JUPITER, Fla. • During his individual work with Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith, Cardinals prospect Paul DeJong has heard a lot about getting “stuck in the dirt,” about keeping his momentum going, and essentially about how his new position has a misleading name.
There’s no short stops in shortstop.
“He’s talking a lot about the ‘flow of energy,’” DeJong said Saturday morning in the team’s clubhouse. “That’s his big thing. The flow of energy.”
A few hours before he made the first Grapefruit League start of his career at a position he’s still rather new to, DeJong offered an example of what Smith meant by flow.