theathleticuk
CLEVELAND When a Guardians hitter notches a single, he stands on first base, peers toward the dugout and flashes either two thumbs up or two thumbs down, depending on how hard he struck the baseball.
Steven Kwan owns the leagues lowest hard-hit rate.
When he reaches first base, hes almost always displaying two thumbs down, so much so that it had him questioning the celebration choice earlier this year.
Advertisement The Guardians, though, have seen a lot more thumbs down from Kwan lately, and that, ironically, is a good thing.
Thumbs up or thumbs down, they just want to see him on first base.
The last few weeks, they have seen him there, as Kwan has resembled his old self, the pest with a penchant for perfectly placed low liners and bloops.
So, is he officially back? Has the two-time All-Star fully emerged from his season-long funk? Kwan says hes cautiously optimistic, but hes not ready to declare anything.
People are really nice, he said, and they want to tell you, Youre back.
..
Its like, Thanks, but its only been a couple weeks.' Hes an admitted self-deprecator.
When he burst into the big leagues in 2022 with 10 hits and seven walks in his first five games and when he flirted with a .400 batting average for a few days in July 2024, he downplayed each surge and suggested the Law of Averages would ultimately chase him down.
Hes leaning on the same approach this month, refusing to completely exhale, even though he boasts a .400/.510/.556 slash line in 16 games in July, with 10 walks and only three strikeouts.
Over the last month, he has reached base in 22 of 24 games.
Some of the singles are getting through, so thats been really nice, he said.
But probably also a little luck involved.
The slump that wouldnt cease, Kwan said, challenged him mentally more than any other stretch in his career.
He could excuse second-half struggles last year by pointing to lingering soreness in his right wrist and the destructive habits he developed with his swing mechanics because of it.
He got off to a strong enough start last year he was an All-Star that even after a frigid finish, statistically speaking, he had a cozy landing pad.
This year, hes healthy.
He just didnt hit for three months.
Exit velocities, bat speeds and hard-hit rates that already ranked at or near the bottom of the MLB leaderboard plunged even further south.
He would notch a hit or make an impressive catch in the outfield and try to manifest the start of a turnaround, but it never materialized.
It wore on him.
Advertisement Showing up to do your job and you do it poorly every single day, that gets really tiring, he said.
You can have the right attitude, but at the end of the day, you just want to do something for the boys, help the team, be able to look in the mirror when you go home (and) be like, OK, I didnt suck today.
That, over and over, gets really tiring.
Its definitely hard, but thankfully, kind of staying neutral the whole time, even on the highs, I think that helped me not completely crash out and go down the rabbit hole of negative thoughts and bad things that could happen.
Manager Stephen Vogt yanked him out of the leadoff spot.
Kwan batted sixth, then seventh and then settled into the No.
9 spot.
He and I have had some really hard conversations this year, Vogt said.
AVG | OBP | SLG | | |---|---|---|---| April | .221 | .310 | .292 | May | .188 | .353 | .213 | June | .224 | .289 | .250 | July | .400 | .510 | .556 | About three weeks ago, Kwan, ready for a system reboot, met with Clevelands hitting coaches.
The group decided he should return to his approach from 2022, when he was a rookie trying to survive in the big leagues by slapping singles all over the outfield grass.
Kwan had become too passive at the plate.
Pitchers capitalized on the knowledge that he rarely offered at the first pitch.
Then, theyd attack the outside part of the zone.
Kwan hoped theyd eventually throw him something on the inside part of the plate that he could handle, but they never needed to.
Now, they might.
He turned on an inside slider Tuesday night and smacked it to the warning track in right-center for a double.
He hopes to earn more pitches on that part of the plate, where hes inflicted damage throughout his career.
When I start pulling some of the balls at a low angle and hard, Kwan said, I think thats when Ill start feeling, as the hitting guys say, a little sexy.
To earn them, he has to keep doing what hes done all month: sock those outside pitches the other way for a single.
He hasnt been greedy.
Hes fine with singles and walks for now.
Advertisement We were all just kind of like, Hey, if were going to live or die on a hill, lets just die on the hill of what got us here in the first place,' Kwan said.
If the exit velocities drop down to 70 mph but were getting singles, lets just take it.' It helps that hes carrying the eighth-best walk rate in the American League.
Despite three months of lackluster hitting, his on-base percentage sits at .347, second-highest on the team behind Chase DeLauter, and higher than his marks from 2023 and 2025.
For right now, where I am, he said, I had to devolve back to, OK, lets just keep the angles down low, walk, see pitches, and just go from there.
Kwans rebound has landed him back in the leadoff spot in recent days.
He opened the bottom of the first with a nine-pitch at-bat Monday.
He followed that up with a 10-pitch leadoff effort Tuesday.
For now its working, Kwan said.
But the league adjusts, so who knows whats going to happen? Even if he wont admit hes fully back, all of Kwans thumbs-down signals get a thumbs up from his manager.
Kwans back, Vogt said.
He needs to stay right where he is.