Golden rips three doubles for JetHawks
Sometimes all it takes to turn things around is the turn of a calendar page. Casey Golden ended April in a 1-for-29 funk. After a day off on Wednesday, he's notched six hits in his last 10 at-bats. Four of those came on Friday as the Rockies' No. 30 prospect tied his career
Sometimes all it takes to turn things around is the turn of a calendar page.
Selected by the Rockies in the 20th round of the 2017 Draft, Golden has a 60-grade power rating from MLB Pipeline. He led the South Atlantic League with 34 homers last year, batting .278/.359/.562 in 124 games. His debut in the California League got off to a solid start, with Golden collecting hits in 13 of his first 15 games. He had just one hit -- a solo homer -- over his last 10 games in April, however.
Gameday box score
"I started off the season pretty hot," the 24-year-old said. "Things were going my way and then I just started struggling. The last couple of weeks, I was hitting balls hard, but it's baseball. Balls get caught."
The slump was frustrating for Golden, who said his biggest regret was being unable to produce when the team needed it.
"I put a lot of pressure on myself already but not necessarily because I was disappointed I wasn't getting hits. I was more disappointed that I wasn't getting the job done at the plate that was being asked of me," he explained. "When there were runners in scoring position, I wasn't really doing my job. That was more of the frustrating part."
That's certainly changed since the start of the month. After picking up two hits in Thursday's extra-inning loss to Modesto, Golden followed with an almost historic night.
After
Golden tagged Leasher for his second two-bagger in as many innings, lofting a fly ball to left that sent Herrera to third. Both scored on
After striking out to end the sixth inning, the North Carolina-Wilmington product tagged
"I'm just looking at this as a new month and to go game to game. Hopefully, that'll allow me to have a solid month," Golden said. "So far, so good."
Lancaster starter and fifth-ranked Rockies prospect
Leasher fell to 0-4 after allowing eight runs on 10 hits and three walks with five strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings.
Katie Woo is a contributor to MiLB.com. Follow her on Twitter @katiejwoo.