CLEVELAND, Ohio – Jordan Luplow started the season in a 0-for-21 battle for the Indians.
It’s not like a 0-for-the-weekend hiccup. Genders like that tend to attract. They can plant themselves between your ears and begin to grow roots.
It hindered Indian acting manager Sandy Alomar not from Luplow on Saturday afternoon against the White Sox. Alomar saw signs of improvement in Luplow’s swing, and Guaranteed Rate Field has treated him well in his short time in the American League.
Luplow, meanwhile, kept recalling the words of his college coach, Fresno State’s Mike Batesole.
“My fellow coach once told me, ‘If you did not go 0-for-20, 0-for-30, you did not play the game long enough,'” Luplow said. “This is not an unknown territory. I I’m sure the majority of baseball boys have been that way. ‘
Luplow set his back in the past time with a two-run homer to finish a six-run fourth inning for the Indians. He hit a 90 mph fast car of Drew Anderson over the left field gate when the Indians beat the White Sox, 7-1.
“It felt like the whole world was just coming off my shoulders,” Luplow said of how it felt to walk around the bases. “It was great. I was happy to see all the smiles in the dugout and how happy they were for me. It shows what real guys they are to make me so happy to finally get out of there.”
Luplow missed more than a week of Spring Training II due to a bad back. That contributed to his slow start, but he thanked his teammates, coaches and training staff for the continuous encouragement.
“They’ve been right there the whole time,” Luplow said. ‘They kept telling me,‘ You’re almost there. You’ve almost there. ‘”
The White Sox were the good antidote to Luplow’s problems.
The home team was his fourth in eight games at the Guaranteed Rate Field. Overall, he has six homers in 15 games against the White Sox. He has four hits on the South Side of Chicago and all are homers.
“I do not know what is,” Luplow said. “It’s just to compete and to play these guys a lot.”
Alomar said he had a feeling Saturday could be Luplow’s day.
“I think Luplow took good bats, even though he was striking here and there,” Alomar said. ‘He went deep into counting and took better swings. I kind of had a good feeling he was going to do something today. ”
The fourth of six runs included a two-run homer by Franmil Reyes and a single by Domingo Santana. Luplow’s homer followed Santana’s single. It was the first time this year that the Indians had two homers in the same inning.
Luplow, Reyes and Santana are three players who should start producing from fifth place in the lineup down. Santana added a 476-foot leadoff homer in the eighth. The exit speed was 110.9 mph. It was the second-longest homer of Santana’s career, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com. The longest was at 26 July 2017 476 feet.
“I think once we (hitters) roll, knowing that we only need to set up a few runes with this pitching,” Luplow said, “it should relax everyone. Once everyone gets in a rhythm, gets more at-bats and in “things are going well, we’ll be a tight team. It’s going to be fun in the region.”
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