Zach Buchanan

zbuchanan@enquirer.com

CLEVELAND – Dealing with the shift is becoming a mundane part of life for Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jay Bruce. It’s more noticeable to him when teams defend him with a standard alignment rather than bringing an extra defender into shallow right field.

“The only time I ever notice anything is when they’re not shifting,” Bruce said. “The shift is like the norm. That’s like normal defense to me now.”

Jugding by data collected by Fangraphs.com, there may have been fewer breaks from the routine than ever before. The site has Bruce facing the shift in 78 of 89 plate appearances where he’s put a ball in play, or nearly 88 percent of the time. Last year, he faced the shift just 55 percent of the time.

Those numbers aren’t perfect representations in that they exclude fielder-independent plate appearances like strikeouts, walks and home runs. But Bruce isn’t surprised he’s facing more shifts.

Everybody is. Teams shifted 19.5 percent of the time last year but are doing it nearly 30 percent of the time in 2016.

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“They’re shifting (Zack) Cozart,” Bruce said. “He’s not a home run guy. He’s going to move the ball around the field.”

While the shift may be ubiquitous, Bruce feels he’s handled it capably. He has a .282 average against it this year, compared to .265 the year before. His groundball rate when pulling the ball is 48.8 percent, down seven points from 2015.

In Monday’s loss to the Indians, he beat the shift twice to the left side with a slow-rolling grounder and a bloop to left field. Both hits came choking up on the bat with two strikes, and he doesn’t plan to focus on poking the ball the other way.

Hitting the ball hard and on a line will negate the advantage of an extra infielder between first and second anyway.

“If I completely change my approach and change the type of hitter I am and just slap the ball to the left side, then what’s going to happen? People are going to be like, ‘Dude, what happened to Bruce? He doesn’t hit for power anymore! What’s going on? Why doesn’t he hit for power? What’s wrong with Jay Bruce? What’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he doing that?’

“What it is for me is I’m trying to not roll over as much as I can.”

Shift or no shift, Bruce has enjoyed strong performance through the first month-and-a-half of the season. He entered Tuesday hitting .266 with an .824 OPS, the latter mark nearly 100 points higher than in 2015.

He’s happy with that, but feels the best is yet to come.

“I believe my swing’s in a much better spot this year than it has been,” Bruce said. “I personally don’t think that I’ve really hit my stride yet.”’

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