By Erwin Quiñonez
Mar 31, 2024, 3:21 PM EDT
Cuban Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is without a doubt one of the best acquisitions that the Arizona Diamondbacks management has made in recent years, and an even better move was giving him a contract extension in the offseason, which has already begun. to pay with historic hits.
The Cuban has just been one of the key pieces for the D-Backs to reach the World Series and this year he has started on the right foot, helping the team win two of its first three games.
But a unique event that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. starred in occurred in Saturday’s game when his team lost to the Colorado Rockies, but he became the first player in the history of the Arizona franchise to hit home runs in his first three games. it’s from the season.
But part of this success that the 30-year-old Cuban is having with the D-Backs, has to do, according to the player himself, with the fact of not feeling pressure and not having to prove anything to anyone, something that did seem to have to be do when he was with the Toronto Blue Jays in his first year in the MLB.
“Somehow, I didn’t have to impress anyone. In previous years, it wasn’t necessarily about earning a spot, but in Toronto I had to prove that I belonged here. This year, I came in thinking about working on game situations. Whether it was about swinging at the beginning of any account or whether I should continue working the account,” Gurriel expressed about his start to the season.
When asked if feeling less pressure was the key to his success with the Cascabeles, the outfielder did not want to delve into the subject and only stated that he has worked for it. “I’m not sure if that’s specifically what has given me success, I just know that I prepared for it, it was already my plan,” he said.
The great work of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has not gone unnoticed, and his teammates have also been impressed by what the outfielder is doing, as the starter of this Saturday’s game Tommy Henry acknowledged when he said he was “impressed.”
“It’s fun to watch. The electricity really shows on the field every day here in the weight room, it’s just fun to see that turn into success on the field and start off on fire. That motivates everyone and we also enjoy seeing him smile and play with this electricity,” Henry stated.
Retaining Gurriel is one of the big moves that Arizona management made for this season, along with the acquisitions of Venezuelans Eugenio Suárez and Eduardo Rodríguez (left-handed pitcher), left-handed pitcher Jordan Montgomery and hitters Joc Pederson and Randal Grichuk.
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