JETHAWKS NOTEBOOK: HOME ISN'T WHERE HITS ARE.Byline: Gideon Rubin Staff Writer LANCASTER - It's considered one of the best hitter's parks in all of professional baseball, but judging by JetHawks outfielder Carlos Quentin's numbers for the first month, you'd think he'd rather hit anywhere but in the high winds and thin air of Lancaster Municipal Stadium. A first-round draft pick out of Stanford playing his first year of pro ball, Quentin is batting .326 (14 for 43) on the road and just .185 (10 for 54) at home. As a team, the JetHawks are batting .320 at home and .259 on the road. ``It's still early,'' Quentin said. ``I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. , maybe I'm just not swinging as hard on the road. Sometimes you see this wind blowing out and you want to hit the ball in the air. I'm just working on trying to cut down my swing in general, so I can take a nice easy approach to the ball.'' JetHawks manager Wally Backman n. 1. a. The act of hindering. b. The condition of being hindered. 2. One that hinders; an impediment. See Synonyms at obstacle. to Quentin, but he noted that some players are more comfortable hitting on the road. ``But that shouldn't happen here,'' Backman said. Quentin's poor home numbers in part reflect a dreadful 3-for-28 start in the JetHawks' season-opening eight-game homestand. He got back on track during a road series against Rancho Cucamonga Rancho Cucamonga (răn`chō k  'kəmäng`gə), city (1990 pop. 101,409), San Bernardino co., S Calif. ,
when he started an 11-game hitting streak In baseball, a hitting streak refers to the consecutive number of official games in which a player gets at least one base hit. Games in which a player does not have any official at bats due to walks, or sacrifice bunts, or being hit by a pitch, are ignored (neither break the streak , and has since emerged as one
of the team's hottest hitters. Since his early-season struggles,
he's batting .304 (21 for 69) with six homers. He has boosted his
average from .107 to .247 (24 for 97) going into Friday.
``He's made adjustments,'' Backman said. ``There's no question about it.'' Quentin has hit safely in five of his past six games. He went 1 for 5 and hit his sixth homer of the season in Thursday night's 15-6 thrashing thrashing: see threshing. Excessive paging in a virtual memory computer. If programs are not written to run in a virtual memory environment, the operating system may spend excessive amounts of time swapping program pages in and out of the disk. of Rancho Cucamonga at Lancaster. ``Hopefully it'll even out,'' Quentin said. ``This is a good hitter's park and hopefully I can take advantage of it. ``It's kind of hard not to.'' --More to come?: The JetHawks ``Three Amigos'' - power-hitting prospects Conor Jackson Conor Sims Jackson (nicknamed Co-Jack or Action) was born May 7, 1982 in Austin, Texas. He is a first baseman in Major League Baseball who plays for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He bats right handed and throws right handed. He is 6'2" and roughly 225 pounds. , Jamie D'Antona and Quentin -combined to go 7 for 14 with three homers and nine RBI RBI abbr. Baseball runs batted in Noun 1. rbi - a run that is the result of the batter's performance; "he had more than 100 rbi last season" run batted in in Thursday's game. Jackson was 3 for 4 with a grand slam grand slam n. 1. The winning of all the tricks during the play of one hand in bridge and other whist-derived card games. 2. Sports The winning of all the major or specified events, especially on a professional circuit. and five RBI, and all three players homered in the same game for the first time. ``I think there's more of that to come,'' Backman said. ``They're a force in the lineup, and you get all three hot at once and you end up with what happened tonight.'' -- Big-league at-bats: Daniel Tosca had one of the JetHawks' two hits against rehabbing Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly Brendan Kevin Donnelly (b. July 4, 1971 in Washington, D.C.) is a Major League Baseball relief pitcher with the Boston Red Sox. Donnelly had bounced around the minor leagues for 10 seasons after he was drafted in 1992 by the Chicago White Sox before he finally made his , who pitched two shutout innings for the Quakes on Thursday. On a 1-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, the left-handed hitting Tosca poked a single to right on what he said was a hanging split-finger fastball off the right-handed Donnelly. Switch hitter switch hitter n. 1. Baseball A player who can bat either right-handed or left-handed. 2. Slang One who is attracted to both sexes; one who is bisexual. Jarred Ball also singled to right on an 0-1 pitch with one out in the seventh. ``It's pretty cool to go up there against a big leaguer, especially to get a hit,'' Tosca said. ``You get up there against a guy like that and you don't know what to expect, you don't get to face (major-league pitchers) too much.'' -- Stealing signs? Donnelly said the comparatively dim lighting at Lancaster made it difficult for him to read Quakes catcher Ryan Budde's signs. ``I had to tell Budde, 'Put the signs out here.' I don't care
"Don't Care" is a 1994 (see 1994 in music) single by American death metal band Obituary. if they get them. One of their guys tonight was tipping pitches. He was giving signs to the hitter. In the big leagues, I would change the signs, warn him or hit the guy. Whatever. But here you know I don't really care. I'm just here to get my work in and hopefully not screw the game up for these guys, but obviously the game was already out of control'' -- Quality starter: JetHawks pitcher Clint Goocher (3-2) had his second consecutive strong start Thursday. He allowed two runs on seven hits, struck out seven and didn't issue a walk. In his two most recent outings - both victories - he's combined for 16 strikeouts and allowed four runs on 13 hits and no walks in 13 2/3 innings. ``He's turned into maybe our most consistent guy so far,'' Backman said. ``I really liked what I saw of him (Thursday), he was locating his fastball well and he mixed his pitches up well.'' -- ZOOperstars: Tonight's 6:30 game between the JetHawks and the High Desert Mavericks The High Desert Mavericks are a minor league baseball team in Adelanto, California, USA. Their Major League parent club is the Seattle Mariners. They are a "high-A" class team in the California League, and had been a farm team of the Kansas City Royals since 2005 before the switch. will feature ZOOperstars, one of the most popular sports event entertainment acts. In addition to the inflated sports celebrity animal spin-offs such as Ken Giraffey, Shark McGwire and Harry Canary, among others, the act has a new addition this year, Mia Hammster. Gideon Rubin (818) 713-3607 gideon.rubin(at)dailynews.com |
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