Tromp ties 'Claws record with seven RBIs

South Atlantic League pitchers keep throwing the soft stuff at Jiandido Tromp. After a rough first half, he made the adjustment Sunday, and his reward was a career afternoon.

The Phillies prospect tied a franchise record with seven RBIs, powering Class A Lakewood to a 13-3 romp over Rome with his fourth career multi-homer game.

The 21-year-old outfielder mashed a pair of first-pitch, three-run roundtrippers and added an RBI double in the ninth, nearly doubling his previous career high of four RBIs. The performance lifted his OPS from .475 to .517 in 69 games this season.

Tromp is the first BlueClaw to plate seven runs in a game since Michael Durant on Aug. 9, 2008. Lakewood set season highs for runs and victory margin.

"It feels awesome, man," the Aruba native said. "When something like this happens, you have to appreciate it and keep going from it."

Tromp hit 15 homers between Class A Short Season Williamsport and Lakewood last season but went without one until July 3 this year. Including Sunday's outburst, he has four long balls in his last 15 games.

The outfielder said he realized recently he's been too focused on his mechanics at the plate. That -- along with a steady diet of breaking pitches from SAL pitchers -- has left him uncomfortable and unsuccessful.

"They've thrown me a lot of breaking balls early in the count," he said. "It is hard to try to adjust on them or sit on them and try to get my pitch to hit. I've been working on that for a while now and it's starting to pay off."

Tromp displayed his movement on the learning curve with his second homer. After going deep off a first-pitch fastball from left-hander Oriel Caicedo in the fourth inning, he guessed that right-handed reliever Francisco Gonzalez would start him with a curveball. Gonzalez actually went with a changeup, but Tromp was still primed to sit back and thump the pitch -- and did exactly that for his second homer.

"I had the home run on a fastball, so I guessed they'd throw something off-speed and see what happened," he said.

Lakewood fell in a 2-0 hole in the second and trailed until the fourth. That's when 2015 second-rounder Scott Kingery started a rally with a single and a stolen base, scoring on Damek Tomscha's base hit.

Phillies No. 13 prospect Cord Sandberg -- who went 4-for-4 with three runs scored -- followed with another single, putting two aboard for Tromp. The two-time New York-Penn League All-Star turned on Caicedo's first-pitch heater for the first of his two jacks.

"I was just trusting myself, believing in what I can do," he said. "I wasn't thinking too much at the plate about my mechanics and just focused on the pitch."

The BlueClaws tacked on six runs in the fifth. Kyle Martin plated a pair with a double and Tomscha and Sandberg followed with singles ahead of Tromp's second blast off Gonzalez.

After allowing a run in the bottom of the fifth, Lakewood added three insurance runs in the ninth. Tromp plated the final tally, doubling home Sandberg after the outfielder legged out a two-run triple.