Daniel Descalso has been on fire since getting called up to Springfield this past week, the 21 year old second baseman is hitting .458 thus far.  I recently had the opportunity to talk with Daniel about hitting and making adjustments, offensively and defensively.

Q and A after the jump.

Seems like the transition to AA has gone pretty well so far you. Can you explain your early success in Springfield?

I don’t really have an explanation. I just came up here and tried to fill in for Jose (Martinez) and not have the team skip a beat. I just been trying to have quality at bats and play good defense.

How would you describe your approach at the plate?

My approach is the same as its been for the last couple months down in Palm Beach. I just been thinking hard up the middle and trying to just throw my hands at the ball and stay on top.

How would you describe a quality at-bat?

I think a quality at bat is anytime you can put the ball in play hard. It is not easy to find holes so all you can do is hit it hard. Walks and other productive outs are quality at-bats too.

When you’re facing a pitcher, how important is his velocity?

When you face a guy who has good velocity he can make more mistakes because he throws harder. A guy who throws harder forces you to make your decision to swing or not sooner. With a hard thrower I just try to be smooth and quiet and not muscle up.

You seemed to be really struggling in the month of May and June but have since turned things around. What sort of adjustments did you make, if any?

Those were a couple of tough months for me. I had some bad habits at the plate that I needed to break. I was chasing pitches and getting myself out. I worked a lot with our hitting coach to stay on top of the baseball and just think line drive. I also made a couple of adjustments with my hands and my stride and they seem to be working out for me.

During that slump, did you ever feel like you were just plumb hitting into bad luck?

Yes I did. Throughout the slump it seemed like every time I did hit a ball well it got caught. So that just made things worse. I just kept working hard and knew I would eventually get things figured out.

How would you rate yourself as a second baseman, defensively?

I’m still learning over there at second. This was my first season where I’ve spent the majority of my time at second. I feel like I turn the double play pretty well and I am getting better with the angle over there as well. I am a little disappointed with the number of errors this year, but I’m working hard to get better.

What about you as a person? Are you more laid-back, or more intense?

Most of the time I am a pretty laid back, easy going guy. I do have a tendency to get pretty fired up from time to time. But I’m pretty easy going most of the time.

What would you describe the highlight of your career to this point, college or pro?

The highlight has to be getting that call two Junes ago saying that I was a Cardinal. I had always dreamed of playing professional baseball and my dream had finally come true.

Baseball or otherwise, do you have a favorite sports team you follow?

I grew up a big Oakland Athletics fan and I still keep tabs on them, but it’s kind of hard being on the East Coast. I’ve always been a big 49ers fan and I’ve always rooted for the Warriors.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 10:15 am and is filed under Daniel Descalso, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.