Herbert keeps power flowing for Rome

Lucas Herbert entered last week's series against West Virginia hitting .146 with one homer this season. In the six games since, he's raised his average 71 points and quadrupled that home run total.
The Braves' No. 28 prospect homered for the third straight game Wednesday, but Class A Rome fell to Hagerstown, 8-3, at Municipal Stadium. He also singled and has hit safely in six consecutive contests.

"[There's] been a little bit of a change in mechanics. I've been working with our hitting coach, Bobby Moore, he's been getting me right," Herbert said. "I'm just getting in a routine once the season starts and it seems to be working for me lately, so I'm just sticking with it."
Box score
The 2015 second-round pick homered against the Power on Opening Day, then went 14 games without a long ball. He went deep -- again against West Virginia -- on Sunday to begin the streak and homered again off reliever Matthew DeRosier in Monday's series opener in Hagerstown.
On Wednesday, Herbert launched a solo shot to right-center on the first pitch he saw from Suns southpaw McKenzie Mills in the second inning. It was his first homer against a lefty this season and the first to the opposite field.
"I was just looking for something out over the plate that I can just drive out to the big part of the field," Herbert said. "[Mills] left something up a little bit and I just put a good swing on it and something good happened."
Herbert led off the fifth against Mills, who fell behind, 3-0, before working the count full. Herbert slapped a fastball on the payoff pitch, again going the other way on a ground single to right.
"Again, I was just looking for something out over the dish so that I could drive to the middle or the opposite field because, coming from that left side, he had that arm-side run to it," Herbert said. "The ball was running away from me a little bit, so I didn't want to try and pull it and roll it over on the ground, so I tried to stay through it and I found a hole on that right side."
Since he was drafted in 2015, Herbert couldn't help being grouped with his high school batterymate and best friend, Kolby Allard, MLB.com's No. 47 overall prospect.
Allard pitched for Rome most of last season, where Herbert called seven games for the Braves' third-ranked prospect. Herbert has since seen his friend climb to Double-A Mississippi while he remained in the South Atlantic League. But he wouldn't say his recent hot streak might be inspired by a desire to follow Allard up the ladder.
"I still talk to him every day, we're still best friends, but I wouldn't say that," Herbert said.
Besides being Allard's teammate, Herbert was known for his skills behind the plate as a high schooler. In his second season as Rome's primary backstop, he guides a staff that leads the South Atlantic League in ERA (2.71) and is tied for fourth with 203 hits allowed.

The R-Braves rotation boasts three of the organization's top 30 prospects, in Ian Anderson (No. 6), Bryse Wilson (No. 24) and Wednesday's starter, Joey Wentz (No. 13).
"Again, we have a couple of young pitchers, kind of the same thing as last year, but those guys have good makeup, they like to learn and it's just an honor to catch them," Herbert said. "I mean, it's pretty fun catching guys who know what they're doing up there on the bump. So everyone throws it well and commands multiple pitches around the strike zone, so it's definitely fun to catch."
Wentz allowed five runs on nine hits with four strikeouts in five innings and fell to 1-2 with a 3.96 ERA in five starts this season.
Nationals No. 4 prospect Carter Kieboom doubled, singled and drove in a run for Hagerstown, while No. 29 prospect Daniel Johnson doubled and singled twice and scored a run.