MICHAEL BOURN: TIPS FOR HITTING THE TRIPLE

Category: Top Stories

The Astros' All-Star Shares His Secrets for Hitting the Three-Bagger.

Last August, in the third inning of an otherwise slow-moving game at Milwaukee's Miller Park, Astros outfielder Michael Bourn did what he so often does on the baseball field. He created excitement.
   Bourn laced a high fastball into the gap in right-center, driving in a run and charging into third base for a triple. By the end of the season, he had 12 of them, one behind the National League triples leader Shane Victorino of the Philadelphia Phillies. But Bourn is no less explosive. He led the league with 61 steals and led the Astros with 97 runs scored.
    "We need to get Michael on base," says Astros hitting coach Sean Berry. "When he gets on base, we can go. He puts a lot of pressure on the defense and the pitcher, and he has those big guys behind him to drive him in. If Michael puts the ball in play, he won't get a hit every time. But the odds are pretty good that something exciting will happen."
    There is an important lesson to be learned from Bourn's break-out season in 2009, when he took home his first Gold Glove Award and the Astros' Most Valuable Player honor. Everything he accomplished is rooted in the challenges he faced during the most difficult year he’s ever had on the field.
   "Everything won't always be peaches and cream," Bourn recently told Junior Baseball. "Sometimes you have to go through struggles to get better, and that's what happened to me. Even [former Astros first baseman Lance] Berkman says sometimes he has years when he just has to fight. That's just part of being a baseball player. Sometimes you just have to get down there and grind."
   Bourn's grind-it-out season was 2008, when the Houston native returned home in the Brad Lidge trade with the Phillies. He admits he was nervous and excited and it showed. He hit just .215 in the first half of the season. He says he fell into the bad habit of thinking he had to get two or three hits every day to get his batting average up to where he thought it should be.
   "I had struggled before, but [2008] was the first time I'd struggled for an entire season," he remembers. "No matter what, you just have to fight through it to get back to where you belong. That's what makes baseball different. Hall-of-Famers are .300 hitters. You're the best at what you do when you fail seven times out of 10."
    The mental toughness Bourn gained from his experience still pays dividends today. He says he never thinks about tomorrow or allows a bad performance to carry over into the next game. Now that he has his mental approach down pat, the Astros are excited to see Bourn's natural talent blossom. No doubt he'll be sliding into third for more triples.
   "It's easy to see he has a lot of ability," says Astros manager Brad Mills. "I look back at last year with the Gold Glove and him starting to come around offensively, and I think there's no reason he won't be able to build on that this year and keep developing into the fine Major League player he can be."

 

For Bourn's critical advice on how he hits a triple, be sure to pick up the July/August issue of Junior Baseball. Click here to order today.

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