Mud Hens' Stewart blasts off on big night

In the first few weeks of the season, Triple-A Toledo hitting coach Brian Harper watched Christin Stewart's bad luck at the plate firsthand. But through all the hard lineouts, Detroit's No. 10 prospect stayed the course, and it paid off immensely Tuesday night.
Stewart matched a career high with four hits and drove in two runs to power Triple-A Toledo to a 9-2 victory over Pawtucket on a 58-degree night at McCoy Stadium. In his first multi-hit game of 2018, he homered, doubled and singled twice.

"To be honest with you, he's been having good at-bats and good swings all season," Harper said. "He just hasn't been getting the results. I've been impressed with him the whole season. Tonight was just a night where a couple of balls fell in and he drove a home run and drove one up the middle. But I've been impressed all season with his approach, his bat, his maturity ... everything."
The 2015 first-round pick was coming off a strong 2017 campaign in which he belted a Double-A-best 28 long balls with the fourth-most RBIs (86) at the level. But through 16 games in his first season in the International League, Stewart sported a .200/.338/.345 slash line with two homers and six RBIs. On Tuesday, he raised his average 50 points and boosted his OPS from .684 to .820.
In his first year coaching Stewart, Harper has seen a player who stays patient at the plate each time he steps in the batter's box, a trait the hitting coach knows will help at the next level.
Gameday box score
"He's got a great makeup, he's a really good kid," Harper added. "He comes to the ballpark and doesn't get real high or low. He just has a real steady makeup. What I've seen and what I think is a real key in successful big league hitters is that he really doesn't let failure or not getting hits affect him. He stays the same whether he gets a hit or doesn't. 
"I think the first series we played, he hit a couple of balls that would have been home runs, but the wind was blowing straight in. His at-bats have been better than his results have been up until tonight."
After grounding out in the first inning, the 24-year-old stepped up in the third with runners on first and second. Stewart flared a 1-0 offering from Justin Haley to the left side of the infield to bring home Jason Krizan.
Leading off the sixth, the University of Tennessee product belted a 1-2 pitch over the right-field wall for his third roundtripper of the season.

"He did a good job, but he actually got a little fooled on the home run," Harper said. "But he kept his hands back and he's a strong kid -- very strong. He can mishit balls and they got out of the ballpark. He kind of mishit this ball, and Pawtucket's a pretty big ballpark and it went out."
Stewart ripped a two-strike single to center in the next frame before pushing an opposite-field double to the wall in the ninth. It was the outfielder's first four-hit game since Aug. 20 with Double-A Erie. 
Harper thinks that the 6-foot, 205-pound left fielder is "on a good path to the big leagues" if he continues to use the same game plan. 
"I was just glad that a couple of balls fell in for him," the coach said. "He's been hitting balls really hard, they're shifting on him and so he's hit some really hard balls into the shift. He doesn't seem to have gotten frustrated, he's OK with everything. He's just a good kid, he works hard and he's done a good job in the outfield too."

Krizan finished 3-for-4 with three runs scored and an RBI while Jim Adduci chipped in two hits and two RBIs for the Mud Hens. 
For Pawtucket, rehabbing Red Sox infielder Xander Bogaerts homered, doubled and logged six innings at shortstop before leaving for a defensive replacement.