Mired in a 4-for-36 slump, Northwestern junior first baseman Mark Ori needed a boost. His batting average was .278, down from .354 only two weeks before, and his team was trailing 3-2 in the first of a four-game series at Minnesota.
Not a bad time to hit his first home run in 459 career at-bats.
“It wasn’t your traditional home run,” NU coach Paul Stevens said of Ori’s three-run blast. “It was a seed shot out of a cannon and it just left the yard in a heartbeat. It probably never got more than 11 feet off the ground the entire way.”
Ori’s game barely got off the ground in the two weeks leading up to the Minnesota series. After a single in his first at-bat against Penn State, Ori went 0 for his next 24 at-bats and struck out 10 times during his 36-at-bat slump.
Stevens said Ori was pressing. Ori said his timing was a little off — not to mention his confidence.
Now, thanks in part a little videotape study — and the home run — Ori said he is on his way out of the slump and back to his old productive self.
“I just felt more confidence at the plate (this weekend),” said Ori, who went 6-for-16 against Minnesota, with three runs, four RBIs and his first-ever free trip around the bases.
Despite Ori’s 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame, Stevens said his first baseman’s lack of home runs was not a surprise.
“He’s a Mark Grace, contact, gap-to-gap-type hitter,” Stevens said. “He’s not one of those guys that comes out of his shoes swinging for the fences. He has a very flat stroke and it’s a very conducive swing to hitting line drives, ground balls.
“If he would sit there and try to create lift in his swing, I think he could. But then he’s not going to be the productive (batting) average hitter that he has been.”
Ori entered the season as a .335 hitter, and in his 21 starts before the Penn State series, he was second on the team in on-base percentage and third in RBIs with 14.
Hitting second or third in the order, he often was counted on as the table-setter for the heart of NU’s order.
“It’s always nice hitting when there are runners on base,” said junior catcher Pat McMahon, NU’s cleanup hitter.
Even as Ori’s plate production dwindled, the junior kept up his defensive prowess — getting to ground balls and saving several errant throws from becoming errors.
“He’s a pretty tough character when it comes to the mental side of the game,” Stevens said. “He puts things into compartments very, very well — that this is offense and this is defense.”
Ori’s offense will be needed as the second half of the Big Ten season continues this weekend with a home series against Iowa. And Stevens said Ori is reverting to his pre-slump form.
“He’s definitely, right now, hitting the ball square,” Stevens said. “And that’s all you can ask. If you’re hitting the ball square, you’re going to find holes and real estate to land on.”
Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected].
UW-Milwaukee (17-18)
vs. NU (17-17)
3 p.m., today
Rocky Miller Park
