Tigers hot streak being driven by a most youthful, three-horse engine
Full article at Link.
Tigers rookies lead all of baseball with 28 homers. Keith has 10, Malloy and Perez seven each. Let’s break it down:
Since June 29, Malloy is hitting .302/.393/.623 with a 1.016 OPS, five home runs and 10 RBIs. In those 16 games, he’s raised his season OPS from .523 to .760.
Since June 27, Keith is hitting .302/.375/.616 with a .991 OPS, two doubles, two triples and seven homers.
Since June 22, Perez, who has been a consistent contributor since he debuted in April, is hitting .277/.333/.468 with an .801 OPS, six doubles and four homers.
“It’s cool to get the trust from your manager and to be able to hit in the heart of the lineup,” said Malloy, who is settling in at the No. 3 spot in the lineup behind Keith. “I don’t take that lightly. That’s such an honor. But at the end of the day, I don’t care where I hit. I just want to get in there and have productive at-bats and bang some balls around.
“But it is pretty cool. As a kid, everyone wants to hit in the heart of the lineup.”
Malloy, Keith, Perez and Greene are all under 24.
“If they are going to hit in that part of the order, of course the rest of the team is going to feed off that,” Hinch said. “But the one common trait among all of them is the chase (rate). When their chase rate is down, when they are swinging at the right pitches, we start to see the positive performance.
“It’s oversimplified from the dugout. It always looks easier than it is. But they’re very much tied together. They’re three of our better guys at not chasing and subsequently, they’re three of our better guys in terms of producing.”