April showers bring Weber's power for Oregon State baseball

Before the season began, Oregon State baseball head coach Mitch Canham was asked what player on his roster he believed had the most raw power. He wouldn't give a flat out answer, but shared a story about catcher Wilson Weber that made many jaws drop.

“(Wilson Weber) hit a ball 113 MPH off the bat off the score board opposite field and it looked like he was swinging easy,” Canham said.

Tabulating Weber as one of the bats with the most thump for the Beavers comes after a disappointing sophomore campaign. Weber hit just .198 in 81 at-bats as a sophomore and made the decision to spend the summer overhauling his swing at Driveline, a performance training company using data to get the most out of baseball players.

"(I was) switching up my bat path a little bit," Weber said about his experience at Driveline. "I've hit a lot of ground balls. That's what I did last year, hit the ball hard but just on the ground and (resulted) in a lot of outs."

Weber spent an initial four-week stint at the Driveline facility in Seattle before going to test out how the adjustments played in a game with the summer ball club the Bend Elks of the West Coast League. The adjustments became noticeable for Weber, as he wrapped up the summer with Bend hitting .365 in 52 at-bats. It was then back to Driveline for another weeks-long stint.

While the adjustments were noticeable for Weber in his stint with Bend, his breakout campaign was put on hold with Oregon State after he suffered an injury the first week of the season.

"I strained my oblique," Weber said. "It was kind of weird, I'm not even sure how it happened really. It just got worse and worse and had to go no swings for about two weeks."

Weber went on to say that the first day in Surprise, Arizona, where the Beavers started their season, he began to notice the discomfort. He attempted to power through it and had a tough stretch at the plate, hitting just two hits in 21 at bats along with eight strikeouts.

Oregon State's coaching staff gave Weber a two-week period to recover where he was not swinging the bat at all. The timeline wasn't something Weber said he enjoyed, reminding him of his freshman season where he was also held out due to injury. When his oblique had finally healed, Weber was finally able to demonstrate what Canham had seen all along — an ability to drive the ball to all parts of the field.

Weber first made his return to the lineup Monday, April 1, in a midweek matchup with Gonzaga. Batting eighth and catching, Weber finished the night 3-for-4, including a double as well as a walk.

Weber didn't stop there as the Gonzaga game would only lay the framework that would see him ascend to being one of the hottest hitters in the country.

Since April began, Weber has recorded 30 at-bats — which more than doubles his beginning of the season sample size to prove the heater he is on isn't a fluke. In those 30 at-bats, Weber has recorded 16 total hits. Of those 16, 10 went for extra bases with him recording five doubles, three triples and a pair of home runs. All he is seemingly missing now is a partridge in a pear tree.

For the month of April, Weber is batting .533 and, including his six walks and being hit by a pitch, is getting on base at a .621 clip. The extra base hits have pushed his slugging to 1.233 and an OPS of 1.854. To those on the outside looking in, the tear Weber is on is otherworldly. But for Weber, nothing has changed since the beginning of the year despite his health.

"I've just started rolling (since Gonzaga)," Weber said. "Keeping it simple, same approach the whole time, just now it's producing."

When he is missing — which isn't often— Weber has still put the ball in play. Since April 1 he's struck out just four times, slashing his strikeout rate from his first 21 at-bats from 38% to 13.3%. He's since lost a six-game hit streak when he received a pinch hit opportunity against Nevada on Tuesday, April 17, but failed to reach safely. Despite the streak being snapped, he's had more games in April with more than one hit than he has been held hitless, five against two.

Weber and his No. 5 Beavers will be back in action after splitting a two-game midweek non-conference series with Nevada when they head to the Golden State to take on California. First pitch against the Golden Bears is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. on Friday, April 19 at Evans Diamond in Berkeley, California.