Jose Siri had a huge day at the plate for the Billings Mustangs on Sunday afternoon. The speedy outfielder got the start in right field and would make five trips to the plate on the day.
In the first at-bat he saw two pitches and the second one left the ballpark, flying over the left field wall. He stepped to the plate again in the 3rd inning, this time jumping ahead to a 3-1 count before hitting the 5th pitch of the at-bat over the center field wall for his another home run.
Ogden had seen enough of what Jose Siri could go against pitcher Rob McDonnell, so they brought in reliever Gregor Mora. It didn’t make a difference. After a ball to lead off the at-bat the Dominican native sent the second offering over the wall in right-center field for his another home run.
He would come back to the plate in the 6th inning and he battled for eight pitches before drawing a walk. In the 7th inning Siri would make his last trip to the plate on the day. After swinging through the first offering from Conor Costollo he singled on a line drive to left field to cap off his day.
Four hits. Three homers, all to different parts of the field. A walk. That’s what we call a good day at the ballpark.
While they haven’t all been as good as today was, a lot of good days have been going on for the 21-year-old outfielder since he joined the Mustangs. He’s hitting .373/.396/.641 for Billings over the course of 151 plate appearances. This is after he struggled mightily with the Dayton Dragons in April and early May, hitting just .145/.163/.181 before being sent back to extended spring training.
There are a few drastic differences between what the outfielder has been doing at the plate between the two stops. First is that he’s cut his strikeout rate from 39.1% with Dayton down to 25.1% with Billings. That’s still quite high, but it’s an enormous improvement. The second is that he’s hitting for significantly more power. The Pioneer League plays very hitter friendly, and the Midwest League, especially early in the season, plays a bit pitcher friendly, so that is a small part of the difference. But, in Dayton he had an isolated power (SLG-AVG) of just .036. With Billings it’s now .268. To put that into a big league comparison, that would rank 9th in Major League Baseball this season, just behind Edwin Encarnacion.
The third difference, and it’s a big one, is his batting average on balls in play. With Dayton it was just .240. The league average is just over .300. In Billings, Siri has a batting average on balls in play of .461. That’s probably the highest batting average on balls in play that I can recall seeing, and by a significant margin. It’s helped him carry an incredibly high batting average overall (he’s now 3rd in the league with his .373 average) and boost his on-base percentage to a high level despite just five walks with the Mustangs.