1 week Ago By gqlshare
Christian Arroyo ripped a line drive off Rochester relief pitcher Carlos Romero up the middle in the top of the ninth inning of last Friday’s game. It was destined for center field, but Red Wings second baseman Trey Lipscomb was positioned perfectly to snare the liner and ended Arroyo’s 0-for-5 day. It completed a 4-for-20 start to Arroyo’s first season with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Triple-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Arroyo, who has been with six organizations and spent parts of seven seasons in the major leagues, was frustrated. The soon-to-be 30-year-old had been down this path before. His reactions to recent slumps of various sizes often was not good.
“The last two years, I was watching a lot of video trying to recreate a swing I had in 2021,” he said. “That was like chasing a ghost. I was like, ‘Why can’t I do what I did in ’21.
I stopped believing in myself. “That was a rabbit hole I didn’t want to go down again.” Arroyo went back to the team hotel last Friday and left the 0-for-5 collar at the ballpark.
He showed up the next day to Rochester’s Innovative Field on another cold April day believing in his training and swing. The Florida native had three hits and three RBIs in each of the next two games. His swing was there.
His mental approach was there, too. Arroyo overcame an obstacle that tripped him up so many times before in recent years. His work with personal coach Jered Goodwin was paying off again.
“It’s one game,” Arroyo said. “The sad thing is [the slumps are] going to happen even more. The beauty of it is that I am relinquishing of all the ego that you have to have in this game.
Relinquish is my word I use a lot. Once I got to that point in my career, to realize we’re all still humans, I battle it. “Once I realized that I can hit in 110 mph in 40-degree weather and not try to do it, that set the precedent for me.
” Arroyo is hoping that his revamped mental approach, combined with his obvious physical tools, puts him in a position to help the Phillies at some point this season. But that is not his focus. He is locked into each day as it comes.
That was another lesson he learned the hard way when he was the Red Sox starting second baseman in 2023. “I was not excited to go to the field,” Arroyo recalled. “I had the opportunity to play every day for the Red Sox, but I wasn’t able to stay in the moment and enjoy being the starting second baseman.
I had wanted that for so long. “Now I was like, ‘I need to be an all-star. Then when get there, I need to be MVP and then make this amount of money.
’ I fell into the same mental trap, started thinking about the same stuff. It got exhausting.” It also was stressful for his friends and family, including pregnant wife Jessica, to be around Arroyo who carried his emotional baseball burdens everywhere.
Arroyo has faced many obstacles since being the Giants’ first-round draft pick in 2013 out Hernando High School in Brooksville, Florida. After a stellar start to his professional career that summer in rookie ball, he was having a solid 2014 season with low-A Salem-Keizer in the Northwest League before the first of a laundry list of injuries ended his season. It was during his time back home that year when he became reacquainted with his future wife.
The pair’s families were friends who spent July 4 holidays at Redington Beach, Florida. She broke up with her boyfriend in 2014, when she and Arroyo reconnected, began dating and have been together ever since. They now have an 18-month-old daughter, Ellie Mae, and live in Florida.
“It was a shame that I was not able to enjoy her pregnancy, which sucks,” Arroyo said of 2023. “In the last year, I would get angry and not enjoy my daughter. “I was mad at myself, but I cared so much that I wanted to do well here.
But, again, I had to relinquish.” Arroyo had many more opportunities since his first injury in 2014 to relinquish that urge to stress over every obstacle during his professional baseball journey. The 6-foot, 220-pounder has had slumps, like every other player.
There also have been an inordinate number of injuries. He has played more than 90 games in a season only once (2016) in his career. Arroyo also has changed addresses several times — like many other players.
He was part of the Giants’ package sent to the Rays in 2017 for Evan Longoria. Less than two years later, the Rays traded him to the Indians. A year after that, the Red Sox claimed him off waivers.
He played 210 games in three seasons in Boston, where his stress level reached new heights. He admittedly did not handle it as well as he should have. “I was a little pissed off, frustrated and showed my frustration,” he said.
“I was being a little bit of a jackass, just being young, immature, not understanding that this isn’t end of the world. I had to learn how to get out of that mindset. “It’s a mindset that deeply rooted in you.
You have to kind of flip the switch.” More business-type curveballs came Arroyo’s way. He experienced free agency a couple times the last two offseasons.
He signed with the Brewers for 2024. That year was cut short by wrist surgery before suffering through a long winter ahead of 2025 spring training. Arroyo’s agent said the Royals were interested in early December, that it should be a matter of a few days before he was offered a contract.
Come Christmas, Arroyo was still unemployed, and team offices were closed for the holidays. It was hard not to panic as someone going into their age-30 season. “It’s three days before report day and most of my buddies are already in camp and posting pictures of BP on the field,” Arroyo said.
“And I’m here working out with no offers, no calls. I’m in a panic, a frenzy. I can’t go to Asia because the teams are set.
I’m thinking that I’m having to go to Mexico, and I never had seen myself having to do that. “My injury history doesn’t help, but I kept telling myself that a lot of that stuff was uncontrollable. I got hit in the hand once.
I got hit in the head once. Crazy stuff happens. But I went into the offseason thinking I’d be signed by Christmas.
” The Phillies called to set up a tryout at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, on a Wednesday, two days before spring training. Arroyo and Oscar Mercado were among those there. Both players were in camp a few days later and are IronPigs teammates.
“I went into camp bright-eyed and ready to work,” Arroyo said. “I was like a kid again. To be able to start the season here [in the Lehigh Valley], it’s a blessing.
That was as uncomfortable get, relish in those times, how to make best out of any crappy situation. That’s not just baseball, but in life situations, too.” Arroyo came to camp this spring better prepared mentally because he had an offseason plan that was in his best interest — mentally and physically.
He and Goodwin worked side by side to find a way to make Arroyo the best version of himself as a 12-year-old veteran rather than chase results from previous best seasons. Together, they studied film with side by side comparisons of his swing now and in previous seasons. They talked through situations, both the controllable ones and the uncontrollable ones.
Arroyo also made the most of being in major league camp during spring training. He was teammates with Kyle Schwarber in Boston and relished time with other prominent players. Despite his major league service time, Arroyo checked his ego at the clubhouse door.
“I’ve been around seven, eight seasons in the big leagues,” he said, “but I’m young in a sense that on the mental side I still have a lot to learn. I’m starting to figure out that part of game. The physical portion of game is always going to change.
But what I can be the most consistent thing you can lock into is the mental side. You can be there every game. “I’ve just bought into my strengths.
I understand my approach, what makes me good. It’s not a hand adjustment or a leg adjustment.” Arroyo’s mental strength is being tested again.
He suffered a mild hamstring strain in Sunday’s series finale at Rochester. He is the 7-day injured list as Lehigh Valley hosts Syracuse this week. In years past, an injury would have set him off, set him back mentally.
Right now, he said he’s in a good place. “Once I was able to relinquish power of the uncontrollables,” he said, “whether it was roster decisions, positions in the lineups, all that stuff, it helped me relax, separate baseball from my family.” So far, the on-field results have reflected those mental adjustments.
“From what I’ve seen from him this spring and so far in the first couple of weeks,” IronPigs manager Anthony Contreras said, “he plays to his strengths. He’s able to spray the ball the other way with two strikes. He has the ability to hit home runs but understands what the circumstances dictate.
” Morning Call senior writer Tom Housenick can be reached at [email protected].
