Even by Juan Diaz’s lofty standards, it was a big day.
A pair of Diaz home runs – a grand slam in the third and a two run blast in the seventh – gave the Goldeyes all they needed in a 7-4 victory over the visiting Gary SouthShore RailCats on Sunday afternoon.
With the win, the Fish swept Gary out of Canwest Park this weekend, won their sixth-straight game, improved to 37-23 after 60 games and moved three games in front of Gary in the race for first in the Northern League.
Diaz, who went three-for-five with two homers, two runs scored and six runs batted in, has been a monster at the plate for the past week. With Sunday’s performance, he is now batting .312 with nine doubles, 14 homers, 42 runs scored and 53 RBI. His slugging percentage is now .546. He has moved into a tie with teammate Kevin West for second place among the Northern League’s home run leaders. He’s also moved past West into second place (53) on the league’s RBI leaders list.
What was even more impressive on Sunday, however, was the way the fans at Canwest Park got excited whenever Big Juan strolled into the batter’s box. In fact, there is now a buzz in the crowd when Diaz steps into the on-deck circle.
“These fans are getting excited because they know whenever Juan is at the plate, there is a real chance something big will happen,” Forney said. “It’s no different than fans who went to NFL games and watched for Walter Payton to get the ball or Tony Dorsett or why baseball fans want to see Alex Rodriguez. They want to know what all the excitement is about. They want to see something special. And right now Juan is swinging the bat so well, when he steps in there, something exciting could happen.”
It was sure exciting on Sunday. When Diaz came up in the third with the bases loaded, Gary pitching coach Jamie Bennett went out to talk to starter Garret Holleran. At the time, Gary was leading 1-0 and obviously the RailCats wanted to be careful with Diaz, a guy they walked intentionally on two occasions on Saturday night.
That’s why it was so shocking that Diaz got a belt-high fastball right over the middle of the plate on Holleran’s first pitch and he immediately deposited the ball over the left field fence onto Waterfront Drive.
“I was standing in the dugout and I looked at West,” said Goldeyes third baseman Brent Metheny. “I think I saw two fastballs in the strike zone in the entire series with Gary. West just looked at me and shrugged. What can you say? Nobody believed Juan would see that pitch, a fastball right down the heart of the plate, especially with the bases loaded.”
As spectacular as Diaz was on Sunday, the game-winning RBI did not come off his bat. Metheny singled, stole second and came home on a base hit by Dee Brown.
“I’m just really proud of all the guys,” Forney said. “You just can’t draw it up any better. It was a great finish to a great homestand. We had great starting pitching in all six games, we got some timely hits – three walk-off home runs this week was pretty impressive. And it was nice to have that instant offence (15 homers in the last six games at home – seven against Gary and eight against Kansas City). It’s pretty hard to beat a team that’s getting great pitching and hitting a lot of home runs at the same time.
“We went through a tough patch after the all-star game, but the guys have really responded. It was a great week.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment