Don't look now, but Adam Duvall has become the kid who can only hit home runs
Take a quick peek at the home run leaderboards and the order is more or less what you would have expected.
Mark Trumbo at No. 1 with 20? Sure, maybe a little odd, but he's topped 30 in a season twice and joined the Orioles this offseason when they transformed their team into Home Run City.
Nolan Arenado: No. 2 with 18? Of course -- he only tied for the Major League lead with 42 last year.
Todd Frazier tied with 18? He won the Home Run Derby last year, yup.
Adam Duvall, fourth with 17? Yeah, who didn't see that --
Yeah, that was a bit unexpected. And yet here we are after Duvall homered again during the Reds' 7-6 victory over the Cardinals on Tuesday. Facing Mike Leake, the man who was on the other side of the deal that took him from the Giants organization to the Reds, Duvall blasted his sinker deep into the seats.
He's like a Dr. Seuss poem at this point. He's hit them off fastballs and sinkers, curveballs and plinkers, sliders and the bizarre yellow-tailed stinkers. He's pulled them to left, pushed them to right, blasted them all day and then smashed them all night. He's put them in seats that are low, and decks that are high, he's hit them from Spokane all the way to Versaille.
The performance is certainly unexpected. While Duvall has shown plenty of power in his Minor League career, even knocking out 30 in Triple-A last season, though 26 came with Sacramento in the offense-rich Pacific Coast league. As an 11th-round Draft pick in 2008, Duvall never even reached the Giants' top-10 prospects. He clocked in at No. 19 last season.
Though there's plenty of miss in Duvall's bat, striking out just under 30 percent of the time, the power certainly seems real. While it may be rare, it's not impossible for someone to unexpectedly emerge as a home run icon. I mean, it's not like Albert Pujols (13th round), Paul Goldschmidt (eighth round) or Jose Bautista (20th round) ever kept pitchers awake at night, right?
