 All right guys, welcome back to Sequence. I'm your host Trevor Ploof and today my guest needs no introduction. He's your 2018 NL MVP. He's one of the best players on the planet, if not the best player on the planet right now. He's a guy that I got to spend a lot of time with a couple off seasons ago. An all-around great guy, Christian Yaelish. What's up my man? What up dude? How you doing? I'm doing well. I'm so happy you agreed to come on. I texted you and I said, hey, do you have any interest in coming on? And you said, sure. And I said, what do you think? And you said, how about tonight? So we got yourself right away. When the MVP comes and says, let's do it, you just do it. So I asked you for some highlights because that's kind of what the show is about. We go through a few highlights, pitch by pitch, some highlights that kind of guys will look at to get back to when they're feeling good. And you told me that you're not a big highlight guy. You're more of an alignment guy. What exactly does that mean? I mean, I'll look at highlight. I think everybody watches their digmy tape every now and then just to, I think I do it more when if I'm struggling and you want to get like in the middle of a season, you want to get that positive feel back and that confidence, you can trick yourself. And I'm sure you've done it before where you're like, man, I suck right now. And then you go in the video room and you're like, I'm gonna watch some video. And you're like, you know what? I'm gonna watch all my homers right now. And then you watch it. You're like, man, this looks so easy. And then you don't, you don't realize like all the, you know, you forget about all your bad feelings and your bad thoughts that you had when you walked into that room. You're like, all right, like, let me focus on like what I'm doing here. I watch like my setup in my stance, like, I feel like if I'm in that position, like if I'm in a good, good setup, I like my stance, I like how I look in the box. And I have certain keys that I look at. I think my setup allows me to get into a good position when I make my, my first move. And then when I feel, if I feel like I can get in that position and not have to work very hard to get in that position, then I feel like I can do whatever like I can cover the zone, every zone I can cover every pitch. Like it doesn't, I'm in total control. And the only way I feel like I get out is if I do something stupid and get myself out, which we do a lot, like, you know what I mean? Or you'll just miss a pitch, like it happens, but you know, you get in that, that zone and that feeling, like you're not going to, you're not going to succeed every time, it's not going to happen. But that mindset, you have that mindset, you know what I mean? Of like, I am does not, I am in total control right now, like, you know, I might maybe I'll line out or something here, but I'm just not going to, that's the only way this is going down. And it's a great feeling to have, but you're always, you're searching for that all season. You have like the times when you feel great. I feel like I say, I think you have two weeks if you're very fortunate every season where you're just like blacked out, red hot, and you're lighting a world on fire. And you have about two weeks where you suck, like you, someone could throw you front toss in the game, you're going to find a way to hit no double play or punch out. And the rest of the time you're kind of surviving and working towards that two week feeling, or you have these certain keys that you're just working for and you're surviving and you're competing. And that's a baseball season. At least this for me, like, I don't know how you felt playing, but that's how I feel. Like you don't, you don't feel locked in all year. Oh, absolutely not. I mean, everyone always says you try to ride the wave when you're going hot. Or for you, I mean, the last couple of years seems like you've had that kind of wave going more often than not, which like you said, is an excellent feeling. What's cool about our relationship is I mentioned before we got to work out together. And in that off season, I got to hit with you. So I got to kind of experience, like, you know, what you're thinking. And now we want to pass it along to kind of who's watching this. And one thing that I thought was really cool, I just kind of asked you one day, like, did something just like click? Like you were always a really good player. And then you see that from time to time, guys will just say just quit. And I asked you if you had a moment like that. And you kind of did. Do you want to share that with with everybody? Yeah, I did. And I didn't like I had a moment where I definitely changed, right? I changed to more of a little bit upright. But it was probably, I'd say it was probably a two to three week moment, right? I had the initial idea. But you know, as a hitter, little changes feel huge to you. At first, like, you can be like, oh, my hands are like right here. And you raise them like right here. And you feel like they're up here. You know what I mean? Like, that's what it feels like originally the hitter. So in your mind, you're like, Oh, I'm making this big, drastic change. But then you go watch the video and you're like, Oh, man, it's not really that big of a change. But it feels different. You think it's different. And sometimes that's everything is such a mental game. And sometimes that's just it, right? And so I definitely made a change where I was more upright, but