Lucroy belts 7th homer in 15 games, earns Darvish's 'extreme trust'
Jonathan Lucroy's impact on the AL West-leading Texas Rangers has been immediate, and it doesn't look like he'll be letting up with the bat any time soon.
In Wednesday's contest against the visiting Oakland Athletics, the catcher drove in three runs with a game-tying home run and added an opposite-field double in a 6-2 Rangers win.
It was Lucroy's seventh homer in 15 games with the Rangers since he was acquired at the trade deadline. That matches his total for all of 2015 with the Milwaukee Brewers. Including his contributions to the Brewers this season, the All-Star backstop has hit a career-high 20 home runs and still has roughly six weeks left to play in the season.
Not only has the 30-year-old influenced the offense, but he's getting the Rangers' pitching staff into a groove. The team is 8-4 with Lucroy behind the plate, and the staff ERA drops from 4.43 to 2.92 when Lucroy makes the calls behind the plate.
"Simplification is the most important of the game for me," Lucroy said to Evan Grant of the Dallas News. "This is simple: use your strengths as best as you can. I'm a big fan of the KISS method - Keep It Simple, Stupid. There is no reason to fix something that isn't broken. Don't try to be too tricky. Just let your ability do the work."
As Grant noted, Lucroy and Yu Darvish (who started Wednesday) were able to "seamlessly transition" to more off-speed pitches to slow the Athletics' bats down when they jumped on the fastball early, before speeding them back up again. With a repertoire that seems to need very little assistance, Darvish has a high level of respect for the relationship he's developed with Lucroy in the short time they've shared the field.
"I think one of my strengths is that I'm able to make adjustments," Darvish said to Grant through a translator. "But, with Lucroy, we are always on the same page and it's easy to do it. That's what we did tonight ... He works and studies so hard, it gives me so much confidence. There is an extreme trust that I feel out there."