Ockimey continues hot start with four hits

A difficult March had Josh Ockimey searching for answers, but he found them quickly once the Minor League season got underway.
Boston's No. 8 prospect registered his third career four-hit game in Class A Advanced Salem's 11-5 win over Lynchburg at Calvin Falwell Field on Tuesday. He collected three singles and a double in five at-bats to raise his early-season average to .522.

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"I had a rough Spring Training," Ockimey said. "I think I walked out of there with only three or four hits, so I'm just happy about getting that good feeling back right now."
The 21-year-old first baseman grounded out in the first inning, but reached base in all of his remaining at-bats. He lined a single to center field in the third, doubled to left in the fifth, singled to right in the sixth and beat out a ground ball to third base in the eighth.
"I got lucky on a couple of them," the left-handed hitter said. "I think I had two or three well-hit balls and one of them got caught right at shortstop and two of them just kind of dropped in there, but that's just baseball."
Last year, teams started playing the shift against Ockimey, and that strategy has continued into this season. It didn't slow him down Tuesday.
"I really just had to learn to accept it because you can hit a ball hard and a fielder would be right there and there's nothing much I could really do about that," he said. "I think that matured me a lot too. I wasn't coming in mad and was just accepting it."
The four-hit game marked the 2014 fifth-round pick's first since last April 17 when he was with Class A Greenville in the South Atlantic League. Ockimey posted a strong first half with a slash line of .297/.435/.531, but faded after the All-Star break, batting .152/.291/.313.
"One thing I took away from that stretch was that I kind of got pull-happy for about three weeks," he said. "I started working back toward the middle of the field, but then you look up and it was August."
The Philadelphia native focused on honing his swing during the offseason, hoping he could make the most out of the chances he'll get this year.
"I noticed one thing about big leaguers is that when they get their pitch, they don't miss it," Ockimey said. "I think that's a really big separator between them and us. I figured the more I can repeat my swing and really have a good idea of the zone where I'm able to work toward that pitch, then I'll be all right."

Ockimey delivered a three-run homer in his 2017 debut against Down East, then posted a three-hit game against the Wood Ducks two days later and another one against the Hillcats on Monday.
"I wanted to get off to a good start, but I'm really focusing on doing stuff to help my team win rather than worrying about getting a hit to raise my average," he said. "That's not me."
The rest of the Red Sox have kept pace -- the team has batted .315 in the early going to pace the Carolina League.
"It's really nice to have that kind of production," Ockimey said. "Because say there are two outs and someone gets on with a hit, the next thing you know it just keeps going. We've all been playing together, and even in the clubhouse, we are together as a team. If one guy is happy, everybody else is happy."
Deiner Lopez also amassed four hits and Josh Tobias belted a three-run long ball for Salem.
Boston's seventh-ranked prospect Travis Lakins (1-0) allowed two runs -- one earned -- on five hits and a walk while striking out eight over six innings.
Yonathan Mendoza had three hits and three RBIs for Lynchburg.