The Kansas City Royals hope Jorge Soler found something in Thursday night’s HR swing

Even when Jorge Soler isn’t taking the sort of violent, high-torque swing that drops him to a knee, he’s capable of plenty of damage.

The Kansas City Royals’ designated hitter/outfielder smacked a two-run home run in the eighth inning on Thursday night as the Royals snapped a five-game losing streak and won the series opener against the Oakland Athletics 6-1 in Oakland.

Soler crushed a 2-0 changeup from Athletics left-hander Jesús Luzardo 425 feet to left-center field with an exit velocity of 108.4 mph.

“The thing that I like about that swing — and I hope Jorge watches it 1,000 times — he didn’t try to do too much,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “It wasn’t an over-aggressive swing. It was just trusting his hands, trusting his swing path and trusting his strength.”

Soler, a free agent at the end of this season, has struggled to find consistency at the plate this season. He entered Friday night’s game against the A’s with a slash line of .179/.271/.337 to go with six home runs and 27 RBIs in 57 games.

He hit two home runs in his previous four games leading into the weekend, but the more encouraging sign may be that he struck out just three times in that four game-span.

This season, he has 66 strikeouts in 57 games and 17 multi-strikeout games. He hasn’t had a multi-strikeout game since May 27.

He has made putting the ball in play a major focus of his recent pregame work. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Soler summed up his struggles at the plate this season as “too inconsistent on contact, a lot of time between good contact.”

Part of the way he has tried to counteract his tendency to swing-and-miss early in the season has been through a lot of pregame work hitting off of the pitching machine and trying to fine-tune his swing in the batting cage.

Pregame work both in the cage and with the pitching machine had been a critical part of building and maintaining consistency during his career-year in 2019 when he set a franchise record with 48 home runs, drove in 117 runs and slashed .265/.354/.569.

As Matheny pointed out, the swing that resulted in a home run on Thursday night was a much more under-control version of his typical uncoiling.

“I’m still trying to be aggressive,” Soler said with assistant strength and conditioning coach/Latin American coordinator Luis Perez translating. “But when I’m on and I feel like everything is where I want it, I can swing hard and still control it. Right now since there hasn’t been that much contact and I’m struggling with it, I’m just trying to shorten up and get the bat to the ball more smoothly.”

Soler’s homer on Thursday night made him one of 16 Cuban-born players with 100 career home runs in the majors. He also reached 300 RBIs for his career, one of 26 Cuban-born players to reach that milestone.

He expressed pride in being one of a small group of Cuban players to reach those marks. When Soler set the franchise record for home runs in 2019, he also surpassed Rafael Palmeiro’s single-season record for homers by a Cuban-born player. Palmeiro hit 47 twice.

Soler, who made his MLB debut in 2014 with the Chicago Cubs, hit five home runs in his first 20 major-league games including a homer in his first at-bat.

His power potential has always been evident, but injuries kept him from having a breakout season until 2019.

“In my first at-bat when I hit one, I thought it would be easy,“ Soler said with a grin and a laugh. “Now, it’s definitely a lot harder than that. Just keep at it.”