EL average leader Ruta extends hitting streak to eight in Thunder’s win
TRENTON » Ben Ruta trusted in his offseason preparation, but even he did not expect to be hitting quite like this. No minor league baseball player can — especially after jumping two levels in the system.
Still, it’s been a dream start in Double-A for the West Windsor-Plainsboro South graduate.
Ruta batted 1-for-3 to extend his hitting streak to eight games as the Thunder beat Portland, 3-1, Saturday in front of 3,473 fans at Arm & Hammer Park.
Through the first two and a half weeks of the season, the 23-year-old left fielder leads the Eastern League with a .425 batting average. He has 14 singles and three doubles in 40 at-bats. No one else is hitting over .400.
“You want to get off to a hot start and show that you can play here fast and early. It just gives you more confidence every day when you step on the field,” said Ruta, who spent all of 2017 with LowA Charleston. “(Double-A pitchers) definitely have more of a plan of what they’re doing and they read your swings more and pitch based off that. But in the same sense, you’re bringing a plan to the plate as well, so you’re just trying to execute that against them.”
Ruta’s opposite-field single in the fourth off Portland lefty Dedgar Jimenez followed a tworun shot by Jhalan Jackson, his sixth homer of the year. Ruta then swiped second base, advanced to third on an overthrow and later scored on a groundout.
He is now tied for fourth in the league with five stolen bases in five attempts — an element of the contact hitter’s game that figures to be integral in his path to the big leagues.
“That’s definitely going to be part of his M.O.,” manager Jay Bell said. “The nice thing about him is he’s hitting well, his value is going up and it can only be positive for his psyche and his career. Certainly, he’s on the radar. There’s no doubt about that.”
Ruta’s strong play could create some difficult roster decisions for the Yankees.
Jeff Hendrix is expected to come off the disabled list in the near future. He and three of the four active outfielders in Trenton have already experienced a significant number of at-bats at High-A Tampa. Ruta bypassed that level out of personnel necessity.
The Yankees also have Clint Frazier, Billy McKinney and Jacoby Ellsbury on the road back from injuries, so the position will soon face ripple effects and potential logjams throughout the system.
“You never know what’s going to happen. Injuries happen; things happen,” Bell said. “He’s going to end up right where he’s supposed to be. It doesn’t matter whether he’s in Tampa or whether he’s here. He needs to just keep on getting after it every single day as best as he possibly can wherever he’s at to make a really solid impression.”
Right-hander Will Carter labored through 4 1/3 innings with 92 pitches — seven 3-2 counts and five 2-0 counts. The 2015 14th-round pick limited the damage to one run thanks in part to two double plays, but six hits and three walks forced Bell to utilize the bullpen early.
Hard-throwing righty Jose Mesa Jr. earned the win after tossing two scoreless innings while striking out three.
The 24-year-old son of former All-Star closer Jose Mesa is coming off an excellent 2017 season in which he compiled 101 strikeouts and a 1.93 ERA in 84 innings (29 outings) between High-A and Double-A.
“This is what I like about him: There’s never a moment in the game that he lets it spin out of control,”
Bell said. “He tends to stay in control of his emotions. It’s one of the things I really like about his ability. It’s not so much that his stuff is any better or any greater than anybody else’s. It’s just that he commands that mound pretty well. He’s able to throw a lot of different pitches in different situations, and because of that, nobody really gets a good fix on him.”