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David Peralta got his foot down, stayed back and uncorked the same sweet, left-handed swing the Diamondbacks have seen from him for years.
The resulting home run in the seventh inning helped the Diamondbacks to a 9-6 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night. Peralta took a similar cut the night before, launching a go-ahead homer in the eighth inning of another win at Angel Stadium.
That the swings coincided with a pair of Diamondbacks victories probably is no coincidence. That the power hasn’t been showing up very often for him this season — and that the Diamondbacks haven’t been winning — probably is no coincidence, either.
Peralta, of course, is but one of several hitters in the Diamondbacks’ lineup to have disappointed this year. The performance of the offense rests on more shoulders than his.
But Peralta is under contract beyond this season, as are most of the other position players on the roster, and while the offense’s performance the past two nights won’t be impacting any pennant races, it can at least provide some reason to be hopeful that things might play out differently in 2021.
“I know I’ve said it before,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said, “(but) I think some of these guys are so passionate about doing well and such good team players, that when they don’t have those results it becomes very frustrating. I think this group has battled some frustration for several weeks, but you’re watching all that come out in a different way today. These guys are going out and executing.”
Two days ago, Peralta owned just a .390 slugging, which would have easily ranked as the lowest of his career, lower even than the seasons in which he played through wrist and shoulder injuries. Entering Tuesday, he had just three home runs in 178 plate appearances.
It was a little over a year ago that Peralta underwent what was described as a “clean-up” of the AC joint in his right shoulder. Such procedures often can take an extended period of time to fully recover, but Peralta did not offer it as an explanation for his down year.
Instead, he pointed to his pitch selection as the primary culprit, tracing his success the past two days to his ability to maintain discipline during his at-bats.
“You have your days where you’re trying to do too much,” Peralta said. “I think that’s a mistake that I can say I’ve been doing. I want to do too much, I want to swing and get a base hit and I forget that I have to be more disciplined at home plate.”
Perhaps adding to his overaggressiveness, he acknowledged, is the fact that so many hitters around him are struggling as well, creating a sort of domino effect of bad at-bats.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “At the same time, you have to take a big breath and just calm down and try to slow the game down. It’s happening right now and that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re just going to keep trying to do the same thing and finish strong the rest of the season.”
With Peralta signed for the next two seasons at $7.5 million per year, the Diamondbacks would benefit from the return of his once-potent bat. They entered Wednesday ranked third-to-last in the National League in left field production; two years ago, when Peralta slashed .293/.352/.516, they ranked fourth.
Over the past two days, the Diamondbacks have scored 18 runs, collected 22 hits and bashed seven home runs. Kole Calhoun has connected for three of them. Of course, the Diamondbacks have done their damage against the Angels’ dismal pitching staff, but that doesn’t change their opinion that this is the kind of production they had expected out of themselves on a regular basis through the season’s first 40 games.
“Obviously, we had a bad stretch where we didn’t score a lot of runs and lost a lot of games,” Diamondbacks shortstop Nick Ahmed said. “I don’t know if there’s regret or what, but in a long season of 162 (games), you’re going to go through stretches like that inevitably, no matter how good your offense is.
“Unfortunately, ours was in the beginning part of the season and it’s a short season so it got magnified, and I think guys started to try too hard or put pressure on themselves and it probably got extended longer than it should have.”
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