Tyler White of late has been one of the much-maligned Astros players. Now with Carlos Gomez on the DL and Preston Tucker back in the minors, the spotlight is squarely on him. It's not something spoken but with the team's recent moves, the writing is on the wall, produce, or we can't play you anymore.
In the midst of a May that has seen White bat .194, the great white (Tyler White) not only showed up, but he was a big cog in the Astros 6-5 win over the WhiteSox Monday night. He finished the night 3-4 with 2 home runs (first career multi-homer game) and he was responsible for three of the team's six runs.
In the top of the fourth, after a seven pitch battle with starting pitcher Carlos Rodon, White took the eighth pitch over the left center wall for a solo shot. White fouled off two straight 97 MPH fastballs till he was able to square one up.
White again facing Rodon in the top of the sixth blasted another solo shot. White had to reach for this one, Rodon had this fastball off the plate, but he was still able to extend and poked this one in almost the same place as his first homer.
To cap off his night, White in the eighth inning gave the team a leadoff double down the line which they would end up scoring on. Astros manager A.J. Hinch would lift White for pinch runner Tony Kemp and he would come around to score on a Jose Altuve sac-fly.
"He had a great night, it's nice him get some hits two-strike home runs were important, the leadoff double was very key for us," A.J. Hinch, "it's nice to see him not try to do too much he got rewarded with some extra base hits but he wasn't over swinging the entire time and really coming out of his swing, hopefully that's a sign of things to come."
The past couple of weeks White has looked like he was starting to put things together. He no longer was trying to make things happen and swing at bad pitches, striking out over and over. He started drawing walks and when putting the ball in play, he was squaring up the ball, it was just landing in defenders gloves.
White spoke to me a couple weeks back and he was happy with the swings he was putting on the baseball. He understood that the if he kept doing what he was doing that the line drives would start falling for hits.
White has been looking better of late, the hits might not have been there but he's looks miles better over the past couple of weeks. If Monday is a sign of what is about to come, watch out MLB.
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