I definitely wasn't as upright as I thought at first. And then as that two, three week period probably goes by, and this is after the 2018 I'll start break. I did the first game back, but looking at where it was the first game to where it was probably in mid August or beginning of September, it was, it's definitely even more different than it's like, it's very noticeable. And that happened over time. Like I didn't watch a video and be like, okay, I'm going to open up a little bit more and I'm going to narrow like I thought I was doing all those things already. And then I think we're just having the thought process my body just followed suit in a way. But the reason I did that is because after the all star game, you fly back home and you have you have like, you have an off day in a sense, like you get back early in the morning and you have the rest of the day off and the next day is the start of the second half of the season. And so you're kind of relaxing, just resting up getting ready to take on the second half. And I got my iPad out and I did what we were talking about. I was like, let me see, like, because I wasn't feeling great going into the break, like I made the all start team, but I wasn't feeling like in one of those locked in phases, I was more surviving. So I was like, all right, for the second half starts, like, I just wanted to watch my like video of when I was doing well and see if I could pick out something that like stood out, right? And like really just self analyze and like, just be like, what do I do when I have the most success, which in my, I was driving the ball with authority, which was to be a home run. So I went and looked at them all from 2016, 2017. And 2016 is the year where I first started hitting for power in the big leagues. I had 21 homers, which was a career high for me at the time. And I got to work with Barry for that park. Yeah, Marlins Park, it was a lot. But when you're playing with guys like Stan and stuff, I feel like, oh, this guy's, this guy had 21 homers at the end of May a lot of times, right? So you're like, okay, like, cool, here's your 21 homers, buddy. And I thought it was sick, but you know, on the right, the guy hitting before you and after you were like, that's cool, man. But anyway, that was the first year that I started hitting for power and the hitting coaches at the time and Miami were Barry Bonds and Frank Menekino. And obviously everybody who's watching this, you know, who Barry is and you know, regardless of your feelings, a guy that's hit more homers than anybody on planet earth, you know, or at least they've hasn't played majorly, at least majorly baseball. You know, you're going to listen and this, he really knows, he really knew a lot about the game, like anybody can go out there and hit a homer that you can go deep in a game and you can have no idea why like, yeah, sure, I hit the ball hard and it went over the fence. And by definition, that's a home run. But why did that happen? Like what allowed that to happen? And as a young player, I never really knew. I was like, Oh yeah, that felt good. That was a good swing. But why was it a good swing? And why did it? Why did all that happen? And Barry explained it to me in terms that the Instagram hitting coach would not love. Right. But I say the Twitter and you coach. Right, it's both like, you know, we were talking before we started this is like, you know, what it would be like as a young player to be able to do something like this and learn the game that way, which who knows if me and you're right, I'd like to think we are. But I would think that we probably have at least an understanding of what it's going to take to succeed at the Major League level and what you can apply from cage BP to game. Like some things can look sick in the cage or sick in BP. And then you suck in the game because it just doesn't translate because when dudes are throwing a hunch, grabbing double zeros with sync or forcing fastballs that will blow your doors off. Sometimes you just, you know, can't take what you learned on the gram and throw it in a major league batter's box. Yeah. I mean, a guy's throwing in the cage. I always say that to people in the cage, you can get away with so much because there's no variables. A guy is flipping the ball to you or he's throwing overhand at 45 miles an hour. And there's the same every time, same every time. So you need like you're saying you got to have something that you can take into the game because you could do all you want in BP and hit Mamo balls, which you and I both know a lot of players that do that and can't take it into the game. But you're saying you guys wanted that you were talking about something. Yeah. So we got off track a little bit, but sorry. Just kind of a, no, but that was my fault, but it applies in the sense of the terminology I'm about to use and explain the way that Barry explained it. If you took it to somebody on social media or the guys that do those videos of it, just like yell at you all day and like, no, this is totally wrong. But it's probably the same thing that we're talking about. Just a different way of getting there and a mindset and a way to think. So I remember this day exactly. It was, we were playing the Fort Bragg game against the Braves at Fort Bragg, the military base, and they built these facilities there. And they're really nice. Actually, if they just built them and then donated them to the military afterwards, but it was like 105 in Fayetteville, North Carolina