Haylee and I have gotten everything packed up and are heading back to Texas. Then I’ll be going to the Dominican for winter ball. It feels a little like getting to the end of the school year and you’re ready to take a break – and then you have to go to summer school. It’s not that I don’t want to go. I know it’s exactly what I need to do to get back on track.

But right now I’m just worn out. The last few weeks, I’ve been sore after games and then sore the next day – which kind of took energy away from the game that day.  My mind was always still in it, but my body just felt like it was dead.

This season, my first in the majors, was not at all what I expected. If I had written out a plan for this season, it would have been the total opposite of what actually happened. It was just a rollercoaster. I was doing well, doing poorly. I was up, I was down. I was healthy, I was hurt. I seemed to go through the entire spectrum.. But I look at it as a learning experience. I know a lot more about what I need to do to play at this level.

One of the things I’ve learned is that I have to be in condition to play whatever position they need from me. I conditioned last year to play first base, which meant trying to bulk up and get stronger. At first base, you’re expected to play with power. You don’t need as much speed and endurance. But if you’re not conditioned to play outfield, you’re not going to last the season. So I’ll be playing mostly outfield in the Dominican. And in December and January, when I’m home, I’ll be doing more running and conditioning than I’ve done in the past so I’m better prepared to play the outfield.

The main thing I’m going to work on in the Dominican, though, is my swing. Over this season, I’ve made adjustment after adjustment after adjustment so that it all kind of clustered together into one big complicated muddle. There’s so much going on during the season that you can’t really step back and press “reset.’’ You’re just hurtling forward. My mechanics have always been the same, and I lost them somewhere along the way. So I need to untangle the mess and get back to my original form because that’s where I’m at my best. The simplicity will take over and I won’t think about the mechanics as much and I can just go up there and hit.

When I head down to Dominican in a week or so, I’ll check out the living situation and then maybe Haylee will come down and join me. Even if she doesn’t spend the whole time down there with me, she’ll come for visits. Then I’ll be back in late November. I’ll have December and January without baseball. Just conditioning. Then spring training in February.

As tired as I am right now, I’m excited about starting next season. I’ll know a lot more about what it takes to be successful and hopefully avoid some of the mistakes I made this year.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments. They lifted my spirits during the tough stretches and reminded me that, even when my belief in myself wavered, you were rooting for me and kept believing. I can’t tell you how much that helped.

I’m not sure I’ll be blogging from the Dominican. I’ll try but if I don’t, I’ll be back in touch when I get to Scottsdale. I hope I’ll see you there.

-Brandon

One of the coolest things happened.

A baby giraffe was born last Friday at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, and they named it Brandon. I just found out yesterday, and I saw a photo of him online. He’s awesome. Sometime during this home stand, I’m going to go up there to see him. He’s already is 6 feet 2, almost as tall as I am. I’m told when he’s full grown just his neck alone will be seven feet long. He’ll be 18 feet tall! So I guess I better see him now when I can look him in the eyes.

It’s really amazing. That giraffe is probably going to live for a while, which means people will go there for years to come and see a little Brandon. Pretty cool.

I’m seeing more hats and stuffed animals in the stands. I love it. But sometimes I think I’m putting pressure on myself to live up to the whole thing. I want to play better than I’m doing now, though I know it’s all a learning process. Not everybody jumps in and does awesome right away. It’s an adjustment being up here. I have to learn how to separate other people’s expectations from my single-minded focus on each at-bat. I feel at times I’m carrying the expectations of everybody from Hudson, Texas, plus the fans here. Balancing the responsibilities, and blocking them out when you have to, is part of learning how to be a pro.

I’m not sure what’s going on with my strikeouts. Sometimes I think too much about my mechanics. You can’t do that when you’re in the box. You have to just react. I don’t think there’s a hole in my swing. Mostly it’s that I’m fouling off pitches I should be hitting, and then I get behind in the count. The other day the pitcher threw me five straight curve balls. I thought he was going to try to sneak a fastball by me. So when I saw the pitch, it looked like it was out of the strike zone. But it was a big curveball and dropped right into the strike zone. By then I had already decided to let it go. Strike three.

Baseball is a game of adjustments. You might feel great for one week and then you feel terrible. I don’t know why that is. You just keep tweaking till it all comes to together again.

We have an off day on Thursday, so Haylee and I are going to Napa. We’ve made plans to visit before but I’ve always been sent down right before we were set to go. We’ve been hooked up with some winery tours, even though I don’t really drink wine. Haylee’s more interested than I am, but I’m told how beautiful the landscape is and how great the food is, so I’m looking forward to it.

I’ll post a photo when I visit my namesake in Vallejo.

See you the park.

-Brandon

First I have to tell you how happy I am to be back in San Francisco. I really didn’t think I’d be here until September call-ups. So Haylee and I were just about to give up our lease on our San Francisco apartment when I found out we’d need it immediately.

One thing I’ve learned from both Triple A and the big club: This game yanks you up and down with such frequency and force that you basically live with a perennial case of mental whiplash. One day you’re on top of the world, and the next day you’re sitting in front of your locker with your head in your hands.

