On Sunday the Louisville Bats picked up a win that featured several big performances (more on that later). Spencer Steer didn’t have an eye-opening game as he went 1-3 with a walk, but it’s what those two times getting on base represented. Sunday was the 31st consecutive game he’s reached base, dating back to July 3rd when he was with the St. Paul Saints and the Minnesota Twins organization.
The streak began with St. Paul and it was probably one of the more lackluster 15 game on-base streaks you’re going to see. He hit just .228 and slugged just .316 over those 15 games played with St. Paul from the 3rd through the end of July. He did walk 14 times – which was three more times than he struck out in that stretch – but the hits simply weren’t falling in.
Then he was traded to Cincinnati. It took a few days into August before he played, but he returned to the field on August 4th with his new organization in Triple-A with the Louisville Bats. The hits began falling in for Steer once he put on a Bats jersey and in the 16 games since he did so he’s had hits in 14 of them (and he walked in the two that he didn’t, which strangely enough came in back-to-back games). Steer is now hitting .313/.397/.516 since the trade took place and is making a good argument that of the limited number of call ups in September when the roster expands by two players, that he should be one of them.
Cristian Santana’s heating back up
Earlier this season Cristian Santana went on a nice run for Louisville. From April 27th through June 12th he hit .364/.419/.492 over a 38-game stretch. Things slowed down from there, though. Over the 40 games that followed he hit .239/.278/.316 with just one home run. On August 16th he went 2-4 with a walk and a home run. That kicked off a 6-game run that saw him homer in four games, double once, and walk six times. On Sunday he hit a grand slam to keep things going. He’s hitting .368/.520/1.053 in that stretch. That’s helped boost his season slash line to .295/.348/.419, and half of his season’s eight home runs have come in the last week.
Yassel Pino’s hot hitting
Much like Cristian Santana, Yassel Pino is on a big run right now at the plate. And his hot run follows a massive slump from July 24th to August 7th where he went 1-34 in an 11-game stretch. He busted out of that slump on August 10th, going 1-3 with a home run and two RBI. He’s played 10 games (including that game) since he broke out of his slump and he’s been crushing the ball for Daytona. He’s gone 11-28 (.393) with 6 walks (and 7 strikeouts) with a double, triple, and four home runs – with one each in the last three games played.