Renfroe caps big week with mammoth shot

Hunter Renfroe had a good week. One that he punctuated with a gigantic blast Sunday.

In the past seven games, the Padres' fifth-ranked prospect raised his batting average by 24 points and his OPS by 59 points, while collecting three more home runs and 10 additional RBIs.

Renfroe homered and plated three runs in Class A Advanced Lake Elsinore's 10-9 win at Rancho Cucamonga in 10 innings. Diego Goris' second homer of the day ultimately decided the contest.

The Mississippi State product has driven a run home in six straight games and homered in three of the past four.

The 13th pick of the 2013 Draft singled to left to lead off the second inning before striking out looking in the third and fifth. But in the seventh, he dug in with no outs and men on the corners. Nobody can say exactly how far his 11th home run of the season traveled, but the long ball quickly picked up fable status as one of those that could have used tray tables, flight attendants and complimentary issues of SkyMall.

"It was just a fastball, first pitch," Renfroe said. "I got the head on it a little bit and it went really high. The wind kind of knocked it down a little bit. But I have no idea how far it went. It went over 400 feet, but I don't how far over 400.

"They said it went too high for the tracker to get it, so I have no idea."

The rest of Lake Elsinore's bench wasn't very helpful in figuring out the distance.

"They said they don't know, they just know it went over the trees," Renfroe said. "There's trees in left field here. It cleared the trees and I have no idea how far it went after that. But I was just hoping that it would stay fair."

After the moonshot, the Mississippi State University popped out to third base in the ninth. But that wasn't the first thing on right fielder's mind after the game. Nor was the homer. It was the two times he struck out during the game. Renfroe has 61 this season.

"I'm trying to cut down on those as much as possible, trying to shorten up and shorten my swing a little more and try to just hit balls to the middle of the field," he said. "It's really been working for me the past two or three weeks actually. The average has been jumping up pretty good.

"I'm just trying to work as hard as I can towards cutting down the strikeouts and making more solid contact."

Through 50 games, he is batting .278/.351/.530 with 38 RBIs and nine steals in nine tries. His 11 home runs stand in second place in the California League, one behind off the pace set by Stockton's Matt Olson.

Goris also powered the Storm offense Sunday and has through much of the season. The shortstop, who leads the team with a .331 average, went 4-for-6 with two home runs, four RBIs and four runs scored. When he came to bat in the 10th, he needed a triple for the cycle. He popped the game-winning homer instead.

"I think both of them were on two-strike pitches," Renfroe said of Goris' roundtrippers. "That's what's most amazing to me. He gets up there, he may look terrible on the first two pitches he swings at, but he's going to come up there, he's going to battle and if you leave one over the heart of the plate, he's going to punish it. He hits to all parts of the field really."

Robbie Garvey led Rancho Cucamonga with three RBIs and he was one of four Quakes to leave the yard, along with Corey Seager, Aaron Miller and Steven Proscia. The homers by Seager -- the Dodgers' top prospect -- and Miller in the ninth sent the game to extras.