Joey Ortiz's Passivity Remains an Issue, and Pat Murphy Has Taken Action

From a results standpoint, things have been trending in the right direction for Joey Ortiz. After limping to a .185/.254/.250 line (45 wRC+) with just two home runs through June 14, the Brewers shortstop has since hit .290/.323/.500 (130 wRC+) with four homers in his last 65 plate appearances.

Despite that substantial uptick in production, Ortiz has found himself in the crosshairs of his manager’s ire. Pat Murphy pinch hit for Ortiz in his final at-bat on Saturday in Miami against the Marlins. He hasn’t played since, remaining on the bench due to Murphy’s displeasure with his recent swing decisions.

“Yeah, the manager’s pissed,” Murphy said when asked on Monday afternoon about Andruw Monasterio starting in Ortiz’s place at shortstop for a second straight night. “I want him to give me his best approach at the plate. And, you know, we’ve given him a lot. We play him every day, and we need him, and he can’t just have lapses at the plate like that.”

Passivity in the batter’s box has been a long-running issue for Ortiz. Last season, his 53.5% swing rate against in-zone pitches was the lowest among qualified hitters, rendering him a net negative hitter on hittable pitches over the heart of the plate despite a decent overall line. Ortiz has upped his in-zone swing rate to 59% this year, but that remains well below the league average. He fell back into the worst version of himself on Milwaukee’s last road trip, swinging at just 52.3% of in-zone pitches while chasing 37.5% of pitches outside the zone.

“The swing decisions have been the worst [they’ve] been,” Murphy said. “And he’s swinging the bat way better, but [it’s] his swing decisions now. So all that mental stuff, he’ll sit and think about it.”

Ortiz had a rough at-bat in New York in the first game of that road trip, rolling over a first-pitch sinker for an inning-ending double play after three straight walks to load the bases, but his last two at-bats in Miami were apparently the final straw before Murphy imposed a reset. First was a sequence against Cal Quantrill in which he watched three fastballs right down the middle and chased a fastball at his eyes.

His next at-bat was a similar story, as Ortiz watched two fastballs and a hanging sweeper for strikes and offered only at another sweeper well off the plate.

Perhaps Murphy was trying to motivate his shortstop to respond by publicly calling out his at-bats, or maybe it truly was a moment of authentic exasperation signaling that Ortiz’s leash is thinning. Either way, it’s clear that he still views Ortiz’s extreme passivity as a problem.

“I want to see conviction when he gets back in there,” Murphy said. “Like, ‘I’m not letting this happen. I have a responsibility. I don’t have to get results, but I have to be convicted, I have to be ready, I have to be clear-headed, and I have to be able to fire.”