Cumberland goes deep twice for first time

Hitting below .200 nearly three weeks into May, Brett Cumberland never strayed from keeping a positive mental approach, and now that mind-set is paying dividends. 
Atlanta's No. 29 prospect posted his first professional multi-home game and plated a season-high five runs to power Class A Rome to a 7-3 victory over Asheville on Monday night at McCormick Field.

Gameday box score
With six hits over his last four games, Cumberland raised his average 41 points to .224. 
"This season, my average hasn't necessarily been there, but I've been getting on base and seeing the ball," the catcher said. "It's all about getting your pitch to hit and hitting it hard, I guess. I just did the same usual stuff. We hit in the cages today because there was some rain, some weather that we had to deal with. It was another normal day.
"I felt good, I've been feeling good for a while now. It was just one of those days."
With two outs in the first inning and Marcus Mooney on first, Cumberland crushed a first-pitch fastball from Brandon Gold (2-3) over the wall in the center field.
"I'm always looking for my pitch and he threw it to me," he said. "I just put a good swing on it and I put it over the center-field fence. Every at-bat, I'm looking for one pitch and I was able to take advantage of what he gave me."
Facing Gold again in the third, Cumberland hit the first pitch and lofted a sacrifice fly to left, scoring Mooney again to give the R-Braves a 3-2 lead. 
The Turlock, California native flew out to center in the fourth before getting hit by a pitch from Bryan Baker with two outs in the seventh.
With Julian Fernández on the mound for the Tourists and two outs in the ninth, Cumberland smacked the second pitch from the right-hander for another two-run homer.
"The guy was a little bit of a firm thrower," the University of California product said. "He gave me a first pitch and it was 98 [mph] up and away. I was like, 'All right, this guy's a little bit firm.' I just told myself to keep it short, keep it simple and I was able to barrel it up."
Cumberland has five homers this season, tying him for the team lead with Braves No. 28 prospect Lucas Herbert.
Selected 76th overall in 2016, Cumberland is batting .313 in May after hitting just .176 in April. He attributes the improvement to some tweaks and better luck. 
"I'm definitely watching video and seeing the stuff I was doing wrong in the first couple of weeks in the season," he said. "Overall, just trusting the process. My on-base percentage was there, I was drawing walks. It's all about the timing of everything.
"I knew it was bound to happen. I knew things were going in the right direction. Like I said, it's all about trusting the process and showing up to the yard every day with a positive attitude."
As the season progresses, the switch-hitter is looking forward to getting more plate appearances from the right side. So far, he's 1-for-13 with 10 strikeouts as a right-handed hitter.

"I think just a couple of weeks ago, I just had six at-bats right-handed," Cumberland said. "I'm at about 10 at-bats right-handed right now. With that few at-bats, it's hard to say one side is greater than the other. It's a small sample size. Throughout the course of the year, I'll get more righty at-bats and things will even out."
Mooney and Randy Ventura amassed three hits apiece, while Kurt Hoekstra went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI for Rome.
No. 24 Braves prospect Bryse Wilson (3-1) allowed two runs -- one earned -- on four hits with four strikeouts over five innings.