DENVER – David Dahl came just a few inches away from his moment of glory.
The bottom of the ninth. Bases juiced. Home crowd on its feet, roaring at fever pitch.
He had already delivered a lead to his club earlier in the game, smashing a two-run double in the third on a deep liner to center field, getting his team on the board for the first time, making the score 2-1.
Then he did it again. It wasn’t quite as pretty, getting jammed hard on an inside fastball in the fifth with the game tied and Charlie Blackmon standing at third base. A loopy little flyball to shallow left, though, was enough for Blackmon to employ the team’s well-documented aggressiveness, tagging up and sprinting home to score run.
Three RBI. Two go-ahead hits.
And here he was again. Team behind by a run and a young man who has been through so many brilliant moments followed by rough patches—culminating in an entirely lost 2017 campaign—had a chance to be the unquestioned hero of the game. This was his moment.
And he did everything right.
He waited for his pitch. He hit a screaming, 106.5 mph line drive right up the middle. And the game of baseball crushed him.
Second baseman Scooter Gennett would wear the cape in this game.
A five-hit night that included a first-inning home run, concluded with a diving catch of Dahl’s liner, doubling off pinch-runner Tony Wolters at second to break the hearts of the over 42,000 in attendance on Saturday night.
And Dahl’s.
“It sucks,” he said multiple times after the game. After a sequence of events like that, there’s really no reason to be much more clever than that.
“If it’s a couple more feet to the left or right, it’s a game-winner,” he continued. “I did everything I could do. I hit the ball, he just made a good play, and it sucks. Off the bat, I thought it was the game-winner.”
You weren’t the only one.
Instead of a five-RBI night capped with a walk-off victory, Dahl departed the field in crushing defeat along with his teammates, who on this night had him to thank for being in the game at all.
But they say in baseball you have to wash games like these off in the shower. Once that is done, you forget the bad and build on the good.
If Dahl’s recent at-bats are any indication, there is a lot of good to build on.
I caught up with him before the series against the Reds began and asked about the on-the-fly adjustments he has made in just his second look (321 at-bats) at MLB pitching.
“Just a little over aggressive right now,” he said. “I have struck out a lot, so I feel like I’m swinging a little earlier. I just need to get comfortable hitting with two strikes. The last trip, I did a better job with two strikes, didn’t strike out as much. I’m still trying to work on cutting that down. But I really just need to have quality at-bats, more consistent quality at-bats. I’ve been having like two or three good at-bats and then two or three at-bats where it doesn’t look good. So it’s just getting more quality at-bats.”
He certainly did that in the series against the Reds, and you could see it coming if you were paying close attention. Dahl could feel it coming.
“On the road trip, it was tough for me, but I feel like a hit a lot of balls hard, just kind of right at people,” he says. “I think I flew out to the center field track like three times, lined out to left once, lined out to short once, hit it hard to second. I got two hits, so I hit the ball hard, it’s not like I was getting dominated that trip. It was just, stuff just wasn’t falling through.”
But this will need to continue to against the better pitchers in the league.
Especially those pesky lefties who make millions of dollars based on their ability to get other lefties out.
“The hits aren’t really coming against them, but my at-bats have definitely gotten a lot better off of them,” he says about that ongoing battle. “Just try to stay in there, not pull off of it, have a good approach. Try to have a good at-bat. I’ve just got to trust the process. I haven’t really seen a lot of lefties, so the more I see, the better I feel. You’re facing some tough guys in this game, and they’re getting paid to get you out. But like I said, just trying to have good at-bats off them and eventually the hits will come.”
Dahl has never had dramatic splits in the minors, though the competition is admittedly far greater at this level. Even in the majors in 2016 (48 at-bats) he hit .313 against southpaws, telling me he has always felt like he wins that fight more as a season goes on.
“I mean, always feel good against lefties,” he says. “I’ve always hit them. This is the first time I’ve really kind of struggled a little bit, but it was that struggle early in that first 16 at-bats. After that, I’ve been swinging pretty well as far as quality at-bats against them. It’s not like I’m getting dominated anymore. But, yeah, I feel good. I feel like I stay on the ball well. Just got to keep going.”
That final line could be the mantra for this whole team, searching for an answer on offense. They just have to keep going.
Though, it looks like one way or another Dahl is going to be a part of that answer.
Of course, much of that may depend on the opportunities he gets. The outfield rotation hasn’t been easy on anyway. Every guy on the 25-man roster would love to play every day.
Carlos Gonzalez’ resume, and propensity to somewhat randomly break out for ridiculous streaks of hot hitting, mean he has to see the field at times.
Gerardo Parra is hitting .322 with 11 RBI over his last 22 games, and even Noel Cuevas has emerged as a legitimate option in the outfield, giving manager Bud Black plenty of reason to employ his .323 batting average against lefties (and .302 overall) with regularity as well.
“It is tough,” Dahl says of the intermittent playing time he has seen this year. “Everybody that does it, it’s hard to get into a rhythm. When you do play, you don’t want to put too much pressure on yourself to perform. I think I’ve been doing that a little bit, just trying to do too much when I’m playing. But, whatever the team needs me to do, I’ll do. Just trying to help us win. Just hope we can get it going soon.”
The Rockies are still looking for their own rhythm at the plate and in their home confines. But right now, Dahl is in the right place. “I feel good at the plate,” he says. “Just gotta keep taking good swings.”
If he does keep taking good swings, and hitting line drives over 106 mph, his heroic moment will come. And it’ll be in September or October rather than May.
