Lopsided is the best way to describe it. Chris Vinyard, a 2005 38th-round draft pick of the Orioles, started his professional career in June with Aberdeen. Coming off a season batting .372 at Chandler-Gilbert Community College (Ariz.), the 20-year-old first baseman opened his first 10 games in Aberdeen with a .395 average and nine RBI.
“You want to be like that all year,” Vinyard said.
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At points through the beginning of the IronBirds? season, Vinyard led the New York-Penn League in batting average and RBI, and his average peaked at .450 in early July.
“It seems like every other hit was a double, and there were always guys on base,” Vinyard said.
The hot streak cooled off and Vinyard ended up batting .255 in the month of July. Since July 9, he has gone 18 for 98, with five doubles and only four multi-hit games. Overall, he is hitting .293 (through Tuesday).
“It is tough, Vinyard said. “It?s baseball. It is a weird game. You have just got to battle through it every day.”
Still, Vinyard has been batting leadoff a lot. He led Aberdeen with 50 leadoff appearances through Tuesday.
“It seems like now, every freaking at-bat, I am leading off,” he said. “When you lead off, you get pitched differently. It is a lot easier to get out.”
Vinyard said that he has been working on hitting the inside pitch with Orioles roving instructor Denny Walling.
“I have been working a lot in the cage because I have been focusing too much on the outside,” Vinyard said. “That is how my slump started.”
Vinyard admitted that this was the first bad slump he had ever experienced.
“Through my junior college, I hit as well as I did all year,” he said. “Coming in here and struggling for three weeks is not me.”
But he is starting to come around again, as shown by a home run against the Hudson Valley Renegades Tuesday night, his first in exactly a month.
“It was right where I was working on that inside, up-a-little-bit pitch,” Vinyard said. “I got good wood on it and it went out in a hurry.”
Aberdeen manager Andy Etchebarren has been realistic about Vinyard?s season all along.
“We knew he was not going to hit .400,” Etchebarren said. “He got into a long slump, and he is starting to swing the bat better.”
