Victory Field: A Pitcher's Haven

INDIANAPOLIS - Victory Field is so many things. Doubles and triples in the gap. Spectacular defense on an immaculate landscape. Pittsburgh-is-excited pitching. Dollar hot dogs on Mondays, super heroes on Saturdays and fireworks on Fridays.

One thing it ain't: the place for a home run derby.

The Indians are the team that played their entire April home schedule -- 12 games - without a single homer. Not one in 102 innings or 393 at-bats. The only people trotting around the bases were the Knot Hole Kids Club members on Sundays.

Zero home runs at home in a month? An anomaly, to be sure, and certainly the lousy weather was partly to blame. But Victory Field gives nothing up cheaply, rain or shine, April or August.

"I actually played here in '97 as part of the Omaha Royals. It was like that then and it had just been built," Indians hitting coach Ryan Long was saying. "I remember the talk then."

Start with the wall in the left-center power alley 418 feet away; the land where fly balls go to die. Add the varying winds that are seldom friendly to anyone hitting the ball to left. Can the towering JW Marriott standing guard across the street from right field be a part of that, as a wind break? Only a physicist might know for sure. "The ballpark's sunk down a little bit, too," Long mentioned. "Everything plays a part."

Add all that and you get numbers such as these:

Last season, the Indians hit 66 home runs on the road . . . and 38 at home. The season before it was 61 and 35. In 2015, it was 46-24. In 2009, the difference was a staggering 75-44. This year, it's been more of the same; through the first 70 games of the season, Indy had launched 34 long balls on the road and just 15 at home . Only four times in the past 13 seasons have the Indians homered more in Victory Field than on the road.

Of course, the fences don't get moved in for the top of the innings. The other team has the same challenge. Since 2005, Indians pitchers have a better ERA at home than on the road in 10 of 13 seasons and allowed fewer home runs in 12 of 13.

Nobody understands all this better than the guys doing the swinging.

Austin Meadows, for example. "You think you get one and it ends up not even being close. You've always got to be running it out. You can't ever be sure."

And Eric Wood, who led the Indians last season with 16 home runs. "It's not conducive to driving the ball, especially in the middle of the field. It's just really big out there, and the ball seems to get hung up."

And Christopher Bostick. "There's a lot of times where you hit a ball as good as you can hit it and it gets caught. That's probably the toughest thing to deal with as a hitter, when you do everything you can do and it still doesn't result in something that's positive.

"If you let it, if it happens a couple of times in a row, or if you're scuffling and then all of a sudden you get one and it doesn't really work out, it can hurt you a little bit. But it's part of the game. You don't always get the things to go your way."

Or, as manager Brian Esposito said, "The lines are very easy to get balls up and out, but a majority of hitters nowadays try to keep the ball in the big parts of the field with their approaches. You've got to square the ball up and hit it out. I've seen it done, it's very possible. A lot of triples out there, a lot of doubles, because of where the defense plays. It is what it is."

Is any of that a problem? The Indians high command doesn't think so. The park was built this way with a purpose.

CEO Bruce Schumacher: "The one thing I remember was, we didn't want it to be symmetrical. We didn't want it to be cookie cutter. That resulted in left-center field being long. We didn't think we were constructing a pitcher-friendly ballpark. We thought we were constructing a fair ballpark that was asymmetrical."

Senior vice president Cal Burleson: "We wanted to make sure Indianapolis home games would never be played in a band box. Games that are played in facilities that are extremely small make it hard to be a good judge of talent, both of hitters' abilities and pitchers' abilities. So, we felt just as Bush Stadium was viewed as a fair facility for judging talent, we wanted Victory Field to be a fair facility for judging talent."
There's something else.

Burleson: "One of the most exciting plays in baseball is when hitters are trying to get a triple. One of the things that makes triples possible is if the ballpark is deep in the alleys. That was something we thought would add some excitement."

Schumacher: "Especially over the years when we've had a guy like Andrew McCutchen, a guy who could run a little bit. You see a ball hit that way, you're thinking three right off the bat. (Ryan) Lavarnway tripled earlier this year. When catchers start tripling, you know there's a lot of real estate out there."

Flash back to the start of May. The Indians were last in the league in homers -- but tied for first in extra-base hits. And with a winning record. On April 27, there were 41 players in the International League who had more homers than the entire Indianapolis roster. But the doubles were coming in buckets. And then the Indians went on the road and homered six times the next five games.

Esposito: "We were barreling the baseball. That's all that matters in this game. If you're consistently hitting the ball hard and putting balls in play, you're going to score some runs, and when you score runs and you keep them off the board, that's the recipe for winning ballgames."
So maybe this has not been the place for lavish individual power totals. Since Victory Field opened in 1996, the only Indianapolis player to lead the league in home runs was Izzy Alcantara, with 27 in 2002 (by the way, four have led in triples).

But there are several upsides to the demands of Victory Field. Let the guys in uniform explain.

Wood: "At some point, you have to make an adjustment. You can't keep trying to go out there (to left-center), because it's just going to get run down. It'll turn you into a better hitter, to be able to do different things with the bat."

Bostick: "I see a lot of balls that are out in a lot of stadiums that don't even come close in Indianapolis. It's tough but it makes you a better hitter. You learn that you can't just try to hit home runs all the time. You have to really work on your craft. People notice after playing there, they have worked on their approaches and worked on their swings, and they hit a lot better in other places after Indianapolis."

And isn't skill development the name of the minor league game? Take a bow, Victory Field. Yeah, it can be tricky, being home on this range. But the best hitters adjust and find a way to succeed.

Long: "I think one of the biggest things - Bostick mentioned this the other day in one of our meetings - is that when we go someplace else, where the ball carries a little bit better, it's important that we stick to our approach and hit our doubles and triples, because they're not going to be homers when we go home. Your approach is your approach, a field's a field."

Esposito: "That's the one thing you always want to have as a hitter; stay consistent with your approach. Don't let the elements or the ballpark get you off your plan. You play in a ballpark that's a little bit smaller, the wind blows out, then you start getting guys looking to get big and drive the ball up in the air. As a result, you start messing around with your swing and your timing, and you get your rhythm off a little bit. That's where slumps come from."

Wood: "I'm guilty of that. I try to hit all my home runs in one game, and you can't do that."

Bostick: "You've got to be stubborn. That's something you learn as a baseball player. You can't get big eyes when you go somewhere that has a shorter fence. The game really isn't played that way."

Schumacher noted one other happy happenstance about Victory Field.

"The coincidental thing is this ballpark was built in 1996, we didn't start working with the Pirates until 2005, and their ballpark has the same layout. So, from an outfield development standpoint, those guys play here with what they're going to see at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, so that piece has worked out pretty well."

Take Bostick. He's learned to play outfield in Victory Field with one reality: "In our park, you run and get things."

Or Meadows. Learning the ways of playing the vast acreage in left-center must help him in Pittsburgh. "You definitely need to know what you're doing out there. You've got to use your communication skills with the other outfielders."

Still, it can be frustrating at times, when a drive to deep left ends up in an outfielder's glove.

"Everybody can attest to that," Wood said. "Except for Stan."

Stan Kyles, pitching coach. Know what the pitchers think about 418 feet to the power alley in left? This isn't Indiana, this is Heaven.