in like July. And we're in this cage and it's like tarped in and it's probably 120 in this thing. I was just trying to find it again. I was kind of struggling a little bit and trying to do some drills in the cage and Barry was in there with me with Frank. You know, I thought, I always thought as a young player, when I wanted to drive the ball, I would do it with my body. And by that, I meant like, you know, in BP, if you're like, all right, hit a homer and your hip will fly, your front side will fly, everything, because you're just straight. And that's the complete opposite of what you want to do when you're trying to hit a homer. And so Barry got me in there and spread me out really wide and was like, hit this ball off the front of the plate, like the white part of the plate. And I was like, okay, you know, so I think he had Frank flip and he was watching. And so I'm pretty, I'm spread out to the part of my landing point. So if I did my leg kick and you stride out to where your foot landed, that's where that's how wide I was. And I'm just sitting there and this is it was a no stride drill and it was just like hit the front of the plate. And I was like, okay, cool. He throws me the ball. I got trying to chop this shit right off the front of the plate. And I hit it maybe six feet out in front of the plate, like bounce and goes into the screen, whatever. And he goes, I said the front of the plate. I was like, oh, shit. All right. So back again, hit it this time, probably like two or three feet. And he was like, I said right off the plate. I was like, I'm trying dude. And so I do it again. I miss again. And he grabs the bat and he does it. He just pounding balls off the off the plate. And I'm like, what is going on right here? I'm just gonna I'm riding this out of right. You're right. He grabbed it. He like showed me what he was talking about. So he pounded a few he found pounded a few off the off the plate. All right, let's do that. So I get in, I start doing that. And then after a few that he's like, okay, now I want you to chop it where I was originally like six, seven feet out there like that. And we slowly did that. And we brought the ball up to probably about line drive level, where it was just like, and I still had that chopping feeling. But I wasn't actually like steep down, you know, it was just like your path was so short and cleaned up. And it was his way of cleaning up his bat path when he played. And it's a feel, you know, and thinking that of swing down, because you hear the swing down, some guys say that still, like if you hear the old school, I wouldn't say old school, but a Raj berries, like these guys, I'll talk about chip early, I'll talk about swing down. And that's why they're kind of against the Instagram Twitter people, because there's they're so anti that. And if I hit a ball off the top of this cage in this drill, I might have got punched in the face, you know what I mean? Not literally, but it would have been just like, what are you doing moment? And so it was like, it was creating like true backspin, like the ball was coming off. And I was trying to hit this bit straight in the ground. And it was like opposite field, backspin missile up the middle, backspin missile pull side, backspin, backspin, like true pull side. And I was like, damn, like I've never really done that before. And if I had, it was a peer luck accident. I never really understood it. I was always a guy that just hit and could feel when it felt good, not good. I just had no, I had no reasoning behind anything. And I was like, man, that feels pretty good. And like, my I wasn't, I was hitting against my front side in a sense of where like, it wasn't leaking first before I went to swim. And that's why everything was so true. And I was short and I could pull the ball correctly instead of top spinning it or hooking it foul. And I took in BP that day and it was the best batting practice I'd probably ever had in my entire life. It was like just homers, like everywhere, all parts of the field, backspin, like were you still trying to do that? You were still trying to have that feel of like kind of just backspin the ball like, like that. Yeah, I was trying to do I was I had the yeah, I had that feel of not wasn't trying to hit off the plate anymore, but I was trying to just like keep it, I guess on the line for for lack of a better term. And I wasn't like, if I did it was like that ball that you hit that's a two iron into the gap that one hops the wall. Otherwise, it was a homer. It was like one of those BP days. Yeah. Yeah. And that's when I was like, damn, like, I really kind of bought into it in a sense of like, all right, like, this is this might be for real, like I felt really good about it. And I think I only hit seven homers in the first half of that season, I ended up hitting 14. And the second half of that year working on this and, you know, that was the first time I really understood how to pull the ball correctly in the air and hit for power and like what I did personally. And I get like, it just shortened you to the zone. Do you feel like, does that mean because I've been it showed me how to do it correctly? Like it showed me how to do it correctly? Pull the ball. I never really pulled the ball in the air much when I was a young player because I was doing it wrong. You know what I mean? So I think you need them. I think guys need that. Like they always say you learn to pull the ball last. I think you have to be able to hit the ball the other