Jess Williams is embracing the chance this ABL season to not just be enjoying getting back to playing regularly with Perth Heat, but to work on improving things and it’s working a treat.
After a tough run of injury and interruptions in recent years, Williams was back to play in 30 games last season and his goal was to build on that, and grow his game for the 2024/25 campaign.
There was a hiccup in the pre-season when he tore a bicep, but he was back in time to open the season proper and he has only been going from strength to strength since.
Williams has played in 24 of the Heat’s 28 games so far this season and has been delivering impressively with the bat with an average of .314 while having 22 hits from his 70 at bats to end up getting on base 30 times, batting in eight runs, hitting a homer and scoring six times himself.
It’s right up there as one of the best seasons of his career with the 25-year-old enjoying being healthy to give him a good chance to work on certain areas of his game.
“It’s been good this season and trying to stay healthy has been the biggest thing for myself,” Williams told the Bloop and A Blast podcast.
“I played last year and then had the broken leg the year before that, then there was the Covid year and then I had Tommy John.
“Then even before this season I managed to tear my bicep in the gym so I was a bit iffy coming into it, but I’m trying to stay as healthy as I can now and that’s been massive for me.
“I think the results are starting to show a little bit on the field which I’m happy with, but we’ve still got three more weeks for me to keep doing what I can to help the team out, and see where we end up after Round 10.”
One aspect that Williams has focused on working on with his game is his ability to change things up to better handle left-handed pitchers coming at him.
As a left-handed batter himself it does create for a different look with the approach opposed to the right-handed throwers, and Williams has been happy with how the changes he’s made have been working this season.
“I have actually been working on facing left-handers a little bit. It’s nothing crazy, it’s more so I’ve tried to be a little bit shorter against lefties and not trying to do as much,” he said.
“I know in the past I haven’t really differentiated between facing a rightie and a leftie, and it has caused me some problems. I’ve just been trying to maintain that mentality of the lefties to help me in the box which is helping me face them, and it seems to be working.”
There is now just three weeks remaining in the ABL regular season with the Heat currently sitting in fourth position with a 13-15 record.
They are fresh off splitting last weekend’s home series against the Adelaide Giants and while the Heat perhaps let one slip on Saturday, Williams was reasonably content to share the four games which was enough to see them move into fourth place.
“We obviously came away with the split in the end. Saturday was a tough one with the double-header and we probably put ourselves in a position to win Game 1 but ultimately ended up dropping that one in the end,” Williams said.
“But I think to come away with the split we were pretty happy with against a quality team against Adelaide. We’ll now look to regroup and go again this week against Melbourne this week.”
The Heat now remain at home at Empire Ballpark for the last series in front of the local fans this weekend with the opponents a Melbourne Aces team who swept them going back to the start of December.
Williams hasn’t forgotten that, but he is looking forward to a strong showing this weekend with the result crucial in the playoff battle between the Heat and Aces heading into the final fortnight.
“We’re feeling good going into this weekend. Obviously you look at what happened last time we played Melbourne and it wasn’t quite the results we were hoping for when we travelled over there,” Williams said.
“Hopefully we can get a few back on them when they come over to Perth this weekend. I think where we’re at right now from when we played them a few weeks ago we’re a bit of a different team with a few different guys coming into the line-up.
“We’ll see how we end up but I’m looking forward to the weekend.”