runs have been to left-center and his seven singles have scattered throughout the field (two infield singles to the left side, four singles up the middle, one to right-center field).
“We’re starting to see him stay more in the middle of the field and the bat staying in the middle,” Mattingly said. “When that happens, he’s going to start hitting to center, right-center, all over.”
And just as Soler is coming into his own, the same can be said about the Marlins as a whole. They enter Saturday on a six-game winning streak, a feat they didn’t accomplish at any point last season. They have series wins in each of the three matchups they have had against divisional opponents so far this season — three of four against the Philadelphia Phillies, two of three against the Atlanta Braves and a three-game sweep of the Washington Nationals.
The team’s internal optimism about their potential is starting to show on the field.
“We can see the results,” Soler said. “We’re playing fun baseball, happy baseball. We try to do our best every time we go onto the field. And inside the clubhouse you can see there’s great chemistry.”
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