way to learn how to pull the ball right. And maybe I'm completely off here, but that's in my experience, that's what it was. Yeah. I mean, see now it really helps me because I have I have that club in the bag still like I still can do what I used to do when I was a young player. I just built on that. And I was a good hitter, but I never really hit for damage. I could always get on base hit for a decently high average and use the whole field. I always had that skill set. And I kind of ran into this that one day. And it was the beginning of like an understanding of how to do that for me. And it didn't translate overnight. I was 2016. And now we're talking about a clip in 2019, but it's you're constantly working as a player. So anyways, we're getting off. That's a long story to get back to the day before the all separate. So I was watching that video from 2016. And that's why I started there. That's basically why I started there in a sense. That's why such a long story, but kind of explain it. And so I started with my second half homers from 2016 and watched 1617. And I don't think I don't know if I watched any of 18 or not, since you're still in that year, but I watched it. I was like, what are the similarities here? And it was that I was always a little bit more on time. I was a little bit earlier. The swings were probably the same, but I wasn't as on time when I drove the ball. And I think a lot of guys that happens to is like, they think they're on time, but you're really not. And I was one of those guys. And so I always noticed that I have that little pause when I hit, kind of, you know, like the little knee tuck and it almost looks like a pause. And I noticed that when I hit those homers, like that was, I was there a little earlier and I was able to hold it. And then if I swam, and I was swinging the way that I just kind of explained in a sense. And oh, that's another thing about that drill. You throw them like at your, at your chest in a way. And it's kind of applies to this next, it's kind of applies to this next video. So it was like, it was like, right. So, but it's actually good that we're talking about this because we're about to watch it play out. And the drill was to, to like, basically chop with your top hand where you felt like you're almost like swinging down that you're like casting the barrel, I guess, like you're going to fish like in front of your face. But it, but it, it, you think that happens in your head, but it really doesn't. It's just a way to get there very quickly and efficiently. But it took this drill and learning how to do it and being, doing it over and over again in the cage. And eventually it took over here, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Did you continue to do it? So you said, I'll start break. You're watching the video and you come back. You told me before that you got a little bit more upright, just kind of felt you wanted to get into the box and feel comfortable. So you said you, you started to feel a little bit upright. Well, I'll tell you what I got upright in a second is, so I watched it. And I was like, I got, I was always on time more and I was able to hold that pause better. And I thought, I was thinking, okay, like I think I identified like what I want to try and do. Who knows if this is going to work or not, but this is what I want to try and do. And I was like, I hold this pause and, but how am I going to do that? When you're spread out, like it's a little harder to balance. You know, if you spread your legs out really far right now, you pick your front one up, you're not really balanced. You're going to fall off of it. So the idea behind standing a little bit taller was like, you're in a more athletic position. You can, you can hold your weight a little better. You're just, you're just more balanced. That way, you know, if your legs are closer together, you can hold that little pause. Like I call it, they call it the ninja position or most like they call it that. So we'll call it that. So I can hold that little pause a little position better like that because I'm more balanced and I'm not falling out of it. Right. So I was like, that's why I started standing straight up. And I went in the cage that day and I was like, Hey, I'm going to try something for like 15 swings. I'm kind of getting loose. Don't say anything. I used to hit really tall. Don't say anything. Don't freak out. I'm kind of just getting loose. But in my mind, I was trying something. And I used to hit tall as a as a in high school. So it wasn't like completely foreign to me. Once I got the minor leagues, they spread me out and put me in my legs more. But anyway, so you go in there, I just want, I just want to clear this because you stand taller, you go in the cage. Do you do that drill again? Are you chopping down? I didn't do the drill. I didn't do the drill, but I drew back on the thoughts and the thought process behind it. I didn't do that. I do do that drill still every now and then. If I need to like, if I feel like I want to clean up my back path or really feel something, it's a go to thing. I mean, maybe once or twice a month. Yeah. I mean, look, if you really think about the drill, I used to do high tea as well and really feel that backspin. And you just can't lose your barrel and like get long with it and expect to come back and like feel that on top of the ball like that and creating a true backspin. So I think that's kind of right. Is that what I'm, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I