Healthy Benedetti stays red-hot for Bandits

While sidelined for two weeks in June, Carmen Benedetti was determined to make the most of his time away from game action. 
"I'm feeling really strong, coming off the disabled list a couple of days ago," the Astros outfield prospect said. "Even not playing, I was working on getting timing with pitchers. I was making sure I wasn't out of sync when I came back." 
In his third game since returning, Benedetti collected a career-high five hits as Class A Quad Cities topped Burlington, 8-6, on Monday at Community Field. The 22-year-old also drove in two runs and raised his average 26 points to .305.

Gameday box score
Benedetti, who never had more than three hits in a professional game, has gone 8-for-12 since coming back to the River Bandits. He believes the strong work ethic learned while sidelined stems from a stint last year with Class A Short Season Tri-City. 
"I really didn't understand getting timing back or prepping myself to get game-ready," he said. "I learned last year that it speeds up quicker than you think. Being on the DL again, unfortunately, I knew I had to come back strong and ready to play. I tried to make it a little easier on myself coming back -- it can be tough." 
In the first inning, the 2016 12th-round pick swung at the first pitch from Joe Gatto and legged out an infield single, scoring on Troy Sieber's base hit. Down in the second, 0-2, Benedetti doubled in Raymond Henderson. 
"I talk with [Quad Cities] hitting coach Ben Rosenthal, and it's kind of a different approach than what I had in college," Benedetti said. "I was more defensive, just trying to make contact, see what I can do to put the ball in play. He says as much as, 'You can be a little bit more on the defense, but you still want to drive a ball, hit a ball really hard.' That's what I was looking to do, hoping to get a possible mistake pitch. I think I got mine, stayed on it and good things happened." 
With a run home in the fourth, the University of Michigan product smacked an opposite-field RBI double to left for his 16th two-bagger of the season.
"I was trying to be as comfortable as I could be in the box," Benedetti said. "The guys were hitting pretty well the first couple of innings, I just wanted to continue the mojo going and bring those runners across. It proved to help us out later in the game because we made some blunders -- we weren't at our sharpest defensively. I can hold myself accountable for that. We were just trying to get as many runs across as we could."
The Ann Arbor, Michigan native ripped a first-pitch single to center in the seventh and capped his perfect night with single up the middle in the eighth. 
"In my mind I was thinking, 'The baseball gods are looking down upon me,'" Benedetti said. "It was a nice moment today to help the team out as best as I could. I came back after my fifth hit and all the guys were congratulating me on a good game and stuff like that. That was a nice feeling, they were right there with me. They were happy for me, pounding me. The coaching staff was awesome too." 
Through 43 games in his first full professional season, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound outfielder sports a .305/.435/.461 slash line with two home runs and 21 RBIs. Scouting reports have helped, but Benedetti attributes much of his success to Rosenthal's coaching. 
"He's a fun coach to work with," he said. "He and I -- and pretty much everybody -- get along very well. He likes to have fun, he likes to joke around, he likes to give guys [trouble] once in awhile, which is what I like. It's fun to be serious on one end and then joke around. You get to really know the coach and his personality. He's a guy that's worked with me nonstop to get me to reach my potential as a hitter, a power hitter and a gap-to-gap hitter." 

Sieber went 3-for-5 with two RBIs, while Josh Rojas homered and tripled and Astros No. 19 prospectJonathan Arauz added two hits, an RBI and a run scored for Quad Cities.
Cesar Rosado (1-0) allowed one run on two hits with six strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings of relief in his River Bandits debut.
Jordan Zimmerman collected three hits and an RBI while Richard Fecteau belted his first Midwest League home run for Burlington.