BaseballSchoolBerlin @baseball_berlin - Twitter Profile

18 days ago

Dalton Rushing is learning one of the hardest lessons in professional sports. Talent gets you promoted. Regulation determines whether you can stay there. Over the last month, Rushing has been thrust into a larger role while filling in for injured Will Smith. The results have been rough. Over his last 30 games, he’s hitting just .191 with a .280 OBP and .281 slugging percentage while striking out 28 times in 89 at-bats. The numbers only tell part of the story. For weeks, frustration has been spilling out at opponents and teammates, but most noticeably, at himself. Countless instances of bat snapping, helmet smashing, and head hitting have made him one to watch for all the wrong reasons. Wednesday night in Minneapolis felt like a breaking point. After the game, Rushing called his struggles “embarrassing” and said he’s a grown man who needs to figure it out for the sake of his team. There’s something admirable about that level of ownership. Some athletes never get there. The problem is that what we’re watching isn’t primarily a mental issue. It’s an emotional one. And emotions don’t live in the mind. They live in the body. The Dodgers are standing by him, but they also don’t seem to know how to help him. Dave Roberts has put an arm around him during tough moments. Veteran leaders have pulled him aside for chats in the dugout. By Dalton’s own account, his team is being supportive. However, his struggles are compounding. No amount of advice, perspective, positive thinking, or mindset coaching can resolve something that has become lodged in the nervous system. When an athlete becomes emotionally flooded, performance starts disappearing in places that statistics can’t fully explain. Everything from timing to decision-making is affected, and recovery starts feeling impossible. The system as a whole begins redlining. The ripple effects extend beyond Rushing’s own performance, too. Ohtani posted a 0.74 ERA through his first 10 starts with Will Smith catching. In his first three starts with Dalton Rushing behind the plate, that number climbed to 4.34. I’m not suggesting Dalton is responsible for all of that. Baseball is a team sport. But emotional dysregulation rarely remains contained to the athlete experiencing it. Catcher is a position built on communication, trust, rhythm, and relationship. When an athlete is stuck fighting himself, those struggles often bleed into team execution and chemistry. The ugly reality of modern professional sports is that organizations have endless technology, advanced analytics, biomechanics labs, etc., and yet little to no in-house capacity for helping athletes process what is happening inside their own nervous systems. Somatic and limbic system work gets back to the basics. It helps the mind and body stop antagonizing one another. It creates the conditions for freedom, flow, and access to hard-earned talent. What Dalton appears to need right now isn’t another conversation about mindset. He needs a way to resolve the emotional traffic jam that is preventing him from accessing the version of himself that earned this opportunity in the first place. — P.S. I train pro athletes, teams, and executives. I write about the intersection of somatics and performance. Ring the 🔔 to join the community!

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