LOS ANGELES — After enduring a sluggish begin to his sophomore season, Andy Pages is rewarding the Dodgers’ religion in him.
Pages had a four-hit, four-RBI day — each profession highs — in Sunday’s 9-2 win over the Pirates to lock down an much more spectacular feat: a mixed 10 hits throughout the three-game set at Dodger Stadium. 4 of these hits went for additional bases, three doubles within the first two video games and a homer within the finale.
Pages turned the primary Dodger since Freddie Freeman in 2023, and the thirteenth in franchise historical past relationship again to 1901, to report at the very least 10 hits throughout a three-game collection. The newest Main Leaguer to do this was Luis Arraez final Might.
“Typically, guys get in a tree, and he is in a tree proper now, and he had actually good swings,” Pirates supervisor Derek Shelton mentioned. “However it’s a type of issues the place all the pieces we threw at him, he hit.”
Courting again to final Tuesday in opposition to the Cubs, Pages has hit safely in 5 straight video games, with a number of hits in 4 of them. However the 24-year-old started choosing issues up on the plate even earlier than then: Since April 15, Pages has gone 16-for-32 with a 1.404 OPS in his previous 9 video games. His OPS has soared from .529 earlier than that span to a wholesome .861.
Solely Shohei Ohtani (.908) and Teoscar Hernández (.869) rank above Pages in that regard on the Dodgers.
“From the beginning, I have been feeling good,” Pages mentioned in Spanish. “However now I have been hitting the ball the place there aren’t folks, so now it is turning out higher.”
Pages had scuffled badly to open the season, a stretch that was round its worst halfway by the Dodgers’ first home street journey by Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. He wasn’t hitting, and he was making psychological errors on the bases and within the area.
Supervisor Dave Roberts gave him a time without work in Washington, and Pages responded by homering in consecutive video games as soon as he was again within the lineup. That did not flip right into a sizzling streak, however from that time on, Pages started wanting extra aggressive on the plate.
Pages has mentioned that hitting decrease within the order has been an adjustment for him. Whereas he was struggling on the plate, he discovered himself overthinking about his position, whereas now, he is tried to focus extra on enjoying to his strengths.
“I’ve by no means hit in that spot within the order,” Pages mentioned. “At first I used to be extra passive, making an attempt to see as many pitches as potential. … In my profession, that is by no means helped me as a result of I get too passive. The pitches within the zone, I have to hit.”
Earlier than the sport, Roberts described Pages’ transformation as “one thousand p.c” extra psychological, somewhat than mechanical. That isn’t uncommon for younger gamers striving to fulfill excessive expectations.
“It may be powerful,” mentioned Hernández, who hit his 2 hundredth profession homer on Sunday and has been a mentor to Pages. “I went by that, and it was not enjoyable. However on the identical time, it’s a must to undergo that to get to the nice moments, the moments that he is going by proper now.”
