VIERA, Fla. • At the end of last season Cardinals hitting coach John Mabry scrolled through a matrix of statistics for Kolten Wong and showed him one number the infielder still hasn’t forgotten: .219.
It’s been on his mind all spring, because he has to improve it.
An unapologetically aggressive batter, Wong saw in Mabry’s numbers how, when he swung at pitches within the strike zone, he was the hitter he wanted to be. “Around .300,” Wong said, guesstimating. When he casted the bat after pitches outside the strike zone he hit … exactly .