Wick belts two more long balls for Spikes

Now that Class A Short Season State College is in its ninth season, it's a little harder for its players to crack the Spikes' record books. All the same, outfielder Rowan Wick was able to power his way onto the pages Monday night.

The 21-year-old clubbed a pair of homers in the team's 6-3 win over Williamsport, making him the first player with two multi-homer games in a Spikes' uniform. He also hit two on Opening Day last Friday.

Wick went 2-for-2 with the pair of round-trippers and two walks Monday. He is hitting .462 (6-for-13) through State College's first four games. In addition to his record, he also broke up Williamsport's no-hit bid Sunday.

"I've just been seeing the ball well," said the native of North Vancouver, British Columbia. "This year, I feel strong. This is probably the strongest streak I've had in my Minor League career."

Wick's first homer Monday came in his first at-bat. The left-handed hitter was looking for something away, but got a fastball in from Crosscutters starter Feliberto Sanchez. Wick pulled in his hands and yanked the ball over the right-field fence.

His other homer was also off Sanchez, a solo shot in the fourth that clanked off the batters' eye more than 20 feet above the center-field wall.

The 2012 ninth-round pick out of Cypress (California) Community College spent his time in extended spring training working on taking balls to left field. That tweak in his approach has paid off early in the New York-Penn League season.

"I'm just trying to hit the ball where it's pitched," he said. "My approach was more to hit it to right field before. I was pulling off balls and it wasn't really working for me.

"I feel really good about my swing right now and what I'm doing with it, going to left field as well."

Wick is no stranger to homering in bunches. The outfielder hit 10 homers with Rookie-level Johnson City in 2013, and five of them came in an eight-game stretch in early August. The 6-foot-3 converted catcher has promising power, having clubbed 16 homers in 83 Minor League games.

His task this season is to harness some of that power by improving his swing and pitch recognition. He worked with hitting coach Ramon Ortiz on those areas while in extended spring training.

"It's just being more direct to the ball," Wick said. "Seeing pitches up instead of swinging at changes in the dirt or curves in the dirt. I struggled with that in extended and last year, and I'm trying to avoid that.

"The first month of extended, I really struggled a lot with swinging at balls in the dirt. Our manager [Oliver Marmol] pulled me aside and said I wouldn't go anywhere pulling the ball. He told me to try hitting the ball on the ground to the shortstop, and I worked on that for a week or two and have been building off that ever since."