CarGo aims to prolong hot stretch
At his peak in 2010, Carlos Gonzalez was a bona fide five-tool player. The outfielder with a cannon for an arm set career marks with a .336 average, 117 RBIs and 26 stolen bases, in addition to blasting 34 home runs.
And while over time even Gonzalez himself admits some of those tools have diminished — “I’m not as speedy as I was back in my younger days,” he noted with his wide, trademark smile — there’s still plenty of hits left in the lefty’s bat, as evidenced by a torrid July that helped transform the Rockies into the hottest team in baseball.
Gonzalez hit for a .342 average
with a 1.041 OPS, five home runs and nine doubles in July heading into Monday night’s game at St. Louis.
Such a swagger was decidedly lacking during the first half of the season in which Gonzalez was essentially demoted to a platoon role in order for youngsters Noel Cuevas and David Dahl (both of whom are now in Triple-A Albuquerque) to get more time.
“It’s tough when a bunch of guys on the team are doing their jobs and you feel like you’re not contributing,” Gonzalez said. “But right now, things are going well, and we’re all fishing in the same boat. … I know this team is going to rely on me in the second half, and I’m ready to be the guy who comes through.”
Through June, Gonzalez was hitting just .268, with little power (five home runs) and striking out in nearly a quarter of his at-bats. But slight mechanical tweaks, and plenty of sweat equity in the cages working with hitting coaches Duane Espy and Jeff Salazar, have lowered that strikeout percentage to 17.3 as Gonzalez got more “quiet” in the batter’s box.
“We’ve seen CarGo make some offensive adjustments,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “A little bit with his leg kick, a little bit with his hand position, a little bit with a lesser wrapping of the bat behind the neck. There’s some mechanical things that CarGo worked on, and you’re seeing the results in feeling comfortable in the changes in his setup, his leg kick, the direction of his leg kick and the direction of his body.”
Gonzalez is also less coiled in his stance, which has helped him lower the barrel of the bat to get through the zone more quickly and enable him to hit to the opposite field more often. Opposing teams have shifted their defense to the right side in 61.5 percent of his at-bats this season. Early in the season, he wasn’t making teams pay for the gamble.
“He’s hitting the ball to all fields, his swing is aggressive and the bat speed is there,” Black said. “I was told last year when I came on board that when CarGo’s right, you’re seeing the ball driven to left-center, you’re seeing home runs to left field, home runs to center field. (Now) he’s using the whole field.”
And with Nolan Arenado leading the National League with 27 home runs, reigning batting champion Charlie Blackmon settling in following his first-half scuffles and Ian Desmond’s average coming around, Black knows a capable Gonzalez in the lineup makes the Rockies much more dangerous.
“This is vintage CarGo,” Black said. “We hope to continue that and ride this out, because he’s playing with a lot of confidence. There’s an energy to CarGo’s game in the dugout. There’s a presence to CarGo inside that clubhouse with the other players. It’s palpable.”