Vinnie Pasquantino is quietly putting together another strong season for the Kansas City Royals.
He got off to a slow start, but since the start of June, Pasquantino’s OPS sits at a very respectable .819. He added to his team-leading home run total with his 21st of the season on Tuesday night against the Washington Nationals, and he wound up with five RBIs on the night.
Twenty-one is also Pasquantino’s new career-high in home runs, and he also leads the team in RBIs with 76. His 110 OPS+ on the season isn’t necessarily world-beating, but it’s a number that lets the Royals be comfortable putting him in the middle of the order every night.
After the 8-5 win, which moved the Royals back to .500 at 60-60, manager Matt Quatraro spoke about the slugging first baseman’s two-hit night.
“There’s a reason he hits third for us pretty much every day of the season,” Quatraro said, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com. “There’s a lot that goes into that. There’s a lot of mental consistency that you need to hit in the middle of the order and go with the ups and downs.”
Baseball is such a mental game, and Pasquantino is the first to admit that his approach has been off at times this year. But when he came to the plate before his three-run home run in the third inning, the 27-year-old was in the perfect headspace.
“There have been times this year where I’m like, ‘I got to get this done. I’ve got to get this done,’” Pasquantino said, per Rogers. “I get up there in that at-bat and I’m like, ‘What an opportunity I have right now. Just go have a good at-bat.’ And I did.”
The Royals are going to need every big swing Pasquantino can give them down the stretch to have any shot at the playoffs. They still trail the New York Yankees by four games for the final wild card spot, and they would have to leapfrog the Cleveland Guardians and Texas Rangers as well.
But you have to beat up on the bad teams, and the Royals have one more opportunity to take down the hapless nationals in Wednesday’s series finale, which begins at 1:10 p.m. CT from Kauffman Stadium.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.si.com ’
