Sweet Swing of Success

If there’s one thing father and daughter can agree on, it’s Gavin Sheet’s swing. What a thing of beauty. Sheets flaunted it yesterday, going 3-for-4 with four RBIs in the White Sox 9-3 romp over the visiting Angels. In the second inning, the left-handed hitting Sheets grounded an 0-2 pitch to the opposite field for an RBI single. Then, in the third on a full count, the 25-year old rookie launched an absolute bomb to right field for a three-run homerun; it was measured at 447 feet. In the fifth, Sheets skied a 2-2 pitch I’m pretty sure right fielder Juan Lagares lost track of because the ball was hit so high. What might have started off looking like a flyball to medium right field ended up on the warning track for a double. On the season, in 118 at-bats Sheets is hitting .237 with nine homers and 26 RBIs. By comparison, in 215 at-bats Luis Robert is hitting a robust .349 with eight homers and 28 RBIs. As you would expect with a speed merchant, Robert has scored 35 runs to Sheets’ 16. Robert has struck out in 20 percent of his plate appearances, Sheets in 21 percent (and that’s rounding up). In no way am I suggesting there’s less to Robert than meets the eye; I mean, the ball he hit last night in the second inning went 434 feet. What I am suggesting is Sheets is an offensive talent in the same ballpark as Robert, just a year behind in development. Barring injury or a slump that brings him crashing to the middle of the earth, Sheets has turned himself into a crucial part of the lineup from this point on. And on that my daughter will agree.