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Humid or not, the muggy Maine summer weather the last few weeks has been pleasing and a welcome relief to native Georgian Chad Spann.
In fact, the Portland Sea Dogs’ third baseman’s hitting has been even hotter than the weather.
Since June 1st, the Boston Red Sox’ 2002 fifth round draft pick is hitting .333, and has hit safely in 26 of his last 32 games. Before Monday night’s game, Spann had hit seven of his 10 home runs and driven in 31 of his 49 runs this season in the month of July.
“I don’t know if it was one thing, but there were several at-bats when my average started creeping up and all of a sudden I started feeling more comfortable in the box,” Spann explained. “Early on, it [the baseball] seemed more like a golf ball coming in and then a few weeks into the season, I started being able to pick things up and everything seemed to kind of slow down for me.”
Everything except his bat speed and the speed at which his offensive numbers climbed.
Spann currently boasts the second-highest batting average (.307) in the Red Sox minor league system and is the first Portland player to have 30 multiple-hit games this season.
Portland hitting coach Russ Morman, a veteran of 12 Major League seasons with the Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals and Florida Marlins, says the 6-foot-1, 195-pound product of Americus, Ga., and Southland Academy can be a legitimate major league hitter.
“The number one thing with him, I’d say, is he does grind things out,” Morman said. “He doesn’t really give at-bats away. He also has an ability to handle offspeed pitches and the fastball. That’s what sets him apart from other hitters right now.”
In 94 games this year, the 22-year-old Spann has drawn 38 walks – the third-highest total among Sea Dogs hitters – and cracked a team-leading 105 hits in 342 at-bats.
“I guess once I started swinging the bat well, I started learning how to take my batting practice into game situations as well,” Spann said. “A lot of people tear it up in BP and then it’s hard to take it into a game, especially for a young guy like myself.”
It’s hard to believe the Eastern League all-star got off to a slow start this season. Maybe it was the cold weather.
“Actually it didn’t bother me, although if you look back at the numbers early on, you’d think it did,” Spann said. “But this is really nice now. I’m used to it being much hotter.”
Spann finished April hitting .242 with no homers and just four RBIs.
“I think the turnaround for him was probably three weeks into the season,” said Morman, who also coached Spann in 2003, when Morman was Single-A Augusta’s manager. “He was putting together good AB’s and really having great plate appearances. Then he got chances to move up in the lineup and from there, he’s taken off.”
Spann has batted third, fourth or fifth for the Sea Dogs all season, but is currently entrenched in the No. 3 spot.
“He’s a gap-to-gap guy with good power who’s continuing to develop. He’s still pretty young, but still maturing,” Morman added. “He makes good adjustments as well from at-bat to at-bat.”
With a team-high 19 errors, Spann is working to improve himself defensively.
“Defensively, it just gets back to focus and you really do have to take things one pitch at a time,” he said.
What is arguably Spann’s finest minor league season comes just two years after a knee injury ended his 2004 season on May 19. He underwent surgery and returned to play in the fall instructional league.
“I had an off year last year, but I learned more last year than I did the previous two,” he said. “You learn to deal with adversity and improve when things aren’t going well.”
Now that the adversity is over with, Spann is just trying to learn how to keep it away as long as possible.
Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net
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