Trust the Process…Until You Don’t
I was standing in the clubhouse Thursday night talking with Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino after a third straight early-season loss where the offense felt stuck in quicksand. It was a reminder of how quickly this game can humble you when a guy who hit 32 home runs and drove in 113 runs a year ago can look up a few weeks into a new season still searching for his first home run.
The Royals haven’t even played ten percent of the season yet. Sixteen games can feel long in the moment, but it’s barely the equivalent of a couple of weeks in the NFL.
He didn’t dance around it.
“Starts with me,” he said. “You can’t have your three-hole hitter hitting the way I am right now.”
No deflection. No hiding behind “we.” Just took it.
Vinnie Pasquantino facing the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium
He talked about the process, about having good at-bats and hitting balls hard, and then said what every player knows, even if it’s hard to believe when the results don’t match it.
“The process is there. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to get the job done.”
That’s the part that isn’t easy.
Because trusting the process sounds right until the results don’t show up, and now you’re trying to figure out whether to stay with it or start changing things, knowing that both options come with risk.
He kept going, breaking down at-bats, talking through what he’s seeing, and then said it.
“If I hit that ball 70 mph and it’s a hit, I’m happier.”
That’s the whole thing. We can talk about process all we want, but results still drive how it feels, how it looks, and how everyone reacts.
The struggles for “Pasquatch” didn’t end that night. They carried through the weekend, and by Sunday he was still looking for his first home run, but when he lifted a sacrifice fly on Saturday and pumped his fist as a run scored, it was a reminder that sometimes the game gives you something small before it gives you something big.
“You’re always one swing away,” he said with a smile. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s the only way to keep going.
Or as Captain Salvador Perez, who is also off to a slow start, told me, “Tomorrow is a new day.”
It only works if you believe it, because the hardest part isn’t struggling, it’s deciding what to do about it.
Do you stay with what you’re doing and trust that it will turn, or do you start changing things and risk going in the wrong direction?
Baseball will force you to answer that whether you’re ready or not.
That’s Small Ball.
Question: Where in your world are you trying to decide whether to stay with it or change it?