Dodgers News: Adrian Gonzalez Beginning To Break Out Of Slump
Compounding the loss was the Dodgers squandered the opportunity to pickup a full game on the San Francisco Giants and they saw Yasiel Puig leave the game in the eighth inning with a left hip muscle strain.
However, there were some reasons for the Dodgers to be optimistic, one of which is Adrian Gonzalez. The Dodger first baseman went 1-for-3 with an RBI double and run scored. It was Gonzalez’s second consecutive game with a double and RBI as he appears to be surfacing from his slump.
During the poor stretch for Gonzalez, he maintained he wasn’t concerned and believed he would right the ship, which he reiterated Friday, via Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times:
I went through a stretch there where I felt like I was just a click off,” he said. “Every time I did square up the ball, which wasn’t too often, I was hitting it right at them.
As Gonzalez notes, there were instances when he put a good swing on the ball, only to see it hit right into a defensive shift. Perhaps some of Gonzalez’s patience in fighting through his slump is related to his awareness they are likely to occur, given the type of hitter he is:
For a guy like me, where I have to find holes or hit it over their heads, I go through about two or three of these funks a year. I have to keep battling through them, keep working in the cage.”
Gonzalez has recorded at least one hit in seven of the last 10 games, has 10 total hits, including five doubles to go with five RBIs. The improved hitting may be coming at an opportune time as the Dodgers may need to rely more heavily on Gonzalez should Yasiel Puig miss time with his latest hip injury.
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Puig needs a rest, even if he doesn’t want it, he hasn’t hit a line drive in almost a week, he’s just killing worms, he apparently can’t fire his hip out, so he isn’t turning on the ball fast enough. Last year Kemp kept playing on a bad ankle, consequently even after surgery he isn’t back to normal, sometimes the desire to compete replaces common sense.