Ranjith Kumar
Heading into this season, one of the major question marks for the baseball team was offense. The 2006 team had pounded the ball all year, setting school records and finishing as one of the top hitting teams in the country, but most of those guys were gone.
Only two regular position starters from last season returned.
But of those who came back this season, junior shortstop Ramon Corona was easily the most highly touted. As a freshman he hit .325, and then last season he raised his average to .353.
He earned All-ACC recognition for the second season in a row, and last year Collegiate Baseball named him a third-team All-American. This season he was selected as a preseason All-American by both the National College Baseball Writers Association and Collegiate Baseball.
But with all those awards and achievements came the expectations and the attention of opposing teams, something coach Elliott Avent said may have led to Corona’s slow start this year at the plate.
Through the first 17 games of the season, he was hitting a miserable .156.
“Ramon got pitched very tough early on,” Avent said. “And he’s a name. If you look at our ball club, you say, ‘Hey, don’t let Ramon Corona beat you.'”
Last season Corona hit between Matt Camp and Aaron Bates, two guys that are now working their way toward the majors in the Cubs and Red Sox organizations respectively, and he wasn’t the focus of opposing pitching. And even Corona admits he’s been pitched differently because of the inexperienced lineup around him this year.
“Last year I had the pleasure of hitting between those two amazing hitters,” he said. “So yeah, I did see some better pitches.”
But none of that came as a surprise for Corona.
“I knew going into this year that I would be seeing a lot of off-speed pitches, a lot more breaking balls and that people might even pitch around me to a certain extent,” he said.
That didn’t keep the frustration from creeping in, though, which led to changes in his approach at the plate. Changes, which Corona admitted, only made things worse.
“At the beginning of the season the results weren’t there, and there were some adjustments I was trying to make,” he said. “And they were making me a little more uncomfortable.”
Lately, though, he’s been the old Corona. Since the horrible start, he’s batted above .300 and raised his batting average nearly one hundred points to .241.
“The last week or so he seems more comfortable with what’s happened to him,” Avent said. “It was mostly a case of being pitched around and getting frustrated by hitting some balls hard and not having anything to show for it. But that’s just what every good hitter goes through.”
Corona said once he finally accepted the way he was going to be pitched to this year, all the pressure and frustration went away.
“I looked at it as just a part of the game. This game is a game of a lot of failure, and it’s how you come back from failure,” he said. “I’m glad we’re about halfway through the season because it means I have another half to play, a more important half. So I’m looking forward to going out and picking it up for the rest of the season.”
As far as any personal goals for the final 18 games, Corona said he had none. He said he’s simplified his approach and isn’t worried about the numbers anymore.
“I just want to have good at-bats and not get myself out,” Corona said. “And just help put my team in a position to win.”