How Twitter helped Seth Beer break out of his hitting slump

Seth Beer knew something was wrong with his swing. The Clemson outfielder just couldn’t figure out what the problem was.

The All-American and arguably the best hitter in college baseball was hitting a disappointing .232 through the first 24 games of the season, with six home runs and 12 RBIs.

Beer watched video of his swing and tried to break down why he wasn’t producing at his normal clip, but he wasn’t having much luck finding a solution.

That changed when he was scrolling through Twitter last Monday and came across a video breaking down Ken Griffey Jr.’s swing.

“It had this step-by-step of him going in slow motion,” Beer recalled. “I said, ‘Man, he can really get his hands back there.’ I said, ‘I wonder if I’m doing that.’ I’ve been watching video and stuff but it’s always from the front view, so you can never see from that angle. So sure enough, I go back and look at some pictures, and I’m like, ‘I wasn’t doing that.’ ”

Beer compared recent pictures from this season with pictures from his first two years at Clemson and found that he was bringing his hands back about three inches further in his swing in his first two years playing for the Tigers.

He hit .369 with 18 homers and 70 RBIs as a freshman in 2016 and .298 with 16 homers and 53 RBIs as a sophomore in 2017.

“I don’t know what happened, when it happened, but I wasn’t getting that separation I needed to get through the ball,” Beer said. “I knew it was something small, and that’s what’s so frustrating about baseball. It’s always just something small. And for me, it was 3 inches. Three inches of my right arm extending back … That gives me that little bit of separation that I need to be able to put a good swing on a ball.”

Beer took batting practice before last Tuesday’s game against Furman and told Tigers coach Monte Lee and assistant coach Greg Starbuck that he thought he had figured out his swing and that a light bulb had gone off.

“Obviously you don’t want to put that kind of pressure on yourself, but I was so excited,” Beer said. “Coach Buck goes, ‘Well, just go out there and have fun. Play relaxed.’ I said, ‘No, coach, I really think this is it.’ ”

Beer went 3-for-3 against the Paladins with a grand slam and five RBIs.

He has homered in each of his four games since his Twitter discovery and is 8-for-13 (.615) with four home runs and 12 RBIs during that stretch.

Beer had 12 RBIs through the first 24 games of the season before producing 12 RBIs in the past four games.

“As a hitter, it’s a constant evolution of trying to work on different things, different drills, different timing mechanisms until you can find what works for you,” Lee said. “Once you find it, you’ve got it. And the key after that is just keeping it. So it’s just always a work in progress, but I think Seth started to feel confident, started to feel comfortable, and once he’s comfortable and confident, he’s dangerous.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2018 at 12:25 PM with the headline "How Twitter helped Seth Beer break out of his hitting slump."