A lot of players struggle middle out. Nick Markakis' heat map looks as about as cold on middle out (especially low and away) as does
Dansby's. What makes middle out work is bringing it inside so the batter can't just lean out over the plate for fear of being busted in
under the hands. So all pitchers have to come in some, and they must also throw strikes so unless they are perfect they almost always
leave things out over the plate. It's what happens on those pitches that makes or breaks a batter. When Dansby has struggled he's actually
been missing fastballs over the plate, usually before the low and away strike out pitch. With a player going good like Markakis...
he wont do well on that low and away pitch either, but what happens is he doesn't miss when the pitcher is over the plate. The key for
Dansby on middle out especially low is not swinging at it at all on two strike pitches and the best way to do that is to hit the ball
earlier in the count that it is in the hitting zone.
Good Dansby in 2016 hit almost .400 against four seam fastballs
Bad Dansby in 2017 hit only .227 against the FS fastball
When Dansby was great at the beginning of the season, he was murdering the fastball again. When he hurt his wrist and then as he was
coming back from the hurt wrist, he wasn't catching up to the fastball. In the past few days since he went back to using his regular
bat (indicating his wrist is finally feeling close to 100% as he was using the axe handle bat because it relieved wrist pressure), he
looks like he is catching up to fastballs again.
I think that is his key..