Aaron Zavala was enjoying a widely successful 2020 season before the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the world. Through 15 games, he was batting .418 with 22 RBIs. Simply put, he was a hit machine. That season would never be fully realized though, as he had to go nearly a year without playing.
“Personally, this is the longest I’ve gone without playing a baseball game,” he said during a press conference as the impending 2021 season dawned upon him.
Despite the long layoff and essentially a forced restart, Zavala showed an incredible amount of mental toughness by not changing anything about his approach and continuing to work toward the big picture.
“It’s kind of the whole ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ type of deal,” he said. “If I see fit that I need to go and make some adjustments, then I’ll make some adjustments, but it’s going to be on an as-needed basis.”
As the Oregon baseball team has shocked the country and climbed into the national rankings, Zavala has returned to the scene and not just replicated his 2020 success but has actually improved upon it. His performance has been one of the driving factors of the Ducks’ ascent, and it all stems from his interest in baseball as a child.
Zavala’s baseball aspirations started when he was in T-ball, when his father David noticed that his son was remarkably mature at a young age, and it’s this maturity that has helped Zavala become such a strong offensive force for the Ducks.
“Even as a kid when he was 5, 6 years old playing T-ball, he was very focused on what he was doing,” David said. “And he still has that.”
Zavala also served as the bat boy for his older brother Daniel’s team. David, who was the coach of the team, recalled that sometimes, when there was an extra spot, they’d throw Aaron in for a couple at-bats against kids who were four years older than him.
As Aaron gained more experience, bigger things began to seem attainable for him, and he saw no reason to look back.
“He’s played tournament ball, he’s played for the Portland Baseball Club, [he] was able to participate in the Baseball Northwest Select team and travel along the West Coast,” David said. “I think that’s when he realized, ‘Hey, there’s a chance for me to play at the next level.’”
Aaron, a local kid from Keizer, Oregon, showed his potential at South Salem High School. As a senior, he hit a remarkable .561/.656/.939. The University of Oregon was Aaron’s dream school, David said. He worked hard and made the team, and as a freshman in 2019, hit .273/.356/.338 in 43 games.
“We like the fact that we’re local and we’re able to go watch him, but it’s been a good fit for him,” David said. “He was able to play his freshman year. There’s not a lot of players who get to do that.”
Aaron began the 2020 season on a tear. In the 15 games the Ducks played before the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he hit .418/.493/.491, slapping singles around the yard like it was nobody’s business, albeit without much power.
His dreams of a monster 2020 season were crushed when the pandemic hit. David said that Aaron stayed in Eugene to hit and lift weights with teammate Gabe Matthews during quarantine.
“He just kept grinding it out, waiting for the opportunity to start playing again,” David said.
Now the baseball team is back, and Aaron has outperformed even the wildest expectations. He’s raised his average to .435 (No. 10 in the NCAA), his OBP to .563 (which leads the entire NCAA), and his slugging percentage has taken the biggest jump, up to .641. He also leads the Pac-12 in average, OBP and walks. He’s hit four home runs in 27 games after hitting only one in his first 68.
Part of that power growth is thanks to the work that hitting coach Jack Marder has done with the team, and with Aaron individually.
“Coach Marder’s really spent a lot of time with Aaron, and helped him understand what’s happening in his swing to where they’ve been able to develop the power side of it,” head coach Mark Wasikowski said.
Some of the team’s new technology and analytics may have also played a role in this sudden power surge. Oregon shortstop Josh Kasevich, who’s developed some power in his own right, said that the hitters have been using a piece of technology called BlastMotion, which he described as small sensors that they put on the end of their bats to measure angles, rotation to the ball and acceleration.
“It was a lot of early connection — which is the angle of your bat before you launch into your swing — and getting that to right around where it needed to be helped a lot with attacking the ball,” Kasevich said.
Despite the added power, David thinks that his son is still the same hitter he’s always been, and his role for this Ducks squad is to set the table.
“If he needs to power up a little bit, so to speak, then he can do that,” David said. “But I think his role is the guy hitting for average and getting on base, and then allowing the rest of the team to drive in runs.”
Aaron has taken on two roles now, in the sense that he’s still hitting for average at a high clip, but also hitting for power and driving in runs. He’s been the regular cleanup hitter and right fielder for the Ducks, who have gotten off to a 20-7 start and find themselves ranked as high as No. 12 in the country by College Baseball Nation.
“Aaron is really self-driven,” David said. “There’s times that I’ve probably told him, ‘Hey, maybe you should take a day off or two and just relax,’ and he’s been like, ‘Eh, I’ve gotta keep grinding, gotta be ready.’”
With roughly half the season left to play, David and his wife Alisa will be cheering from the sidelines as Aaron looks to continue tearing it up and lead this Oregon team to Omaha.
“He has worked hard over the years,” David said. “And so we as Mom and Dad, we’re very proud of him to see the success that he’s having out on the field.”
