The secret behind Nelson Cruz's majestic home run swing

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Nelson Cruz hit 14 home runs in a month. He lent a bat, lovingly called a Boomstick, to Logan Morrison, who was batting .149 at the time, and he hit three home runs in four days. They call that a "heat check."

Cruz's bats run 35 inches, 33 ounces, larger than Morrison's usual bats by an inch and two ounces but, then, larger than most.

"That's huge, man," Brad Miller observed. "Just huge."

Morrison nodded.

"I've never used a bat that heavy before," said Morrison, who goes 6-foot-2, 240 pounds and seems bigger.

After a month in which he'd out-homered all of the Chicago White Sox and matched all of the Philadelphia Phillies, Cruz on Tuesday afternoon thought back over the month, shrugged and said he thought maybe he'd been consistent, that he hadn't missed too many hittable pitches and that he'd been, you know, pretty healthy, all very low key, like he'd rather have been mourning the exactly 419 pitches he hadn't hit for home runs.

"Um, I guess you see pitches," he said. "You don't foul them off. You square those pitches."

Asked why, the conversation seemed to get too personal for Cruz. But he smiled patiently.

""Um, I guess your swing is more consistent," he said.

He does hit the ball hard. He did hit 40 home runs for the Baltimore Orioles last season and he does have a .281 batting average, 54 home runs and 134 RBI in 716 at-bats for the Orioles and Seattle Mariners since returning from his 50-game Biogenesis timeout. Maybe there's something to that, to living with the embarrassment for six or seven months and then returning to find the free-agent market would not be particularly kind. At a time when offenses all over the league are dying, Cruz is practically a one-man counterpoint.

"I think I'm still learning," said Cruz, who will be 35 in two months. "I started at a late age. Some people take more time."

So you ask a scout, a guy who has seen Cruz for years, a guy who knows the game as well as anyone: Why does Cruz hit the ball so hard so often and why does it go so far? And you write that down and then you take that to Cruz, because maybe he'll recognize himself in a scouting report that is intended to be complimentary. And Cruz almost giggles through the whole thing, perhaps because after the tireless work and honing of mechanics and thousands and thousands of at-bats, the act of hitting the ball hard and a long way is something of a gift, too.

As his manager, Lloyd McClendon, said, "I've seen a lot of good hitters do special things at this level. I say this cautiously [about Cruz], but a lot like Miguel Cabrera. They hit good pitching. They don't just hit mediocre pitching. When that stage presents itself, they step up at a higher level.

"Those are gifted guys. They get it. They understand it. They have the ability to slow it down."

It's a good month. A good year and a month. There are reasons for them, presumably, for 14 home runs before the nights go warm. So, in his clubhouse, Cruz is presented the scouting report on Cruz.

The first point: He's very strong.

"I guess," Cruz said. "Some days you feel like you can be."

Like now?

"Yes."

The second point: Very good bat speed.

"It comes and goes, no doubt," he said. "Some days you feel quick."

Like now?

"Yes."

The third point: Bat angles allow for higher launch than most.

And, well, this was funny for Cruz.

"Bat angles?" he said. "Launch?"

What the man said.

"No," Cruz said. "I try to stay into the ball, inside the ball. It allows you to swing at an inside pitch and keep it fair."

That sort of sounds like bat angle and launch.

"Maybe."

The fourth point: Tries to hit the ball in the air.

"I don't think so," Cruz said. "I'm trying to hit line drives."

He rethought it.

"I guess my swing is a little like that," he said.

The fifth: Simplified approach.

"Yeah."

Simple then.

"Yes."

The sixth: Not afraid to guess/sit on a particular pitch.

Hitters hate for people to think they guess. Anyway…

"I don't know," Cruz said. "Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. It comes natural. You look for tendencies in pitchers. If you guess right, you're going to get it."

You'd put him down for "yes," then.

He was leaning on one of those big bats of his, like the one he lent Logan Morrison. Morrison would double with that bat in the second inning Tuesday night to make him 11 for 24 with the Boomstick. On contact, however, that bat had cried for mercy and broken. These things don't last forever. So you keep swinging and, if possible, try not to read too many scouting reports.

"Definitely, you don't think so much about hitting," Cruz said. "When you do good, you don't have to think."

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