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'Dogs' Williams continues torrid month 06/24/2012 11:52 PM ETBy Jonathan Raymond / Special to MLB.com
As spring becomes summer in Charleston, it gets hot. Real hot. And lately, Mason Williams is beginning to reflect his surroundings. The Yankees' No. 4 prospect went 3-for-4, homered for the second straight game and fell a triple shy of the cycle Sunday as the Class A RiverDogs posted a rain-shortened 7-5 win over Greenville. Williams drove in two runs and scored twice and has gone deep in three of his last four contests. It's continued a torrid month for the 20-year-old outfielder, who has 10-multi hit games in June. He's hitting .360 since the calendar turned with four homers, seven doubles and nine RBIs in 17 games. That follows a May in which he batted .241. Williams has hiked his batting average 22 points in three weeks to .308. He has a .355 on-base percentage and a .496 slugging percentage and strikes out once every 10.3 at-bats, the fourth-best mark in the South Atlantic League. Expectations were high for the 2010 fourth-round Draft pick following an impressive campaign with short-season Staten Island. A year ago, he led the New York-Penn League with 94 hits and 28 stolen bases and ranked second with a .349 average, six triples and 126 total bases. Williams got off to a solid start in his first full season, hitting .323 for the RiverDogs in April. The recent stretch has gotten MLB.com's No. 62 overall prospect up to a .851 OPS, the highest it's been since mid-May.
Williams wasn't the only highly regarded New York prospect who homered for Charleston on Sunday. Gary Sanchez (No. 44 overall) launched his 13th of the season and scored twice. He's batting .311 with a .360 OBP and .552 slugging percentage that ranks fifth in the league. |