watched this, the fight of the ball in the cage when I did this drill and like the feel of it. And if it's not the ball fight is not good, I know I'm doing this drill wrong. And I might be thinking I'm doing it right, but there's something going on. That's a little off. And then I watched the flight of the ball and that's how I can tell if I'm in a good position and doing what I'm supposed to do, because you have a lot of false feels as a hitter that you think you're doing stuff all the time, not even close. So being able to have some instant feedback for me is like, okay, cool, I can try and get this train back on the tracks a little bit quicker by just going to this. Like this is for me is like my process of like, all right, let's get to the bottom, like enough's enough, like, let's figure this out. And for me, that's what that was. And I'm not a big tea guy. So I don't hit high tea. So I just do high flips. But yeah, so that's why I started standing tall and doing this position of like, you know, being a little bit more on time. And I started raking in the case. It was just missile when I was on time. And it was a it was a good feeling. Sorry, like the camera's falling here. I love that because you do have times like if I if I go in the cage and I say, I just want to feel like athletic and as easy as I can swing, like I would get more upright. And the ball does jump off your back. I could never bring that into the game. I felt like my head moved too much. Or maybe I didn't give enough time. I probably should have done that. I probably should have tried it. But let's change so much. It's changed for me, like in my head and like even on film so much from that day to where I'd probably put it at now. And that's just from that's from always constantly evolved. It's from why I tried it in the first place. You're constantly evolving. You're trying to get better. You're trying to make it more efficient and more repeatable. And what's cool is like, I was like, go ahead. No, this is like me talking through the process of like how I how I got there. And maybe it was a risk to try this because like I was an all star at that point during the season. And like, a lot of times when you do this stuff, it doesn't work. We've all tried stuff as a hitter and I said, this is not it. Right. But I felt comfortable doing this because I used to do it when I was younger and it was natural to me. So I felt a little bit more convicted in it than I would with any other change and felt like I had a good reason behind it. And it wasn't just blindly experimenting there in the season, which can result in disaster, especially after you're already an all star. But I love that you're willing to make the adjustment to get even better and you did and then fast. I just knew there was more in there. I just knew there was more in there, you know, it just like, I could tell but I just didn't know what it was. And you ended up winning the MVP. Right. And like when I tried that, it was like the farthest thing from my mind at that point in season. Like it was not even a discussion of being an MVP and then just went and crushed it the second half. So that brings us to 2019. So coming off an MVP year. This is one of the first games of the year. We'll get to the highlight now. And what I love about this highlight is because we do hear so much about putting the ball in the air. There is an emphasis on having that trajectory on your swing path. You want to be swinging up. I'll like a Joey Gallo. He's a guy that does that. A lot of guys are a lot of guys do it. But there's one thing that pictures are doing to counter that right now. And it's that foreseam elevated heater. It's really hard to get on playing with that if you're thinking about hitting the ball in the air. All right. And to touch on the swing up thing. For me, I've never been on the swing up thing. I think that's the wrong. I think people like misconstrue hitting the ball in the air with swinging up. Swinging up has absolutely nothing to do with hitting the ball in the air. Actually, you're probably going to be a really bad hitter if you swing up. Like your barrel is in the zone for this long. And when balls are moving like crazy in the big leagues, sinking, cutting, nasty curve balls, really good change ups. If your barrel is in the zone for this long, you're going to hit like 200. Maybe you're going to hit it for some power if you're a really strong guy. But it's also know thyself. Don't be a guy that's trying to hit all these homers if you're not a big strong kid or guy because it's not going to, if you're not capable of doing it, don't try and do it in a sense. But to me, I think hitting the ball in the air has everything to do with where you hit the ball on the plate. Like if you hit it a little bit more out front, then you're going to drive that ball in the air. If it beats you a little bit and you catch it back, you could have the same swing. Like that could have been a homer swing, but your timing was off or you got beat a little bit, which happens all the time and you hit it in the ground. And that has nothing to do with that you swung down or you didn't swing up. It was just like, Oh, well, you got your doors blown. And that's where I goes back to my thing about timing. It was like, this was kind of right when the launch angle revolution type thing happened. And everybody wanted me to say I bought into the launch angle. I started swinging up. I made all these mechanical adjustments. And it's