Gallo’s early power surge exciting, important
SURPRISE, Ariz. — Far be it for us to overreact to anything from the first week of spring training, when the winds are abundant, the pitching rusty and the games currently shortened to something your fifth grader would play.
The only differences — these guys don’t go to Dairy Queen afterward, and fans still pay full price, if they dare to show up.
But, wow, have you caught sight of Joey Gallo lately? Or, more accurately, one of his homers?
He’s launching more frequently than Elon Musk. Sent up another orbiter Thursday afternoon in his third exhibition of the spring. That’s three games for Gallo, three huge blasts for mankind.
Thursday, his two-out, threerun homer on a full-count pushed the Rangers to their first exhibition win of the spring, a 5-3 seveninning affair over San Diego. It was one of three times Thursday umpires had to shoo teams off the field after a manager had given the international hand signal for “no mas,” after an individual pitcher’s pitch count had gotten the better of him. If you are keeping track, and just for pettiness’ sake, I was, the Rangers have had eight innings shortened by mercy in the first five games of the spring. And to think: 1,920 fans actually paid money to watch a B-game.
Anyway, enough about the mercy and shortened-game rules. They have been put in place to protect pitchers early in camp.
About Gallo and his homers: Let’s all take a deep breath and remember that the homer Thursday came off lefty Brady Feigl, who has pitched professionally for a decade, but never in the majors and who is best known as being the doppelganger of, well, another minor league lefty also named Brady Feigl. You may recall this from the three years this Feigl spent in the Rangers’ minor league system. Like the Feigl trivia, Gallo’s spring binge is exciting, but wholly unimportant.
That is, unless it is.
This whole deal might actually matter. Because Gallo’s head space is vital to his success. Last year, he may have domed himself out by sweating the size of Globe Life Field, then panicking after a shortened version of Spring Training 2.0 because of a positive COVID-19 test.
What we can report, if even from afar this early — there doesn’t seem to be anything going on in Gallo’s head. Wait. You know what we mean.
His offseason was dual-focused. On the baseball side, he wanted to reduce his launch angle a little bit, turning more pop-ups into linedrives. On the mental side — get in the habit of being more positive. Here’s where the results help. If trying to build up the mental muscle memory to stay positive, even in the face of a slump, early results may help make reinforcement stick for later.
“I didn’t really perform last year,” Gallo said. “I wanted to get out and make up for that and start performing again and feeling like I’m back on track. For me, it is spring training, but they are important at-bats. It’s easier to be positive when the results are positive all the time. I’m excited to see how I handle that when I go 0-forthree games or something. I’m excited to keep working on it.”
“I’m really proud of him,” manager Chris Woodward said. “He’s done everything that we talked about all offseason. The real test comes when you struggle, and the team struggles. But I believe in him, man. He’s in a really good place.”
Woodward cited that Gallo’s homered off a lefty, homered twice with two strikes, driven balls in situations that would normally work against him. He also walked against a lefty Thursday and had a bloop double that was really a pop up to shallow left that vexed San Diego’s fielders in the Surprise sun. The point: Gallo hustled all the way. On a pop up. In the first week of spring.
At night, he goes back to the house he shares with teammate Willie Calhoun and — no kidding — they try to make sure they verbally encourage one another.
Look, it’s a crucial year for Gallo. And a crucial year for the Rangers in deciding if he fits into their future — as a guy to invest in heavily or as a trade chip to accelerate the rebuild. The Rangers were open to discussing him with others last year but didn’t find what they felt was commensurate return. If this season goes as expected for the team, they will likely have to revisit that decision this summer.
Gallo knows that. And he knows worrying too much about it could only wreck his future, one way or another. His answer to one simple question — “How do you feel?” — says all it needs to about where his investment lies:
“I’ve been pretty pleased with everything we’re getting out of our guys,” he said.