Daza emulates hometown hero Miggy

DENVER -- Yonathan Daza grew up admiring the pride of his hometown of Maracay, Venezuela -- future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera.

Cabrera took the time to meet Daza, even sign a few things for him. Daza kept dreaming. Even at 27 and making the Rockies’ Opening Day roster for the first time, Daza watched with admiration as Cabrera blasted the Majors’ first home run of 2021 in a snow globe that was Detroit's Comerica Park.

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It's unknown how many of Cabrera’s 488 homers have come with the white stuff falling. But on a snowy, cold Wednesday afternoon at Coors Field, Daza turned his first career homer into a Miggy imitation.

With flurries falling and the air biting at 34 degrees, Daza sent a pitch from Astros starting pitcher José Urquidy into the left-field stands to give the Rockies the lead for good in their 6-3 victory. Colorado, which also benefited from six innings of two-hit pitching from lefty Austin Gomber, has won consecutive games for just the second time this season.

Not only had Daza never homered, but he’d never before played in snow.

“It’s all incredible,” Daza said in Spanish, with bullpen catcher Aaron Muñoz translating. “I just remember one of my favorite players, Miguel Cabrera, and I kind of had that feeling today going into the game.”

Just a few weeks ago in the sun of Arizona, Daza was trying to hold onto his career. Out of Minor League options, he had to make the big league club or else go through the uncertainty of being exposed to waivers and the risk of losing his status as a Major League roster player. Now he is seizing opportunities that come with being part of a team that -- beyond Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story and C.J. Cron -- is full of players in various stages of trying to establish themselves.

Daza long had been considered the best defensive outfielder in the Rockies' system. However, offensively he could not translate solid Minor League numbers (.364 at Triple-A Albuquerque in 2019; .318 in 683 Minor League games) to the Majors. In ‘19, Daza bounced between the Rockies and Triple-A and hit .206 in 44 games. He never appeared in the Majors during the shortened '20 season.

“Confidence has always been there,” Daza said. “What happened in 2019 stays in 2019. The only thing that came out of that was the preparation this offseason. Now I’m getting a chance to play more.

“The biggest thing for me is trying to impress everyone. I put a lot of pressure on myself to show what I can do. Now I’m just going out there to try to help the team win.”

Wednesday’s 2-for-4 brought Daza's batting average to .357 in 14 games, including six starts. He has moved ahead of Sam Hilliard, whose eighth-inning strikeout off the bench left him 0-for-20 with 10 strikeouts since his last hit on April 7.

“We have a number of guys who are trying to make their mark in the big leagues,” Rockies manager Bud Black said.

The homer was Daza's first. The two-out single with one on in the third, a patient knock through the middle of the diamond, is more like what the Rockies are seeing.

“I’ve been impressed with -- we saw it a little bit in Spring Training -- just the quality of the at-bat, not expanding the zone, being a little bit more selective,” Black said. “What we saw from his initial at-bats in the big leagues was a little bit of overaggressiveness, a little bit of anxiousness, maybe not the calm, poised at-bat. That’s come into play a little bit.

“That’s good to see. I do think that there’s a bat-to-ball skill that comes with a successful Minor League hitter.”