really not true. Like I didn't, I just changed my timing and my setup a little bit to allow myself to be a little more athletic, more efficient. And in turn, I was catching the ball in a better zone for hitting than I was previous. And so people are always like, Oh, you wouldn't be this kind of player that you were in Miami, that you were in Miami, if you were still in Miami. And I think that's complete bullshit because I know I would be just because these changes translate. And there's a reason that I know why they do because I did them. And it wasn't because of the launch angle thing, because if you're swinging straight up, like you said, these guys throwing a hunch at the top of the zone, it's not going to, it's sorry, but like, you're going to see three pitches. And then that's it. You're going to get your glove and hopefully go place with good D. But that's all that's going to happen in that situation. When I see your swing, you talked about, you know, having kind of an uppercut swing, you're going to be in and out of the zone very quickly. And your swing stays in the zone, gets in the zone early, and it stays in the zone long. And that's kind of when you watch good hitters, that's what they do. And it allows for air, like your timing is everything. And if you're a little tardy on a pitch, but you get, you get to your path quick enough, you're going to spray that ball to the opposite field. If you're a little early, your hands are still going to be there. You're going to hit that ball down the left or your poolside. And I think that's what you do really well. And I think we're going to see that on this. Yeah. And you're going to hit balls hard. You're going to hit balls hard and give you a chance when you don't make perfect contact. All right. So let's get this out. Let's set this up. This is beginning of 2019, you're facing Michael Waka. He's known for his curveball. You know, he goes hard. So you're walking up big, bad NL MVP. And we'll just go ahead and start that here. Calm, collected, walking up here. When did you start with the show piece on the face? When I got to the Brewers, they were like, they're really big on it organizationally. Like, they just think it's, it's a safe thing to do. And they were like, Hey, we're going to have these available for everybody. If you want to try and go ahead. And I saw Mike, he got hit in the face. And I was like, Hey, I'm going to get this shot. And I really liked it in spring training. So I was like, you know what, dude, that guy starts so hard now. And you know, it's not always about command. It was about stuff these days. So yeah, I'm comfortable with it. I like it. And that's why I started wearing it. Well, it's super shows. I love it. It is show too. That helps. And it's good for when you're pissed, you can grip something and just beat the hell out of your helmet once a year only. I went through a lot of helmets myself. No doubt. I only go through one a year, one a year. All right. Well, let's set this up again. Michael Walker, I think you've already hit homers start the season. I think it's like the third game of the season. I think you already have this one's the, this one's the fourth game. This is the fourth game. Yeah. I hit a homer in the first three games. So I was feeling pretty good. So you got to play. We had to tell that because of this first pitch, let's get to the first pitch. First pitch, he wants no parties. I'm going to throw the curveball. Hopefully it's a get me over. I get ahead of him over and then I can go from there. Well, yeah. And you got to remember, Yachty is awesome. I think he's definitely the smartest catcher in the game. He's going to be a Hall of Famer and he knows. I always feel like he knows what you can't hit that day. After a few swings, you're like, this guy knows because he's throwing you stuff that night that he wasn't the night before. I don't know. You can just tell I'm convinced, but I was feeling really good. I felt like I could, I could cover a lot of things at that time. Like you said, it's the first inning, one out, nobody on base. And they go first pitch curveball out the gate and walk it. Well, you don't know, but you have an educated guess. Like he's got, he's the 12, 6 curveball straight over the top guy. And so he loves the high fastball or the one that looks like it's going to hit the dirt sticks at the zone. And then he throws the split off that low one, get you to chase. And he's got a really good split too. And he's got good stuff. And so they went curveball miss, like curveball miss. So a lot of things happen like that when a guy goes curveball bad miss like that, either he's coming back with it because he feels like he didn't throw a good one and he can still get it to steal a strike and himself back in the zone. Or they're using that as a setup pitch and there's so much with tunneling, like, okay, he's throwing this curveball and he's going to try and throw like high heater off of it, either get you to chase or foul it off and get another strike. Or you're wrong and you'd like to take in that situation, but most of the time you don't swing a miss. It's just, you know, a lot of the time you're going to fail a lot of times in this game, but you got to be able to think through it at least I do. And I remember thinking after this bad miss, like, I think this guy's going high heater right now, you know, for whatever reason, I think sometimes when you feel good at the plate, like your thoughts flow better too, like you just feel