Tracy smacks two homers, plates six

Round Rock Express slugger Chad Tracy sets high standards for himself in an effort to keep improving. On Wednesday, he broke out of a small midseason slump, achieving a milestone along the way.

Selected in the third round of the 2006 Draft, Tracy went 3-for-6 with two homers and a career-high six RBIs, powering Texas' Triple-A affiliate to a 16-8 rout of the Albuquerque Isotopes. The big offensive output lifted the Express' designated hitter to 100 RBIs for the year in 123 Pacific Coast League games.

"Everybody has personal goals going every season," the 26-year-old said. "We have team goals too and that is exciting, but as a hitter in the middle of the order, my job is to produce runs and drive guys in. I'm not going to hit .300, even though I'd like to, but that's not my job."

After grounding out in his first two at-bats Wednesday night, Tracy smacked a three-run homer to left field off Dana Eveland in his second at-bat as Round Rock matched a franchise best with a nine-run fourth inning. He added a two-run shot -- his 23rd homer of the year -- with one out in the sixth, and he plated his sixth run with a single in the seventh.

"It was a first-pitch fastball," Tracy said of his first home run. "We were starting to pour it on a little bit and it was really just a sac fly situation where I wanted to hit the ball in the air. I had two bad at-bats before that, so I tried to slow myself down and refine my approach."

Facing Travis Schlichting in the sixth, Tracy kept his simple approach at the plate and hammered his second long ball of the night. It was his second multihomer game of the year and the ninth of his career.

"A new pitcher came in and he was a sinker-slider kind of guy," he explained. "He threw me a hard sinker up top and it was like a brush-back pitch. Usually they either throw you the same pitch again or a slider away, because they've already moved your feet back. I got a 1-0 slider and I was kind of sitting on it."

Tracy came to the plate with the bases empty in the ninth, but he grounded out to shortstop Ivan Ochoa to end the frame.

After batting .261 with 19 homers and 72 RBIs in the first half of the season, Tracy has seen his offensive numbers fall since the break. He had just two home runs in his last 151 at-bats prior to Wednesday's game and he had seen his average drop to .252.

"I've been going for a while now trying to get back on track and I've been swinging at bad pitches," the Pepperdine University product said. "After those first two bad at-bats, something just clicked.

"I had a rough patch in the second half and it lasted a long time. I was really pleased with my first 70 games, but then I got into a slump and I wasn't able to break out of it. I struggled for a long time."

The outing was Tracy's best performance since homering three times for the Oklahoma City RedHawks in a 9-3 win over the Omaha Royals on June 27 last year.

"I had five RBIs in that game, but I honestly can't think of many other games like this one. I've had some good games before, but it's not like I go home and write them down," he said. "Some nights you're just fortunate that the balls go out when there are runners on base. Tonight would not have happened without my teammates being on base for me."

Wednesday's game gave the Illinois native his second 100-RBI season. He had previously plated 107 runs with the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders in the Texas League, earning All-Star accolades.

Tracy passed Brooks Conrad (2006) for second place on the Express' single-season RBI list, and he is one shy of Mike Coolbaugh's 2005 franchise record.