Evan Grant with a feature on Hank Blalock...
In a nutshell...Blalock, Buck and Rudy think Blalock needs to hit better, and can hit better.
In particular, Grant talks about Rudy Jaramillo instructing Blalock not to do a lot of hitting this offseason, because he wanted to spend the spring working with him on his timing:
Blalock was often thrown off by off-speed stuff last year, much as he was as a rookie in 2002. He came back the next spring, made adjustments to get in better position to hit the change-up and batted .300.
The problems with the off-speed pitches last year were pretty obvious to anyone watching him much...and yet, those were pitches he was handling the previous couple of years.
This is a big season for Blalock...he really needs to bounce back to where he was in 2003-2004...