Slugger Ryan O’Hearn still wants to prove his worth to the Royals
Even a big guy like Ryan O’Hearn, the stout, strong 6-foot-3, 220-pound slugging first baseman couldn’t absorb a Carlos Santana-sized body blow without flinching.
When the Kansas City Royals signed Santana, a veteran switch-hitting free-agent first baseman with All-Star and Silver Slugger credentials, that put to bed any debate about their intentions for the starting first-base job. It was Santana’s.
Royals manager Mike Matheny paid O’Hearn the respect of giving him a heads-up before the move became official. But that didn’t mean it didn’t shake O’Hearn, a 27-year-old left-handed hitting former eighth-round draft pick (2014).
“If I just sat up here and told you guys that it didn’t faze me, I’d be lying,” O’Hearn said. “There’s a human aspect to it, and I want to be the guy. The last couple years, things haven’t gone exactly the way that I maybe would have wrote them up.”
In 147 games and 502 plate appearances between 2019 and 2020, O’Hearn has slashed .195/.287/.351 with 16 home runs, 56 RBIs, 57 walks and 136 strikeouts.
So where did O’Hearn turn when faced with the realization that the job he’d coveted for years was decidedly out of reach?
He turned to the pitching machine, the batting cage and continued the work he had started last summer to retool his swing.
“I came to the realization that it’s out of my control,” O’Hearn said. “ … It’s hard not to, but I try to stay away from playing GM as much as I can, as much as I could all offseason. Especially when they signed Santana, it’s definitely a gut check, but like Skip said, you can’t stay there for long.”
O’Hearn’s power has been evident for years. Going back to 2018 and 2019, his average exit velocity and hard hit rates put him in the same class as Royals middle-of-the-order hitters such as Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier.
So Royals coach John Mabry began trying to help O’Hearn address his shortcomings. They identified some mechanical changes, including a toe tap, aimed at allowing O’Hearn to get his bat on more pitches consistently.
“I recognized my weaknesses, where I was getting eaten up,” O’Hearn said. “Especially fastballs inside, elevated fastballs, figuring out how to get those balls in the air.”
Before Matheny even managed a spring training game for the Royals, he’d been a vocal supporter of O’Hearn. This week, Matheny continued to speak optimistically about O’Hearn’s offensive ability and the progress he has made.
“The pitch he hit (Thursday) off Sonny Gray was a pretty good pitch inside that he just pulled his hands into,” Matheny said of O’Hearn’s second homer of the week. “We’ve seen him do that a couple times now. It’s not easy to pull your hands inside and have the ball carry like it did.”
Back in 2018, O’Hearn tied for the second-most RBIs (34) in the first 49 games of a career of any player in franchise history. He collected 26 extra-base hits, including 13 home runs, during that stretch.
Matheny wasn’t the skipper then, but he familiarized himself with all of the background before last season.
“He’s a good hitter. He really is,” Matheny said. “Feels like sometimes you’re trying to convince him of that because he’s so hard on himself sometimes.”
O’Hearn recognized the significance of that home run off the former All-Star Gray.
It won’t change the hierarchy at first base, but it means he’s on the right path with his swing changes. It was the type of pitch, an inside fastball, he hadn’t punished previously.
“Every day that I get to play I feel more comfortable,” O’Hearn said. “I’m happy with that swing off of Sonny Gray. That was solid.”
Believe it or not, it’s still very important to O’Hearn that he prove his value to the Royals even after having been rattled by the club’s pursuit of Santana this offseason.
“It’s tough,” O’Hearn said. “It’s part of the game. It’s the business side. It’s definitely tough, but at the same time I love this team. I love this organization. I love my teammates.
“It turned into, ‘Whatever I gotta do to be part of this, because this is special. Everybody can see it. It’s changing, and it’s for the better. It’s exciting.’ That’s exactly what I told Skip and the guys in the front office.”
