Mudcats' Gatewood plates six on career night

The 2017 season has been something of a coming-out party for Jake Gatewood, who was a .235 career hitter entering the campaign.
Milwaukee's No. 25 prospect matched a career high with six RBIs in Class A Advanced Carolina's 7-6 win over Winston-Salem. Gatewood, who went 3-for-4 with a home run and two doubles, said he owes much of his breakout to a routine offseason appointment.

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"I had 20-20, 20-15 vision my whole life," Gatewood said. "I checked with the eye doctor [this offseason] and [he said] I needed contacts. It's been huge for me. I started wearing them a little right before I left for Spring Training and noticed the difference right away. If I hadn't gotten that checkup, who knows if I'd be seeing the ball as well as I am."
Gatewood produced a .240/.268/.391 slash line in 126 games with Class A Wisconsin in 2016, but he's currently hitting .323/.400/.561 through 44 contests. The Clovis, California native leads the Carolina League with 18 doubles and ranks second with 33 runs scored behind Salem's Tate Matheny. Gatewood's 21 walks are 11 short of his career high set across two levels in 2015.
"Last year, I was kind of on top of the plate trying to pull everything," he said. "I realized my power is not just to left field, I have power everywhere. My power to left actually plays more when I'm playing to the center of the field. Every day, I'm taking it one pitch at a time and not taking anything for granted. When you're taking stuff for granted, you tend to give at-bats away."

The 2014 competitive-balance pick put that pull power to use in his first at-bat, taking a 3-1 pitch from Zach Thompson over the left-field fence for a three-run homer to open the scoring in the first inning. The blast was his seventh of the season, tying him with No. 5 Milwaukee prospect Isan Díaz for the team lead.
"The past week I was thinking too much at the plate," Gatewood said. "They had been coming in a little during the series, and I just figured 3-1, I was going to look for that middle-in pitch and I wasn't swinging at anything else. He threw it there and I was fortunate to put a good swing on it -- it felt good coming off the bat."
Gatewood grounded out against Thompson in the third before roping a double to center in the sixth to knock the right-hander out of the game. Facing a 6-4 deficit with two outs and the bases loaded an inning later against left-hander Ryan Riga, the Mudcats' first baseman cleared the bags by lining a double to center on the first pitch of the at-bat.
"I had taken a hittable pitch on the outside corner my previous at-bat, so I figured he was going to try to get ahead with something away," Gatewood said. "I was looking out there, just trying to see it and hit it, and he happened to throw it there where I was looking."
The 6-foot-5, 190-pound infielder also plated six runs on May 7, 2016 for Wisconsin against West Michigan. It marked the first two-homer game of his career -- he unloaded for two more long balls four days later against Clinton -- and included a grand slam and inside-the-park homer.
"That was pretty cool with the inside-the-parker, but I'll remember both equally," Gatewood said.

Brewers No. 2 prospect Corey Ray, ranked No. 25 overall by MLB.com, went 3-for-5 with two runs scored and his ninth stolen base of the season, and Diaz drove in a run with a seventh-inning walk.
No. 18 Milwaukee prospect Kodi Medeiros allowed a season-high six runs on seven hits but struck out a season-high eight with two walks over 5 1/3 innings.
No. 6 White Sox prospect Zack Collins, MLB.com's No. 73 overall prospect, doubled and scored twice for the Dash.