Carolina notes: Adams striking balance

Jake Adams described his 2017 stint in the New York-Penn League as "preschool." For the Astros' sixth-round selection that year, his 48 games with Tri-City were an introduction to life in the professional ranks.
Those games in Class A Short Season also proved to be beneficial for Adams in becoming an efficient power hitter. His time with the ValleyCats was spent shortening his swing and developing plate discipline, two tools he has honed and refined, especially in a breakout season this year with the Fayetteville Woodpeckers.

Adams is delivering power to all fields with his shortened swing, and his plate discipline has him striking out less and becoming a formidable presence in the middle of the lineup.
"My personal goal was to kind of cut down on the strikeouts," Adams said of his mind-set entering this season. "I've been really working hard on shortening up my swing and having better plate discipline, and both of those things have been working really good for me. I've just got to keep grinding in the cages, and it's been showing so far."
Adams' stellar campaign has allowed the Woodpeckers, in their first season in Fayetteville, to remain in contention for a playoff berth in the Southern Division standings.
His 15 home runs are tied with Carolina catcher Mario Feliciano for the league lead, and his next homer would give him more than he had last season in stints with Class A Quad Cities and Buies Creek, the previous home for the Woodpeckers.

Adams, a midseason All-Star, has already set a career high with his league-leading 66 RBIs.
This season's success is rooted in his first partial season in professional baseball. Adams enjoyed a stellar 2017 season at the University of Iowa and was promptly assigned to a short-season team to get his feet wet in the organization.
There, he worked tirelessly with the coordinators on shortening his swing and becoming more proficient at reading pitches out of the hand.
"My swing that I had at the end of the year in college, I tried bringing that into pro ball and they didn't want that, so we had to change up my swing," he explained. "Obviously that's kind of like preschool, as we say, so it's a lot of learning curves and kind of getting acclimated to how they want you to play and whatnot. Once getting these couple of years under my belt and now I know what they want, I feel more comfortable with the grind and everything has helped me out."

Adams hit .170 with 10 homers and 68 strikeouts in 165 at-bats with Tri-City, then upped his batting average to .247 with 15 homers and 54 RBIs in 2018. He struck out 113 times in 393 at-bats.
The 6-foot-2, 250-pound Adams returned to his hometown of Brandon, South Dakota, this past offseason and worked exclusively out of a new facility called D-BAT in Sioux Falls. There, he was able to utilize the pitching machine and continue to work on hitting fastballs.
Adams explained he initially had difficulty reading fastball early in his professional career after facing a heavy dose of offspeed pitches in college. He made it a priority to work on reading the fastball so he would stop guessing in the box.
The offseason work, plus tutelage he gained when he first entered the professional ranks, has paid off this season. Adams has struck out 85 times in 317 at-bats.
"I'm getting more of a variety -- I'm getting more fastballs and putting a good bat on them -- so now they're coming with the offspeed pitches that I want to hit, and they're leaving them over the middle of the plate, which has helped me out tremendously," Adams said. "If I can keep hitting both of their pitches, that's going to be big for me going through this organization." 

In brief

One base at a time: Frederick shortstop Sean Miller extended his hitting streak to eight games with a single in Sunday's game against Potomac. The 10th-round pick from the 2015 Draft is hitting 14-for-29 during the streak, and all 14 hits have been singles. He has also posted a trio of three-hit performances during the streak and has five three-hit games this season, his first in the Orioles organization.
Second-half sizzle: Myrtle Beach left fielder Grant Fennell had a first half to forget. The 23-year-old undrafted free agent batted .215 with 12 extra-base hits. But once the second half began and he was activated off the injured list in early July, Fennell has been on a tear. The second-year pro has hit safely in 10 of his last 11 games, going 16-for-38 with four doubles, seven RBIs and five runs scored to raise his batting average to .250. 
Filling some big shoes: Lynchburg has missed a steady presence in the middle of the lineup since Nolan Jones' promotion to Double A Akron on July 8. It took a while, but Wilbis Santiago is starting to become a key cog in the lineup for the Hillcats at third base. The 23-year-old is riding a 16-game hitting streak, raising his batting average to .307. He is hitting .386 in July after a miserable June in which he batted .150 in 11 games.