That’s where I was today, in front of my locker with my head in my hands.

But before we get to that, this has been my whiplash week so far.

On Monday, I struck out four times in five at-bats for Triple A Fresno. Why did I strike out four times? I couldn’t even begin to explain it to you. I felt fine. My mechanics felt great. I just kept fouling off balls, getting behind in the count then striking out.

After the game, I just wanted to get away from the field as soon as possible. I was angry at myself and wondering, “What just happened?’’

On Tuesday, I was unexpectedly called up to San Francisco, and I wanted to show that Monday’s game was a fluke and that I still had confidence at the plate. And

I hit a home run and a double, helping to beat the Dodgers.

On Wednesday, with the Dodgers up 1-0, I struck out with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

What’s gnawing at me today is that I let the first two pitches go. They didn’t look like strikes to me. One looked low and one looked outside. The umpire had a different idea of where the strike zone was. He called both strikes. I guess I’m still learning how to adjust to each umpire’s zone. I need to learn how to cover more of the plate so, when you’re fighting for your life in the bottom of the ninth, I can at least put the ball in play.

It’s a frustrating thing, and something that comes with the territory, I guess, in the big leagues. And when a major-league pitcher knows an umpire is calling an outside strike or a low strike, he has the ability to keep hitting that spot. You don’t see that as much in the minors. So I’ll talk to our hitting coach, Bam-Bam Meulens. I have to figure this out as soon as possible or I’ll be left behind.

On a happier note from today, I stretched what should probably have been an infield out into a double. My mindset is to be aggressive. Period. If I see the outfielders not running after the ball as fast as they should because they don’t think I’m going to go, the chances are I’m going to go. The outfielder didn’t look like he was running full speed to the ball, so I just took advantage of it.

I can’t explain baseball sometimes.

-Brandon

 

 

 

 

I don’t even know where to start. The past week has been unbelievable. I keep using that word over and over. It’s like I’m in a dream. I’ve watched baseball my entire life on television and finally I’m here seeing it in real life. It’s almost as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. I always imagined what it would be like to be up here and play in front of 50,000 but you can’t imagine it until you do it. It’s a lot louder. When you’re at the plate don’t notice people because you have your back to them. But you see them when you’re on the field. And when something happens and everybody starts screaming you realize, man, I’m here.

My wife, Haylee, has been with me since spring training and traveled to the games in Los Angeles and San Diego. My parents and younger brother flew in for the San Francisco home opener. It was the first time my dad has ever been on the plane. He’s afraid of heights – and he likes to be in control. When I was playing in Single A in San Jose last year, he and my mom drove from Texas to watch me. They drove to Arizona this year to visit me during spring training. But my dad couldn’t take the time off work to drive, so he got on the plane on Thursday. He’s not a huge drinker but he got some help on this one.

I appreciated my brother Cameron coming. He’s not a sports fan at all. He likes computers and science. He follows me but not baseball in general, and he doesn’t follow me all that well. My dad is a geometry teacher at Hudson High, where my brother and I went to school, and my mom is a hairdresser.

For the home opener on Friday, when I was standing there on the third-base line and they were introducing the players, my heart was just pounding. I was thinking about my mom and dad up in stands and how they’ve been waiting their whole lives to see me out there. All the games they sat through. That’s what made me the most emotional  — just happy they were there and Cameron and Haylee. I was thinking, too, about everybody watching back in my hometown. I feel like I’m doing this for a lot of people.

So I was waiting for my introduction and looking up in the stands to get a wave from my family, but I don’t know this park and didn’t know where they were. When the introductions got to me, the camera was right on me. I really don’t like everyone staring at me, though I know it’s part of baseball. I tried to act real cool, but it was nerve-wracking. I just waved real quick so the camera would move on.

After the game, I went out with my family and we were all saying that was the coolest thing we have ever seen in our entire lives. We just couldn’t stop talking about it. The flyover, the big flag out on centerfield. It was the best thing we ever witnessed in real life. I can’t imagine two better days than Friday and Saturday. The pre-game ceremonies, coupled with 45,000 fans, coupled with just making the big leagues, coupled with my family in the stands – you can’t get much better than that. I keep trying to figure out, is this really happening right now? Is somebody going to come and wake me up soon?

But I’m really aware of taking care of business, of being ready to play ball. It’s been a little more difficult to get all our work in, but I think now I’ll settle in. It was helpful to talk with my dad about my hitting. He was a football coach and doesn’t know baseball as well as he knows football. But he knows me. He knows how to pick me up. We talk things through and he gets me thinking and then I start to figure things out on my own. That’s why I pretty much call him all the time.

After Saturday’s ninth-inning win, my family and I ended up at Denny’s on Mission Street. There were a few Giants fans there and then more kept coming in. People were asking for autographs and photos. I’m not used to that. In my hometown people recognize me, but not in a city of a million people! It was fun, but I can see where it could become a burden on a family to deal with that everywhere. I’m going to have to figure out how to approach that part of being a ballplayer.

Look forward to seeing you at the park and beating the Dodgers!

-Brandon