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Vina Slumps At Bat, Blame Mechanics
June 13, 2000
Fernando Vina, the catalyst of the Cardinals offense for much of the first third of the season, has hit his first speed bump.
As the Cardinals met the San Diego Padres on Monday night, Vina was riding a three-for-36 skid that had dropped his average from .324 to .287 and his on-base percentage from above .400 to a still respectable .388.
The diminutive Vina has hit too many deep fly balls for outs.
"What usually happens," manager Tony La Russa said, "is that when you make a lot of hard contact (for outs), human instinct takes over by nature and you try to force your base hits."
Vina was out for extra batting practice Monday along with Larry Sutton, Edgar Renteria and injured Fernando Tatis.
One of the things Vina worked on Monday was seemingly a simple one -- hitting the ball downward.
The Cardinals second baseman said he has been displaying bad mechanics with his lower body, causing him to swing up at the ball, thus hitting fly ball after fly ball.
Entering Monday night's game, of his 33 outs in his slump, 12 were flies to the outfield.
He also walked just once in that span, and that was in his last plate appearance Sunday.
"I'm in a slump," he said. "When you're in a funk, you can't get anything to go right. But everyone has them. You don't see anybody who plays the game who doesn't have a stretch like this.
"You just try to get back to normal as quick as you can. I need to take my walks. I've been swinging at bad pitches because I want to get a hit so bad to get out of it.
"They've been throwing me a lot of off-speed pitches and I've been getting myself out. But I'm still playing my defense."
Vina has been charged with just one error this season.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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