Brontsema scores career-high five runs

John Brontsema has had a productive season for Class A Lexington, but a new piece of lumber took him into previously uncharted territory Friday night.
The Royals infielder scored all five times he reached base and enjoyed his first career four-hit game in the Legends' 14-3 romp over Hagerstown at Whitaker Bank Ballpark. Three of his four hits were singles, but the fourth was his second homer of the season.

Gameday box score
"I definitely have to give a shoutout to our hitting coach, Jesus [Azuaje]," Brontsema said. "Before the game, he picked up a bat and said, 'You'll like this bat.' I picked it up and didn't even hit in the cage, but I went with it because it felt good. I'm going to change all my bats out to that one now.
"It's a very similar bat [to mine], just the handle was slightly different and it felt a little better. I said I'd give it a try and now it feels a lot better."
Brontsema had to wait to put his new wood to use as Suns starter Carlos Pena hit him with an 0-2 pitch in the second inning. Three batters later, he scored his first run on a sacrifice fly by Rudy Martin.
The 6-foot-2, 187-pound California native singled to center field in the fourth and came home two batters later on a triple by No. 18 Royals prospectMarten Gasparini. The game was tied, 3-3, when Steven Fuentes replaced Pena in the sixth, and Brontsema was the first batter he faced.
It took the UC Irvine product one pitch to make his mark against the right-hander, blasting his second homer of the season -- and his career -- to left-center to put the Legends ahead.

"My coach, Thor [Scott Thorman], came up to me and knew I was leading off and gave me that vibe that he wanted me to be aggressive and said, 'Let's go, let's go, get after it,'" Brontsema said. "That gave me the mindset to go up there ready. Got a fastball, it was elevated, and I don't hit too many over the fence, so it felt good to put one out there."
Brontsema singled to center in the seventh and scored when Martin launched a three-run homer that extended Lexington's lead to 10-3. He scored his fifth run on Yeison Melo's bases-clearing double after singling to left against Sam Held in the eighth.
"Scoring five runs is a feat," Brontsema said. "One of our longtime tenured coaches [Duke Wathan] came up to me after the game and said he's seen that very few times in his many years in the big leagues, so that's very cool. And it came with a win, so that was great. It was a fun day."
A 2016 26th-round pick, Brontsema didn't start 2017 with a full-season affiliate after hitting .337/.386/.396 with 35 runs and nine steals in 50 games in the Rookie-level Arizona League and Class A Advanced Wilmington last summer. Instead, he bided his time in extended spring training while waiting for a roster spot to open and finally debuted on May 21.
Brontsema notched two multi-hit games in his first four contests and his average hasn't dropped below .294 since. His .515 slugging percentage is almost 120 points higher than last season, while his seven extra-base hits are two shy of his total from all of 2016.

"Working out and getting stronger was a big part of [my offseason]," Brontsema said. "For me, this is obviously a huge game of adjustments. And small mechanical adjustments make a difference, and I'm trying to take advantage of a few more pitches up in the zone. I'm an inside-out hitter, so pulling the ball is pretty rare, but I've been working with our hitting coaches and trying to make a few adjustments to take advantage of pitches middle-in or up in the zone."
Melo finished with three hits, four RBIs and three runs scored, while Martin went 2-for-4 and plated five runs to pace the Legends offense. Ofreidy Gomez (3-7) allowed three runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out a season-high nine batters over 6 1/3 innings for the win.