After cycle, Grisham awaits imminent callup

OAKLAND -- What’s better than hitting for the cycle with two home runs?

Riding that cycle to the Major Leagues.

Hot-hitting Brewers prospect Trent Grisham will be called up to the Major Leagues on Thursday and will start Milwaukee’s series finale against the A’s somewhere in the outfield, manager Craig Counsell said.

Grisham, 22, is ranked No. 6 on MLB Pipeline’s list of the Brewers’ top prospects, but there’s no one swinging it better in Minor League Baseball. A weeks-long hot streak culminated Tuesday, when Grisham hit home runs in his first two at-bats followed by a single, a double and a triple to hit for San Antonio’s first cycle in eight years. The performance boosted his average to .381 with 13 home runs, a .776 slugging percentage and a 1.247 OPS in 34 games at the Triple-A level following a promotion from Double-A Biloxi.

All told, Grisham is hitting .300 with a 1.010 OPS in 441 Minor League plate appearances this season. It’s a breakthrough for the 2015 first-round Draft pick who used to go by the name Trent Clark, but changed his last name to honor the mother who raised him.

“We’re trying to get a player that’s playing really well and inject him into our big league roster,” Counsell said. “He’s playing his butt off right now. Trent’s had some rough seasons, frankly, and he’s having an incredible season this year. A lot of credit to him -- he’s a first-round pick who’s a talented kid who had a really good first year in pro ball and then struggled. But all the credit goes to him, man. He’s turned it around.

“He’s had a season that, man, you’ve got to take note of it. You really do. What he’s been doing at Triple-A since he got there is out-of-this-world-type stuff. It’s like the stuff [Christian] Yelich was doing last year, basically. Maybe even a little better. So we’ve taken note of it. We feel like it’s a hot player and a player who’s playing really well and we want to put that on the big league roster and get him in there.”

Grisham will be the third top 10 Brewers prospect called up to the Major Leagues this season, following second baseman Keston Hiura and infielder Mauricio Dubon, who was traded Wednesday to the Giants in a deal for pitching.

“I’ve been with [Grisham] for a while, and he’s always been a good player where you know he’s capable of doing a little bit of everything,” Hiura said. “This year, he’s kind of been unhuman from the short time I saw him in San Antonio. I’ve been keeping track with the team over there and seeing what he’s doing. It’s really cool to see it all come together.”