PHILADELPHIA – It took arguably the most statistically overwhelming week of his career for Braves left fielder Justin Upton to beat out teammate Freddie Freeman, Dodgers slugger Adrian Gonzalez and others for the National League Player of the Week award that he received Monday.
And from his comments about winning the award, it seemed pretty clear that Upton would gladly trade it for improved consistency over the entire season, rather than having another momentous April followed by a few modest months like he had in 2013.
“Things have kind of been going my way the last few days,” said Upton, who won the award after collecting four home runs and eight RBIs in the past four games and leading the majors in batting average (.591), on-base percentage (.654) and slugging percentage (1.227) in six games during the week that ended Sunday. “It’s something to build on.
In his first season with the Braves in 2013, Upton set a franchise record with 12 home runs in April. But he never had a seven-day stretch in that month quite as impressive all-around as the week he had during the Braves’ homestand against the Mets and Nationals.
The closest he came was the first week last season, when he hit .423 with six homers and eight RBIs in seven games, with a .448 OBP and 1.192 slugging percentage. He had 11 hits and two multi-hit games out of seven that week, compared to two 13 hits in six games including two or more hits in each of his last four games in the week that ended Sunday.
“This year he’s probably been more consistent,” Braves hitting coach Greg walker said. “Last year in April when he was hitting all the homers, he wasn’t getting the base hits like he’s getting now. I don’t think his average was ever this high.”
Last season he hit .302 with 12 homers and 18 RBIs and a .779 slugging percentage in his first 23 games (86 at-bats) through April 27. Then in his remaining 126 games, Upton hit .256 with 15 homers and a .407 slugging percentage in 472 at-bats.
He was asked about getting off to another sizzling start in April.
“You work in the offseason to get to this point, to make sure you’re prepared for the year,” said Upton, who last won the NL Player of the Week award in 2011, when he did it twice with Arizona in June and July. “To see the results, it’s important. (But) you want to still be feeling good in September and October.”
Upton had a two-homer game Thursday against the Mets, including an opposite-field homer to right and a mammoth 477-foot homer to left. Walker said the four-homers-in-four-days stretch coincided with an adjustment that Upton made in his pregame approach, cutting back on hitting countless balls flipped to him in the indoor batting cages by a coach before games, and instead hitting a limited number of balls off a tee in the batting cage, just enough to get a good feel.
Braves coaches made the suggestion to him, and Upton took to it and has gotten great initial results.
“He’s a special talent,” Walker said. “It had gotten frustrating for him. Somewhere along the way, he had made the game more difficult than it should be for someone like him. He’s one of the most talented guys. The game’s never easy for anybody, but it should be easier for him than what he’s made it. That’s been our goal from spring training, to come up with some work to make him like when he was a kid and didn’t have all this in his brain.
“He’s got it all. There’s just a couple of things in his swing — if his swing is flowing together, he can cover all pitches. And it’s just that those spurts come and go. We’re trying to come up with a concept where they can stay around longer and he can get back to it quicker.”
