SPOKANE, Wash. — Former University of Tennessee slugger and Colorado Rockies' top 10 prospect Jordan Beck began his Spokane Indians career with a bang.
Beck won the annual home run derby at Fan Fest and showed off the type of power that made him a first round draft pick in 2022.
Once games began, Beck struggled mightily. Eight games into the season, the outfielder was hitting .037. His timing was off and he was missing pitches he normally would hit out of the ballpark.
"At the end of the day, it's baseball. It's tough, you are going to fail a ton so you just have to roll with the punches. I rolled with the punches and just kept it going," Beck said.
After he was dropped to seventh in the Indians lineup and made a small mechanical adjustment in his approach, Beck regained his powerful form.
"I just got into a better ready position to be honest," Beck said. "Before, I was taking too long getting to that position and I was getting beat with a lot of pitches. When you foul pitches off in this league and in this time now, it is hard to hit, but if you foul less off, you are going to do better."
Following his adjustment, Mike Honcho, as he was affectionately nicknamed by college head coach Tony Vitello, has become the Northwest League leader in home runs and raised his average 250 points en route to a pair of NWL player of the week honors in the month of May.
"Getting to a better postion helped me not miss the pitches I was missing before and at the same time, I was swinging at better pitches. Before, I might have chased a couple more or missed a couple more pitches here and there and that puts you behind," Beck said.
Despite his torrid first three weeks of May, Beck has struggled recently, but he is keeping that in perspective.
"You are going to struggle in a different way each time and that is why we come back to this sport believe it or not. It sounds crazy, but we all come back because it is hard and never gives us the right answer and we want to keep trying to figure it out," Beck said.
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