I’ll be the first to admit that with each successive strikeout – and there have been many – I was becoming less and less a fan of Dodgers second baseman Logan Forsythe, who is arguably one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. I mean, in his first 134 plate appearances (110 at-bats) with the Dodgers, the 30-year-old Memphis, Tennessee native has struck out 42 times – this in only 35 games played. It has gotten so bad than many Dodgers fans refer to the seven-year MLB veteran as the team’s ‘designated strikeout.’

But during Saturday’s 10-2 pounding of the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ballpark something changed, Forsythe went 1-for-5 at the plated and did not strike out … not once. And then on Sunday, he went 2-for-5. And even though he did strike out once, he also hit a monster 442-foot home run to help the Dodgers to an eventual 8-7 win and a series (and season) sweep of the NL Central last place Reds.

“The last couple of games the timing’s been a little bit better,” Forsythe said, after the game. “I’m getting into a position where I can actually fire and be a little more aggressive. The work is starting to pay off, and the suggestions from about everybody. It’s been a long road. Haven’t been in a slump like that for a long time.”

(Courtesy of @DingerTracker)

That slump had Forsythe with an ugly slash-line of .191 / .328 / .245 for a dismal .574 OPS prior to Sunday’s contest, well below his career slash-line of .252 / .326 / .388 and .713 OPS.

Forsythe absolutely crushed a hanging curveball off of 40-year-old / 16-year MLB veteran right-hander Bronson Arroyo to give the Dodgers a seemingly comfortable 5-0 lead in the third inning. That would soon change.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

Forsythe’s home run, and that of Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner, would help lead to an even more comfortable 8-2 Dodgers lead heading into the bottom of the seventh inning, when the Reds put together a three-run inning off of struggling Dodgers right-hander Josh Fields to make it a much less comfortable 8-5 Dodgers lead. And then in the bottom of the eighth, the Reds put two more runs on the board off of Dodgers right-hander Pedro Baez, with the tying run on second base in the speedy Billy Hamilton and the go-ahead run on first base after a two-out / four-pitch walk to new Reds folk hero Scooter Gennett.

But wait, there’s more!

This brought the always dangerous Joey Votto (and his 19 home runs) to the plate. Votto launched Baez’s 2-1 / 98-MPH fastball to (very) deep left field where it looked as though it would land for a bases-clearing double, but for an absolutely spectacular catch by Dodgers left fielder Kiké Hernandez, who crashed hard into the wall and somehow managed to hold onto the ball for the third out to save the day.

“I was playing pretty shallow and Joey Votto is a good enough hitter that I didn’t want him to shoot one the other way,” Hernandez told reporters. “The fans were talking a lot of trash, so if there was a ball hit anywhere near me, I had to catch it or throw him out at the plate. Off the bat I had a pretty good jump, but I didn’t realize how shallow I was. I felt like I ran forever.”

Less-than-friendly Reds fan looked on in disbelief as Dodgers left fielder Kiké Hernandez crashed into the wall after his spectacular game-saving catch to rob Joey Votto of at least a double.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

With the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks keeping pace with the Dodgers win-for-win this past weekend, a heating-up Logan Forsythe couldn’t come at a better time, if he is, in fact, heating up.

It would also do wonders to quiet the Logan Forsythe naysayers.