July 12th, 2016 at 6:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka It was epic, historic even. On Friday night, July 8, 2016, Yasmani Grandal joined Hall of Famers Roy Campanella (August 26, 1950) and Mike Piazza (June 29, 1996) as the only Dodgers catchers in franchise history to hit three home runs in a single game.
But wait, there’s more!
In the two at-bats in which the switch-hitting 27-year-old La Habana, Cuba native didn’t hit a home run, he dropped a perfect bunt down the third base line to beat the shift for a single and also lined a single to center field for his first career 5 for 5 night while driving in six runs and collecting 14 total bases.
Grandal’s three home runs and bunt single came while batting left-handed and his eighth-inning single came while batting right-handed. It was his first career three-home-run game and first 5 for 5 night.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)
But it wasn’t a one-and-done game for Grandal. In his last seven games the Dodgers backstop went 10 for 22 (.455) with five home runs and eight RBIs. His on-base percentage during that stretch was a remarkable .556 and his slugging percentage an off-the-charts 1.136 for an absolutely impossible OPS of 1.692.
“I’ve said it before and I’ve been saying it for a while, I’ve been hitting the ball hard but just straight at people,” Grandal said after his historic night. “I’ve been taking good swings the whole year, it’s just hasn’t gone my way. And then a little bit of injuries here and there obviously makes you do different things to make sure you can keep on playing. The last couple weeks I started to feel a little bit better, swinging the bat better, my bat speed is there. I’ve been able to make a couple of adjustments and we’re here.”
The thing to remember, however, is that we’ve seen this happen before with Grandal. He gets incredible cold, then incredibly hot and then incredible cold again, causing Dodgers fans to become leery that this is nothing more than a passing hot streak that could end at any moment. That being said, if Grandal is, in fact, finally 100% healthy from his off-season surgery on his left (non-throwing) shoulder – a surgery that caused him to begin the season on the disabled list – we could be seeing the Yasmani Grandal that Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi traded away popular outfielder Matt Kemp for.
“We knew there was a chance that we might [have] had to do the labrum,” Grandal said following his October 21, 2015 surgery. “But obviously I didn’t want to take longer to come back, so I was very happy to hear that the labrum wasn’t touched once I woke up from the surgery.”
It’s no secret that Grandal has had a horrible first half of the season until the final week heading into the All-Star break. In fact, even with his blazing hot last seven games he is still hitting only .212 / .323 / .434 for a rather meager .757 OPS. But the five-year MLB veteran said that he isn’t the least bit concerned about his batting average at this point in the season.
“I feel like I’ve been hitting the ball but just straight at people, hard contact, it’s always a good at-bat for me. Obviously it’s not showing numbers-wise,” said Grandal. “We have a stat for hitting the most amount of balls the hardest, I guess, and I’m up there. I just kept doing whatever it is that I’ve been doing and trying to make my adjustments here and there.
“The fact that I’m starting to feel healthy again is one of the major things,” Grandal added. “I feel like my bat speed is back and I’ve been taking better at-bats so we’ll turn the page and concentrate on dealing with tomorrow.”
As you might expect, what Grandal has been doing of late hasn’t gone unnoticed by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.
“The quality of contact that he’s had and the work that he’s put in, this guys is watching video, working with hitting coaches, and finally to get rewarded with a memorable, historical night was great, was really special,” Roberts said. “When you can get Yasmani – who we counted on for offense this year – being productive then we’re in a very good place.”
Has Grandal finally turned the corner that we have been waiting a year and a half for him to turn?
Stay tuned…
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we all hope so. He has been on fire
Yes, we do hope so.
Grandal was a black hole before he got hot. Made me look at Lucroy longingly. However, I think with this hot streak, it means FAZ should hang tight and stick with Grandal. The rumored prices sellers are asking for are prohibitive in my opinion.
Grandal, 27 yrs old, reasonable contract, he is worth watching to see if he is finally healthy and ready to contribute more regularly. A hitting Grandal/catcher sure lengthens the lineup nicely.
I know I get in trouble when I use those famous words, but there’s nothing else we can do. That said, personally I feel, now that Yasmani is feeling better only better things can come from him.
Yasmani’s defense seems to have come together in that same July 8 game. That CS was a difficult play, one that previously he didn’t even get the throw off. He was doing a much better job of blocking pitches in the dirt. Overall his defense was much more solid than it has ever been.
Now, we all know he’s not going to keep up those offensive numbers. We do hope he’ll settle somewhere in between that and what he’s been doing before, preferably closer to the new.
But if he can keep up the defensive performance then I will, for the first time, acknowledge that he should be the everyday catcher.
I am wait and see on Grandal. I have been fooled too many times with Yasmani and his streaks. I was all in on the Kemp trade, so I wanted to see Grandal do well. While I have been an advocate for Lucroy, I can see wisdom in not pulling the trigger on a trade that will undoubtedly cost the Dodgers a top tier prospect or prospects. The pitching has not been a problem so far this year, and the pitching staff is comfortable with Grandal behind the plate. So there is good reason for not making a change right now.
In his career, July has always been Grandal’s best month by far. May and August have been sub-Mendoza. I can’t help but wonder why he was playing if he wasn’t healthy. I wondered the same thing last September.
I still believe he was playing because Friedman felt he had to justify the trade that brought Yasmani to the Dodgers.
Seems kind of sad to me that justifying his decisions is more important to him than putting the best team on the field.