like, okay, I kind of like, I just have this feeling, I can't explain it of like, I just think this is what's going to happen right here. And a lot of that sequencing and the more you see it, the more you're exposed to it, the better you are at picking it up or making, I guess you call them educated guesses here. What's funny is we're going to see him set up on this next pitch. And it's really funny because it's exactly what he's trying to do. Yachty's trying to tunnel that curveball. He's, he missed up. Now that's fine. We don't want to groove him a heater, you know, down in a way or something like that. Because you, we've seen this guy go up top to left field. No problem. So you watch where he sets up here. You have your educated guess, you said, I think he's coming high heater and watch where we have a target. I'll go back right there and kind of mess that up right there. But he has a target. He's setting up up and in. Right, which is really hard to pitch the handle. He throws it there and you just, I don't even know how you get that pitch. It's because, look at this pitch. There's a lot of reasons. Oh, yeah. And it's, it's not in a bad spot for my pitchers point of view. Like he's probably not upset with that location. He's scratching his head being like, what just happened right there? Now that's your first home or fourth game of the year. He's kind of like, well, this is Christian Nielic. He's locked in. What are you going to do? That's what I would be thinking at least. So the only reason I could get to that pitch was a, like semi, semi looking for it, but not really. I wasn't like a hundred percent. This guy's coming for it. It was just like in the back of your mind, but it was more of a, I was so on time. Like if you watch this video, if you play it back to like where he's about to release the ball and to where I am in my late kick, like I'm at the top of it. So it's just like, all I got to do now is go from here to here before that ball gets to the plate. Like if we, you're early, you're already down. Yeah, I'm already coming down. You know what I mean? So the only reason I can get to that pitch is because you're on time. You know what I mean? Like you can't, if you're late on this at all, and a lot of times you are during the season, because if you're not really, everything's synced up, you're not going to happen. And this is like a perfect storm of events right here. But the timing was really good. And it goes back to, and I remember, and I remember the feeling on this homer was it was the feeling of the drill that we were just talking about. Like I was able to see the ball, I was able to see the ball here, recognize what was happening, and go from here. And it felt like I was like, almost like casting the bat in front of it. It was like the swing down, like a chop in a sense. And it just like was so short. And like it just happened so quickly that I just got to it easily. You backspone that ball, even as high as it was, you back spun that ball big time. Yeah, it was clean. It was true. Like there was no hook or anything to it. Like it was, they're giving you exactly like the drill was, except it was in a game and it was a 90 whatever it was on our fastball. And it doesn't always work out that way. A lot of times that ball is fouled off or popped up to the third baseman or usually not resulting in a whole side homer. We're going to go a little further up because it's going to show highlights again. Yeah, that was incredible. Ronnie, that didn't go. I know I saw that he pops up. Here we go. Now there's going to be some highs. We're going to see the slow mo. We're going to see what you're talking about. You're already down. And so that feel is not a swing down, but it feels like, you know what I mean? Watch that again. And there's no leak on my front side. Like it's clean. You know, if there's any leak on your, you lose your barrel and your swing becomes long. And see, it's almost like a, but that's the drill. That's the exact drill right there from that side of you. If you can look at that, like your hands are just up. Like if you look at it, your hands go from here to just here. Like it's almost straight across your face. I think there'll no leak thing is important there because if you leak, you're not going to get to that ball. Right. You're going to lose your barrel. And if that's the foul ball or pop up a third foul ball or just complete swing and miss all together. But if you stay in there on that, you can be really short. And if you do it right, and I was just like, it's just my drill. I got to do that drill. So I was able to handle that ball. I love it. I love how it all came full circle. Right. That's why we had to tell all those stories to that because I love it. 2018 to go with it. 2019, you bring it back in. You get that exact same pitch. You feel the drill and you hit a bomb on a pitch that, you know, 99% of guys can't do that. But the way you had approached it, it allows you to get to that ball and do the right thing with it. Yeah. I'd say it was probably, like you said, a perfect storm of events, but that was the thought process along with it. And you have to also be able to be in the position to handle a pitch like that. Well, this was a master class and the way you approach the game, the way you approach drills, bringing stuff into the game. And I really appreciate you coming on with us. We have one more bet to go through. But for this first clip, thank you. And let's get to the next one. Appreciate it, dude.