Jones powers up for 2 HRs, career-high 7 RBIs

Spencer Jones has a lot of reasons to be confident at the plate.

The Yankees' No. 2 prospect has some of the best power in the Minor Leagues, and he put that on display in his first Spring Training at-bat when he crushed a home run 470 feet.

Come June, the 6-foot-6 slugger's play at the plate has heated up to another level. And Jones capped off the strong month with his best professional game yet: a two-homer, four-hit performance with a career-high seven RBIs in Somerset's 13-3 win on Sunday at The Diamond.

"Lately I've been feeling pretty good, feeling confident, just focusing on the things that I control and trying to win every pitch," Jones said. "The biggest thing for me is just getting up to the plate with a lot of confidence and knowing I'm going to do damage in any situation that I'm in."

MLB's No. 65 prospect hit the ball with authority Sunday en route to tying Somerset's single-game RBI record as a Yankees affiliate. He lasered a ball up the middle for a single in the third inning before clobbering an opposite-field homer in the fifth. Two frames later, the 23-year-old crushed a double that one-hopped the right-center fence and slugged a grand slam to the same spot when he batted again in the seventh.

Jones worked a four-pitch walk in the ninth, the first time as a pro he safely reached five times. It was also the third multihomer game of his pro career and first of the season -- and raised his season OPS 46 points to .750.

But Jones hasn't always had that confidence at the plate this year. The Vanderbilt product returned in mid-April after missing a week-plus with a stiff neck and hit .320/.382/.540 in the opening month. From there, however, he cooled off significantly in May, batting just .170/.382/.220 with three extra-base hits.

Jones had made a preseason swing change to lower his hand position, which gave him more freedom to attack all parts of the plate, but he still felt like he wasn't attacking like normal with the bat.

"When you change some stuff around or you try make some adjustments, the biggest hurdle is not thinking about those changes as much," Jones said. "It's going out there and competing. I think that's kind of what was holding me back that one month. … I'm glad that May happened and I got to learn as much as possible."

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With his confidence back, Jones has been pummeling the ball consistently. Thirteen of the 2022 first-rounder's 32 knocks in June have gone for extra bases, aiding him to a .901 OPS.

And the definitive sign that the new stance and poise at the plate have meshed together, he has been able to cover the entire plate better than ever and use his 60-grade power to send homers out to any part of the park.

"I like to go up there with the confidence that I can hit any pitch in any part of the zone really hard," Jones said. "I take pride in being able to hit it to all fields and being able to do damage on pitches in the zone."