YAKIMA, Wash. — Former Kentucky outfielder and Lexington native Collin Cowgill, playing in the short-season Northwest League, belted three home runs in a win over the Spokane Indians on Wednesday night, giving him a league-high 10 home runs in his first 15 professional games.
Cowgill, a 5-foot-9, 195-pound outfielder, is on pace to shatter the short-season record for home runs in a season, halfway to William Darkis? 1980 single-season record of 25. In leading the Yakima Bears to a thrilling 11-inning win Wednesday, Cowgill went 4-for-6 with four runs scored, three homers and five RBI, taking 13 total bases in the game.
On the year, Cowgill, who has been playing centerfield and hitting in the two-hole, has hit for a .279 average, scoring 18 times on 17 hits, adding two doubles and a league-high 24 RBI, drawing nine walks and swiping 2-of-2 bases.
Just three nights away from homering twice and driving in a career-high six runs ? including his first career grand slam ? Cowgill boosted two-run jacks in the third and fifth inning, later leading off the ninth inning with his 10th homer, forcing extra innings.
“The count was 1-2 or 2-2 and the guy kind of left a changeup over the middle part of the plate,” Cowgill said, according to Alan Friedman of MLB.com. “I hit it well to right-center field.”
Cowgill?s most important at bat of the night came in the 11th inning with the bases empty and the Bears down to their final out, ripping a single to spark the game-winning three-run rally.
“There were two outs and we needed to get something going,” Cowgill detailed. “At that point, I wasn’t trying to do too much. Even if another ball goes out of the yard, it doesn’t really do anything. We needed baserunners.
“Everybody on this team contributed,” Cowgill said. “It was just a great game, a lot of fun to be part of.”
Cowgill, a fifth-round pick in the 2008 MLB Draft of the Arizona Diamondbacks, leads all short-season players in home runs. With three homers in a game, Cowgill was one shy of Brandon Cashman?s 2004 record for homers in a game.
“It’s kind of weird,” Cowgill said. “I ended up the [college] season in a big slump. I’d been struggling the last month or so, my power had gone down.”
Cowgill ended 2008 as a first-team All-American, batting .361 with 19 home runs and 60 RBI, stealing 23-of-27 bases and drawing a team-best 49 walks. Cowgill added 15 doubles and two triples during the year, contributing seven outfield assists ? five of which came as runners attempted to score from second on a routine single to the outfield.
Cowgill, a former Kentucky High School Mr. Baseball, has been working with Bears hitting coach Chris Chris Briones, trying to make his swing “shorter and quicker” as he continues the transition from metal bats to wood.
“I hit pretty much every day and I’m back to where I was the first couple of months of the college season,” Cowgill said. “I don’t think [I?ve ever had a stretch like this]. I had a stretch in high school, but nothing like this, at this level. It’s a different kind of weird experience.
“This is a start anyone would want to have to their professional career,” he added. “Hopefully, it’ll get better.”
John Shelby Starts Another Hit Streak
Collin Cowgill is not the only former Wildcat to get off to a good season start in the minor leagues, as John Shelby, a cornerstone of the 2006 Southeastern Conference Championship club, is currently riding a 10-game hit streak with the high-A Winston Salem Warthogs.
Shelby, a Lexington native and Tates Creek High School graduate, is in quest of his second major hitting streak in professional baseball, as the 2006 fifth-round pick of the White Sox, compiled a 22-game streak a year ago, the longest streak of the season by a White Sox farmhand and the second longest in the South Atlantic League in 2007.
On the season, Shelby is hitting .277 in 62 games, adding 15 doubles, two triples and eight home runs, driving in 40 RBI and swiping 18-of-21 bases. Shelby?s hit streak dates back to June 19 and during the span, he is hitting .421 (16-for-38) with four doubles, a triple, a home run and 10 RBI.
In 2007, with Class A Kannapolis, batting .301 (147-for-488) with 16 homers, and 79 RBI in 122 games. Shelby ranked among organizational leaders in hits (2nd), triples (2nd, nine), extra-base hits (3rd, 60), doubles(3rd, 35), total bases (T3rd, 248), runs (T4th, 83), RBIs (5th), home runs (6th), average (T7th), slugging percentage (8th, .508) and stolen bases (9th, 19). Shelby also ranked second in the South Atlantic League in triples and third in extra-base hits. Shelby hit safely in 31 of his final 33 contests, batting .357 (51-for-143) with 41 RBI in that span, appearing in 68 games in the outfield and 54 at second base.
