How Jorge Polanco’s fixed knee resulted in important adjustment

May 1, 2025, 10:02 AM | Updated: 11:56 am

Editor, Seattle Sports

The Jorge Polanco wearing a Seattle Mariners uniform this season looks very different from the Jorge Polanco who wore a Seattle Mariners uniform last season.

And not just figuratively, but literally too.

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If you’re talking about the best hitters in baseball so far this season, Polanco is very much in the conversation. He took the most recent American League Player of the Week honors, then promptly hit two homers (and nearly a third) in his next game after winning the award.

It’s quite the development considering how much Polanco, who joined the M’s in a January 2024 trade that came with big expectations, struggled last season.

When the2024 season ended, we found out that Polanco had been hindered by a nagging left knee injury throughout the year, something he then addressed with surgery to repair his patellar tendon right after the 2024 campaign. And despite his troublesome first year with Seattle, he returned on a one-year contract in free agency with the hope that the knee issue was taken care of and he could play more like the hitter who crushed 33 home runs in 2021.

Clearly it has.

Polanco is slashing .384/.418/.808 for a ridiculous 1.226 OPS, and his nine home runs entering Thursday were just one short of the MLB lead shared by three players, including two familiar names in Seattle – Cal Raleigh and Eugenio Suárez. And while Suárez leads MLB in at-bats per home run at 10.5, that’s only because he has enough plate appearances (120) to qualify for the leaderboard since Polanco (80 plate appearances) is averaging just 8.11 at-bats per home run.

Oh, by the way, the reason that Polanco doesn’t have a qualifying amount of plate appearances is this year he’s been playing with a different injury: a sore oblique that’s limiting the switch-hitter to only swinging from the left side and keeping him from playing the field.

Back on solid ground

OK, if Polanco is doing all this while still dealing with some kind of injury, how bad was that knee?

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As Mariners Hall of Famer and ROOT Sports analyst Jay Buhner explained Thursday, it doesn’t take much of a knee problem to have a significant impact on a hitter.

“His foundation, it’s all about your lower half,” Buhner said to Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “… When you don’t have your legs up underneath you, it’s hard as (heck) to hit, man. I mean, it is your balance. … If it’s your back leg and now you’re trying to drive off of it, I mean, it’s hard.”

Polanco has that back leg when hitting left-handed back underneath him now, and it’s resulted in an adjustment at the plate that has really paid off. And that’s where Polanco literally looks different.

On Wednesday’s edition of MLB Central on MLB Network, analyst and former big leaguer Mark DeRosa spotlighted Polanco’s hot start and a change he’s noticed with his batting stance.

A year ago, Polanco had a wide-open stance from the left side, possibly a result of discomfort with his knee. This year, his legs are almost even in his stance. And when you watch Polanco’s left-handed swing from last year side by side with it from this year, you can see how much smoother it’s going, particularly as he makes contact (and personally, I see a bit of Robinson Canó to Polanco’s 2025 swings, which is certainly not a bad thing).

DeRosa had a lot more to say about Polanco as he broke him down, which you can watch below in the attached video, which includes some interesting numbers that illustrate Polanco’s adjustments and how he ranks among the other hitters in MLB who are off to great starts.

The Mariners are off Thursday, then open a six-game road trip at 5:05 p.m. Friday against the Texas Rangers. Radio coverage on Seattle Sports will begin at 4 p.m. with the pregame show.