INDIANAPOLIS – Ryan Long racks his brain.

The Indianapolis Indians hitting coach sat in the team’s home dugout at Victory Field and tried to name a game that stood out to him. A game that exemplifies how, between the season opener in April and this late-August afternoon, his batters were able to sustain the success that propelled the team into playoff contention.

Long threw his hands up, sighed, and settled on any game the team had taken a late lead. It may sound like a cop out, but it’s not. The Indians prided themselves on consistency at the plate and being a threat to score as much in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings as the first, second and third. It’s why Indianapolis finished 2018 first as a team in batting average (.271), on-base plus slugging (.753), on-base percentage (.335), doubles (310) and hits (1,251) — and second in slugging and RBIs.

“You don’t know it till you get here but I just knew what we had coming back,” said Long, who finished his first year with Indianapolis but 28th in professional baseball, about his hopes ahead of the season. “I knew the guys we had returning, so I knew we’d have a good offense. It’s easy to see once you’ve done this for a while.”

The excess of offensive talent didn’t deliver a playoff spot. Indianapolis finished 73-67, tied for second in the Triple-A International League’s West division and a game back in the wild card. But game in and game out, the Indians gave opposing pitchers fits, and did so in a league and level of baseball with so much roster turnover.

Players know they may be traded, designated for assignment or even called up to an organization’s MLB affiliate at any moment, and are driven to achieve the latter.

“At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about,” Long said. “We’re trying to get guys there and we’re trying to win a championship there. That’s the game that matters. We compete our butts off here, in the moment, with the big picture of trying to get those guys up to the big leagues.”

To prepare his hitters for this level and the next this season, Long did as much as he can to cater his coaching to each individual. They must have ownership of their process, but Long and his fellow coaches were there to guide them in the right direction and understand what may work for one may not for another.

Long said he focused most on maximizing each player’s strengths as a hitter.

“Where guys go wrong is they get away from what they’re good at,” Long said. “They start getting away from that, trying to cover other areas, and now all of a sudden they’ve lost that.”

His experience as a player helped get his foot in the door with each Indians player, but second baseman Kevin Kramer and fellow infielder Jose Osuna — who the Pittsburgh Pirates called up this past weekend — both highlighted his ability to build relationships as a main reason why he’s effective.

“There’s a lot of similar things that he coaches but he is able to make them relate to each and every guy differently,” Kramer said. “There’s nothing groundbreaking here, nothing groundbreaking in terms of huge changes. I think everything is just small changes with approach, with setup, with timing.”

Kramer hit .311 with 15 home runs and 59 RBIs in 129 games with the Indians in 2017. Osuna hit .321 with nine home runs and 59 RBIs in 82 games, as he’s also spent time with the Pirates in 2018.

Osuna said it is tough to maintain the right timing when you move between leagues as he has, but that Long’s approach has allowed him to do so.

“It’s not easy to always be clicking offensively,” said Kramer, who also struggled with timing early in what was his first Triple-A season. “But, I think the guys that have left and the guys that have gone up and the guys that have replaced them, there hasn’t been much of a transition.”

Osuna concurred.

“Every guy here is doing a little bit for the team,” Osuna said. “That’s good.”

Whether or not Indianapolis continues this in 2019 will be determined then, but since 2011 the Indians have won three division titles and finished third or lower in the division just once.

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Jordan Guskey on Twitter at @JordanGuskey or email him at jguskey@gannett.com.