Hitting bombs & having fun

The start of his assault on college baseball dates back to the first day of classes last fall, when KU first baseman Brady Ballinger and a handful of his teammates would receive daily texts from hitting coach Tyler Hancock.

“Hey, come out to the field early today,” the text would read. “Every time, we’re gonna try to hit it over the batter’s eye.”

In a dugout interview with R1S1 Sports on Wednesday afternoon, KU head coach Dan Fitzgerald remembered it slightly differently.

Instead of having his power hitters just try to hit it over the tall extension above the centerfield fence at Hoglund Ballpark, the KU bombers had a different goal.

“Literally, their offseason hitting plan was to hit everything off the top of McCarthy,” Fitzgerald said of the KU dorm that sits beyond center field.

“Clear it,” he added.

“I think we’re doing a pretty good job of that,” Ballinger told R1S1 Sports with a smile.

Few are doing it quite as well as the sophomore first baseman from Las Vegas, who is in his first season with the Jayhawks after spending a year at the College of Southern Nevada.

Through 34 games, Ballinger leads the Jayhawks in batting average (.411), slugging percentage (.791), hits (53), doubles (11), walks (40) and runs (48) while ranking second in home runs (12) and RBIs (39).

Last week alone, on his way to earning Big 12 Player of the Week honors, Ballinger hit .444 with two doubles, three home runs, six RBIs and eight runs scored while recording his second multi-homer game of the season in a win at UCF.

Perhaps even more impressive than any of those numbers was the fact that he entered the week 1st in the nation in advanced metrics Offensive Runs Above Replacement (42.88) and Offensive Wins Above Replacement (3.21) and second nationally in overall WAR (3.56).

If that’s not enough, Ballinger on Wednesday was named the Big 12 Midseason Player of the Year by Baseball America.

So, has any of this actually hit him yet?

“No. And I don’t want it to,” he told R1S1 Sports. “I want to keep going with what I’m doing and just enjoy the game. I’m having the time of my life out here. I love Lawrence and it’s a great place to play baseball.”

Ballinger, who earlier this season was in the middle of the Jayhawks' NCAA-record five consecutive home runs in a 29-1 win over Minnesota, believed that would be the case the minute he received an offer from Kansas. But after joining the Jayhawks, his first meetings with Hancock about hitting were met with some skepticism.

After spending his entire life playing the West Coast brand of baseball, where bunting, slapping the ball around and playing for doubles rules the day, Ballinger suddenly was asked to view the game in a completely different manner.

The message: “You’re a big guy, you can hit the ball very far, let’s work on that.”

“It just took me a second to understand it,” acknowledged Ballinger, who stands 6-foot-2, 220 pounds. “But once I fully bought in, it started working and now we’re here. The game’s changing and you have to be willing to change as a player. I know it sounds silly, but, for a second, it was definitely a little against how I grew up playing. But I’m so glad I came here and this is the approach I’m taking. I love it. I love every part of it.”

How could he not?

While he’s hitting in a familiar spot in the lineup — he’s basically hit second for the past six or seven years — the results of his approach at the plate have produced some new numbers.

Last season, at the small school in Nevada, he hit 6 home runs all season. He’s already doubled that number. And his career-high for home runs in high school was 9, which came during his senior season.

All of it is the product of him believing what Hancock told him about his potential during their earliest days together.

Hancock said unlocking the new version of Ballinger was simply a matter of getting him to understand that there was actual data behind the way the Jayhawks are taught to approach hitting. It was not merely a matter of opinion or preference.

“It’s just building trust,” Hancock said. “There’s a lot of conversations that go into it and then showing him, hey here’s what you’re really good at, here’s why you’re really good at it and here’s how you have success. Being able to measure things and show him the numbers that support what we were telling him was big. If he was skeptical about it, he definitely didn’t let it show. I feel like he’s been bought-in since Day 1.”

So much of the approach that KU uses that has worked for Ballinger is about battling for control of the 17 inches of home plate.

Fitzgerald calls that the “freebie war,” and notes that when plate discipline is high it often leads to better pitches to hit and a more explosive offense.

The Jayhawks (27-7 overall and 9-3 and in first place in Big 12 play) have hitting sessions where they are instructed to not swing at a single pitch outside of the strike zone. Even if they like it or typically have success with a ball in a certain area.

Fitzgerald called that “staple 101 of our program,” and added, “That really is where it’s won and lost. And our guys do as good a job as anyone of focusing on that. And then when you do that, you get more pitches to hit and drive.”

KU currently leads the Big 12 in both home runs (74, which ranks tied for 4th nationally) and walks drawn (235, which is tied for 3rd in college baseball), and Ballinger is a big part of both of those numbers.

But he’d be the last one to take any credit for it.

For him, the joy of this season has come from being a part of something special and on a team that is as close as they come and having fun.

“I’m guessing he’s an extremely good golfer,” Fitzgerald said. “But he would never go play a round by himself because, for him, it’s the experience of being with the guys.”

Hancock said Ballinger, like many of his teammates, is a fantastic worker who truly loves the process of what it takes to have success.

Fitzgerald calls him an “energy train” and “as far on the extrovert side of the scale as you can be.” He said he Ballinger is one of the most likable guys he’s been around whose gratitude measures off the charts.

That, the KU coach said, comes from Ballinger’s parents, Patrick and Sharla, who, like their son, have enjoyed and appreciated every step of the season so far.

“If they’ve thanked us once, they’ve thanked us a thousand times,” Fitzgerald said of Ballinger’s parents.

There’s still too much baseball left to play this season (22 regular season games and whatever postseason baseball comes their way) for anyone to get complacent now. And this team is not one that is made up of guys who think like that.

Instead, they focus on three things — having fun, hitting the ball hard and playing the game even harder.

Ballinger knows his numbers are good, but he says he tries not to look at them or seek them out. “Win the next pitch,” is how he greets each day.

And in those rare instances when he might catch a glimpse of something complimentary about him, his game or his numbers, he has a nice backstop in place that keeps his head in check.

“I have a lot of friends back home who are very good at keeping me grounded; let’s just say that,” Ballinger said with a laugh. “And I very much appreciate them for that.”

Asked for a sampling of the craziest things his friends have told him or text him to keep him humble after a particularly good day, big win or new honor, Ballinger smiled and said, “I’d rather not say.”

“He’s not about that,” Fitzgerald added. “He just loves this team, loves being a Jayhawk and loves being around the guys, and it’s working pretty well for him.”

Ballinger and the Jayhawks, who are ranked between 19th and 24th in five major college baseball polls, are headed to Fort Worth, Texas, this weekend for a three-game series with TCU.

First pitch Friday is slated 6 p.m. from Lupton Stadium, with Saturday’s game set for a 2 p.m. start and a 1 p.m. battle on Sunday.

All three games will be televised on ESPN+.

— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com