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Busting Out: Texas Rangers’ Ian Kinsler Emerges From Long Slump In Win Over Houston

D-tails: Rangers 6, Astros 1
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ARLINGTON - The how and why a player breaks out of a slump are as much a mystery as how and why he ends up in one in the first place.

The cure could come in the form of a day off to relax the mind and refresh the body. Or it could take the form of a mechanical adjustment. Or it might be something as serendipitous as facing a pitcher the player knows he owns.

It was certainly possible that a dash of all three contributed to Ian Kinsler’s big night Tuesday as the Texas Rangers beat Houston 6-1.

What was far more definitive, though, was the tie-in Kinsler’s big night – he went 3-for-4 with a pair of homers and a walk – had to the Rangers win. When he scores, the Rangers win; it’s that simple. They entered the week 22-6 when Kinsler scores a run and the fact he hadn’t scored in his last eight games, including the first six of the season’s longest homestand, stood out like a swollen thumb.

Just five pitches into the game, Kinsler was crossing home plate after his fourth leadoff homer of the year. He caught a fastball from one of his favorite opponents, left-hander Wandy Rodriguez, and drove it 419 feet for the homer. It was significant to Kinsler since he’d uncharacteristically struggled with fastballs over a two month stretch in which he hit just .222. Over the 30-day stretch leading up to the Astros series, the numbers were even bleaker: a .176 batting average and .282 on-base percentage.

“I think I had gotten into a pattern where I had been sitting on off-speed stuff to much,” Kinsler said. “Fastballs were beating me. I was yanking off speed pitches into the seats for foul balls. I was just kind of doing the opposite of what I should be doing.”

Kinsler came to that revelation on Monday, the Rangers first off day after a tough two-week stretch. He slept for nearly 12 hours after the Rangers fell to Los Angeles on Sunday. When he woke up on Monday, he went through the motions of doing a little shopping with wife, Tess, but found his mind drifting back to the slump. That’s when it hit him once again that he’d reversed his hitting approach.

It had hit him before, but without a day off Kinsler had struggled to make the adjustment during an at-bat or between at-bats.

“It’s all about confidence,” Kinsler said. “It [the adjustment] should have come earlier. But sometimes you tell yourself to do something and you just can’t make your body break the habit in the middle of an at-bat or a game. I was frustrated. I haven’t been very successful at the plate and that’s bothered me. It’s just not acceptable. I wasn’t playing with the same kind of energy, too many pop-ups. I just wasn’t ready for the fastballs the way I should be.”

Manager Ron Washington said he never considered moving Kinsler out of the leadoff spot, even for a day or two. Washington said he believed Kinsler would work his way out of it.

The physical rest, the mental break through and the combination of Rodriguez, against

whom Kinsler was 7-for-10 entering the game, all seemed to converge to help Kinsler. In his second at-bat, he hammered a changeup from Rodriguez for another homer. In the fourth, he took a one-out walk, putting two men on base for Michael Young. Young followed with a two-run double to make the score 4-0. And in the eighth, Kinsler added a single to right field, a rarity for him.

“I don’t think my homers impacted the game very much,” Kinsler said. “Mike’s double, that really got us going. We are the catalysts for this team and when we get going back to back, having good at-bats, it shows.”

It showed up on the scoreboard Tuesday. And in the win column.