Does she get on base?

It’s been beat into player’s heads over and over. The batting cage repetitions are focused on creating the best hitting techniques for all players, but one mistake can cut a session short.

“We work on pitch selection all the time,” senior Sydney O’Hara said. “If you swing at a ball, you’re out, and if you let a strike go by, you’re out. It’s game-like.”

Syracuse (24-15, 6-9 Atlantic Coast) stands at third in the ACC with a .387 on base percentage, only .004 short of second place North Carolina and not far out of first place Florida State, with .458. The Orange, which is among the bottom in the home run rankings, scores most of its runs from having people on base.

“Be aggressive, but be aggressive with strikes,” sophomore second baseman Alicia Hansen said. “If you want to swing at the first pitch, do it, but make sure it’s a good pitch.”

Syracuse takes advantage of this aggressive mindset to give its players more opportunities to score. After contact, players are told to run out whatever they can. Whether SU pops one up to the pitcher, grounds a slow-roller to the second baseman or hits one high into the outfield, the team always expects the ball to drop in its favor. This mindset has gotten them on base in situations that almost certainly appeared as sure outs.

“Fluke things happen,” said sophomore shortstop Sammy Fernandez, the team’s leadoff hitter. “You always want to try to get that extra base if you can.”

O’Hara, who leads Syracuse in batting average and the country in on base percentage, notices when her team starts to swing at pitches they shouldn’t. She used constant examples of the games versus Boston College, where she and others on the team would swing at balls out of the zone and how that contributed to the low run total and total number of people on base.

Being able to extend at bats is important to the Orange.  An important skill they go over is the two-strike approach at the plate. According to O’Hara, as well as assistant coach Alisa Goler, it is the hardest thing to master. This can be tied back to the cage work the Orange do that punishes just one mistake at the plate, as a mistake with two strikes will.

The extensive work in the cage and the aggressive style of SU hitters leads to greater production. Goler is confident that if Syracuse can deliver runners on base, the results will show.

“The game always knows,” Goler said. “It knows if you put in your time, it knows if you’re lazy and not doing it, and I know with the work that they’ve put in that when they’re in the box, with runners on base, good things are going to happen.”