Vaughn went 4/4 with a homer and a double, doing most of his damage against the Blue Jays 131 million dollar man, Jose Berrios. This year Vaughn is hitting .424 against sinkers and .300 against curveballs, so he matches up great against Berrios who throws either a sinker or a curveball 54.7% of the time so far in 2022.
In Vaughn’s first at bat he took a sinker up and in for a ball, then took another sinker down and in for a strike. It appeared that he was sitting curveball because when he got it in a 1-1 count, he smashed it to center for an RBI double, it wasn’t a bad curveball from Berrios just better hitting from Vaughn.
Vaughn didn’t waste any time in his second at bat, he got two inside sinkers in almost identical spots, and on the second one he slapped it into center for a single.
It appeared that Vaughn was sitting curveball again in his third at bat, he watched three straight fastballs two of them for strikes. Then in a 1-2 count Vaughn got the curveball that he was looking for, and he didn’t miss it, hitting it 409 feet for a solo homer.
Vaughn faced reliever Trent Thornton in his fourth at bat, he started by watching 2 fastballs out of the zone then a slider that caught the inside part of the plate. In a 2-1 count Thornton was the beneficiary of a call from home plate umpire Ramon DeJesus, a curveball that never came back to catch the plate was still called a strike. It didn’t matter much to Vaughn who got a 2-2 hanging slider, and hit it 109.1 MPH off the bat for a single to right.
Vaughn is making more contact this season, dropping his whiff rate from 24.6% last year to just 18.5% this year. Vaughn’s all field approach has allowed him to hit .301 so far this year with a .806 OPS. He is hitting the ball to the opposite part of the field 33.3% of the time and only pulling the ball 27% of the time so far this season.