Salem's Corcino homers twice, drives in six

Edgar Corcino has seen a lot in his 11-year career as a professional baseball player. He's played for three different organizations, been out of the Minors entirely for over two years, and risen as high as Triple-A before falling back down to the independent leagues. It's been a rollercoaster, and he's experienced his share of both ups and downs.
No "up" has soared as high as he did on Monday, though.

Corcino went 4-for-5 and plated a career-high six runs in Class A Advanced Salem's 12-6 romp over Frederick at Nymeo Field, blasting two homers. Four hits matches his career-best, a feat he most recently achieved on June 27, 2016 for Class A Advanced Fort Myers when he was in the Twins organization.
Gameday box score
The 27-year-old got going right away, taking southpaw starter Cameron Bishop deep to left in the second inning for the first run of the game. That was the spark that ignited the Red Sox's offensive eruption, according to Salem hitting coach Lance Zawadzki.
"In the second inning, for him to come up like that and be able to deliver like that, it kind of loosened everybody up," he said. "Got the bats going as a whole a little bit."
He kept things rolling in his next at-bat, driving in Boston's No. 25 prospectPedro Castellanos with a line drive to left off Bishop in the third. Corcino then belted another long ball to left in the fifth on the first pitch he saw from left-hander Zach Matson, and rounded out his day with a two-run single to left in the eighth off righty Tyler Joyner that plated Castellanos and Ryan Fitzgerald.
After the Red Sox strung together a pair of walks and a hit in the top of the ninth, Corcino was able to step to the plate one last time with the bases juiced. He lofted a towering fly ball deep off right-hander Tim Naughton that had the chance to give him the grand slam and a whopping 10 RBIs, but it came up just short into the glove of left fielder Tyler Craport -- something that miffed his teammates.
"Everyone was disappointed after his last at-bat, because he almost hit his third homer in his last at-bat towards the wall," Zawadzki said. "So everyone was kind of sarcastically upset at that."
Jokes aside, the Red Sox were nothing but happy for Corcino to have such a monster day. But while that may be the case, don't think they were surprised; they knew he was capable of a performance like this.
"Doesn't surprise us at all," Zawadzki said. "He's a guy who's very professional, goes in, goes about his work like a pro every day. He has a set routine that he does and gets through, and knows exactly what he wants to do on a day-in and day-out basis. It was really only a matter of time before these things start to happen. But it was obviously an impressive day."

Corcino is now batting .304 through 43 games this season with seven homers and 32 RBIs. He's still a work in progress as a hitter, and it will take some time before he's playing back at a Triple-A level like he was as recently as last season.
According to Zawadzki, though, he shouldn't worry about what uniform he's wearing or the size of the ballpark he's playing in. If he just continues to put in the work like he has all of this season, the success -- and the promotions -- will come naturally.
"For him...you can't really focus where you're at," he said. "It's more on his development and just the plan, what he brings in day-in and day-out."