“He hit a ball to right-center over a tree here,” Mientkiewicz said. His towering home runs show he made the right decision. His son knew his future was in baseball, not football. His father, Adam, played two games at running back as a replacement player for the Vikings during the 1987 NFL strike season. He played quarterback at his Milwaukee area high school and drew interest from Division II schools. Walker, a left fielder, is chiseled at 6-4 and 225 pounds. “If I get a pitch up in the zone and I get the barrel to it, good stuff usually happens,” he said. “The more he makes the guy elevate the ball,” Mientkiewicz said, “the more balls fly over the fence.” Coaches don’t even mind if Walker takes a third strike slightly below his knees. Walker struggles with pitches at his knees, so either he or Allen buys a steak dinner every few weeks depending on Walker’s ability to avoid swinging at low pitches. He said he was looking at some of my swings and trying to mimic that while watching the TV. But it’s like the reverse image when you’re standing in a right-handed batting stance while being lined up with a lefty batting on TV. He told me he stood facing the TV, Clark said. Mientkiewicz credits hitting coach Chad Allen for that, and a running bet Allen made with Walker. As he continued watching, Murphy got into his batting stance. ![]() He’s also showing better discipline at the plate. He leads the league in RBI (46) and is second in slugging percentage (.573). Mientkiewicz admits he was “worried” about Walker facing Class AA pitching initially because of the way he looked striking out last season. ![]() “He’s my most improved hitter in the lineup.” “He’s striking out the same as he did last year but they look so much better, if that’s possible,” Mientkiewicz said. He also hit 52 home runs with 203 RBI combined in those two seasons. Walker struck out 115 times in Cedar Rapids in 2013 and 156 times at Fort Myers last season. Too often he swings and misses, especially on offspeed pitches, a puzzle he will need to solve to keep advancing up the organizational ladder. “I got that one pretty good,” Walker said. Several longtime followers of the Lookouts called it one of the longest home runs ever hit at AT&T Field. Walker usually sends it into orbit, like his recent mammoth blast against Biloxi.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |