Nick Madrigal is one of the top two-strike hitters in the majors. ‘It almost feels more comfortable to be in that situation,’ the Chicago White Sox second baseman says.

LaMond Pope, Chicago Tribune
·5 min read
Nick Madrigal is one of the top two-strike hitters in the majors. ‘It almost feels more comfortable to be in that situation,’ the Chicago White Sox second baseman says.
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Chicago White Sox second baseman Nick Madrigal was looking to hit early in the count during an April 24 ninth-inning at-bat against Texas Rangers reliever John King.

“But he made some tough pitches that I didn’t feel comfortable with,” Madrigal recalled during a phone interview Saturday.

The Sox had runners on first and second with two outs. The game was tied at 1. Madrigal fell behind 0-2. He wasn’t overthinking the moment.

“Once I got to two strikes, I wasn’t worried about striking out or the situation, I was locked in on just the pitch that I thought was coming and really just trying to put it in play and try to make something happen,” Madrigal said. “Fortunate enough, it ended up working out.”

Madrigal hit a double to right, giving the Sox a 2-1 victory.

It was another example of Madrigal coming through with two strikes.

Madrigal entered Saturday’s game against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium with a .301 average. He was second in the majors with a .316 average (12-for-38) with two strikes and 5-for-14 (.357) after an 0-2 count this season.

He singled to center on an 0-2 pitch in his first at-bat Saturday off Royals starter Daniel Lynch and later scored on Yoán Moncada’s two-run double, then singled to right on a 1-2 pitch against Tyler Zuber during the Sox’s eight-run first inning.

“Nick’s got a really good stroke, that he can make adjustments to where the balls in, up or down or breaking balls,” Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “But it’s an approach where he let’s the ball travel and gives it a little longer time to read it. And it gets shorter to the ball because you can’t put it in play otherwise.”

Some players choke up on the bat with two strikes. Sox teammate Yermín Mercedes, who entered Saturday tied for ninth in the majors with a .288 average with two strikes, cuts down on his stride.

Madrigal said he doesn’t do anything too differently with two strikes.

“The most important thing when I get to two strikes, I’ve seen a couple of pitches already, I can see the pitcher’s arm slot, what the pitches look like out of the hand,” Madrigal said. “So I have a good idea about the timing, the shape of the pitches when I’m in the box and when I get to two strikes.

“That’s one thing that really makes me feel comfortable is seeing the different shapes out of the hand so when I get to two strikes, I’m not really caught off guard about any pitches I haven’t seen yet.”

Madrigal enjoys the chess game in the box.

“You have to understand what a pitcher’s strengths are, what he’s able to land,” he said. “It’s like a chess game. You have to play along, have an idea what he’s going to do. And that’s one thing that helps me a lot, I’m always thinking about what the catcher’s going to call, what the pitcher’s feeling, and then throughout the game it could change.

“But I watch the game really closely throughout the game, whether I’m at-bat or coming up, I watch other people’s at-bats to see what the pitcher’s doing.”

Madrigal has the ability to adapt, as was the case Wednesday against the Cincinnati Reds. After flying out to right in the third inning against Sonny Gray, he came back the next time up and collected a two-strike single to right.

“Sonny was pitching us pretty tough that day, we weren’t able to get a whole lot going against him,” Madrigal said. “He was tough because he was mixing up pitches from inning to inning. It seemed like he didn’t pitch one way the entire game. It kind of kept us off-balanced. I was watching the game really closely and I saw the inning before when I was going to come up how he was pitching different guys. Usually sometimes pitchers fall into some patterns, even if they’re switching it up throughout a game, there is a pattern at some point.

“I was watching real closely, he threw me a lot offspeed early on in my first at-bat. Once I was watching the game, it looked like he was going to throw me a little bit more fastballs, so I kind of had that in mind. Sure enough, with two strikes, a fastball up and I just put it in play and I was able to get on base.”

For his career, Madrigal is 30-for-94 (.319) with five doubles and 12 RBIs with two strikes, the highest average in baseball since 2020. Madrigal, the No. 4 pick in the 2018 draft, said his two-strike mentality is something he picked up over the years.

“It’s 100% a mentality,” Madrigal said. “I personally believe that hitting is so much mental. Your mental game, if you’re thinking way too much in the box, it’s really hard to hit. Hitting is already hard itself, but if you’ve got a lot going on up top, it’s going to make it even harder.

“Especially with two strikes, I think a lot of people, especially the pitching, it’s tough to put away major-league hitters. I’ve gotten comfortable with two strikes. Strikeouts are part of the game, it’s going to happen sometimes, they’re going to make a great pitch.

“When I get to two strikes, I’m not overthinking it. I’ve been in that situation so many times, it almost feels more comfortable to be in that situation at certain times.”