Lux rips lucky tight pants, hits slam anyway

LOS ANGELES -- After hitting his first homer of the season, a game-winning blast against the Mariners in the first game of the current nine-game homestand, Gavin Lux said he was going to stick to wearing the tight baseball pants he wears to copy Walker Buehler during his starts.

Lux revealed postgame that he ripped his pants in the sixth inning as he slid into third and had to change into regular pants. That didn’t stop him from mashing, as he launched his first career grand slam in the Dodgers’ 9-1 win over the D-backs on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.

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“I was like, ‘Oh, man, I have to change out of the pants,’” Lux said on SportsNet LA. “I was actually a little hurt, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow with the pants. I have no clue.”

Tight pants or regular pants, it hasn’t seemed to matter for Lux over the last two weeks. On May 2 against the Brewers, Lux recorded two hits. After that game, Lux said he had made some minor adjustments to his swing and that things were beginning to click for him at the plate. He added that he felt a lot like he did in 2019, when he hit .392 at Triple-A and became one of the top prospects in baseball.

Lux has also benefited from consistent playing time and reinforcement that he’s now a full-time big leaguer. Since then, Lux has looked every bit the player the Dodgers hoped he would become. With a 2-for-4 performance on Tuesday, Lux is hitting .346 with 12 RBIs during that span. He has also hit safely in seven of his last eight games.

“Just kind of getting more comfortable after coming back from the wrist injury,” Lux said. “I feel like the more at-bats I get, the more comfortable [I get] and the more my timing gets better. That’s really just been the focus, is timing and rhythm and trying to get a good pitch to hit and not missing it.”

He certainly didn’t miss the Kevin Ginkel offering in the seventh inning. Lux said he was looking for a pitch a little up in the zone. He got one close enough and turned on it, sending it just over the short porch in left field. Mookie Betts and Chris Taylor also added homers on Tuesday and Julio Urías delivered another stellar outing as everything appears to be clicking again for the Dodgers.

“He’s looked really good,” Taylor said of Lux. “You can tell he’s much more comfortable up there. You’re seeing the ball carry a little bit more. He’s driving it to the gaps. Now you’re starting to see the results, and you can tell he has more aggression in his swing … I think that’s when he’s at his best.”

Lux's defense at shortstop and second base have also been impressive. Lux leads all Dodgers this season with 3 outs above average. With Corey Seager out for possibly a couple of months with a fractured hand, the Dodgers are going to rely on Lux to play shortstop every day moving forward. They’re also going to need his offensive production. So far, he’s stepping right in.

“He's just coming from a place of 'yes' and 'go' with his swing where I think that hitters, at times, have a tendency to be in between when you start kind of overthinking things,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “But right now he's looking for his zone and his go zone, and he's doing it and if it's not there, he's checking off.”

It look Lux a couple of seasons to finally go from top prospect to an everyday big leaguer, and he still has more to prove. But Lux is giving the Dodgers a much-needed boost, and the club is 6-1 since he hit that go-ahead homer against the Mariners.

“He’s freed himself to basically be himself on a baseball field,” Roberts said. “He’s just playing more relaxed. The focus is obviously still there. But he’s letting his ability take over, and the results have been very good. You look at what he’s done, he’s played as well as anybody this month -- on both sides of the baseball.”