Midway through the 2016 season, A.J. Hinch and the Astros called up one of the top prospects in baseball. Alex Bregman, the second overall pick in 2015, had torn up the minors and was ready for the show. You might remember him getting his first big-league hit in Detroit ... after an 0 for 17 start. He would go 2 for 38 in his first 11 games.
And then he would break out and hit .313 the rest of the season. You know what he's done since.
Spencer Torkelson, the first overall pick in 2018, is 1-13 through his first five games in the majors. Which is a good time to remember that he was 1-16 through his first four games in the pros with High-A West Michigan last season, only to start Candy Crushing the ball like everyone expected.
"That was my first time going anything worse than 0 for 5 probably, but I learned to trust myself," Torkelson said Tuesday after notching his first big-league hit. "Going through last year really helped me stay the course, respect the baseball gods. They were testing me a little bit, but you just (keep the) same energy, keep the same course and it’ll find its way."
Hinch kept writing Bregman into the Astros' lineup through his early struggles. And Torkelson is back in the lineup for the Tigers in their rubber match against the Red Sox Wednesday, batting seventh and playing first.
"You gotta push through it and just keep playing him and playing him," Hinch said Wednesday on the Stoney & Jansen Show. "I do feel for him because every at-bat is scrutinized right now and when he got a hit, he’s fixed, and when he doesn’t get a hit, ‘Oh my god, what’s happening to him?’"
What's happening to Torkelson, in short, is what's happened to him in the early stages of every step of his career.
"Let’s see," said Hinch. "In college he was a slow starter, in A-ball he was a slow starter, he got promoted to Double-A, slow start, Triple-A, slow start, and we are shocked that in the big leagues it’s a slow start? Again, one day fixes all of this and maybe it’s today, maybe it’s tomorrow, maybe it’s a month that it takes him to get ready, I don’t care. I want him to do better faster, but at the same time, it doesn’t label him as anything until we get into the boat.
"You look around the league, I remember Alex Bregman started out like 2-30 and he turned into a pretty good player. Everybody just relax. Let him play baseball, let him get acclimated. We all want him to be perfect and do great and he’s going to, it’s just taking him a little bit of time to get used to."
We'll take Hinch at his word on Torkelson's college numbers. The others bear out his point. After that 1-16 start in A-ball, Torkelson hit .355 over his next 27 games to force his way to Double-A Erie ... where he went 2-11 in his first three games. He hit 14 homers in his next 47 games to force his way to Triple-A ... where he went 3-28 in his first seven games. He hit 11 homers in his next 33 games to set the stage for his arrival in Detroit.
And now he's 1-13. Everybody relax.
"I asked at the beginning of the season, kind of jokingly, for everybody (in the media) to leave him alone and let him get settled. That has not been done. For every reaction, we go right to Tork and say, ‘Hey, how does this first hit feel?’ Like, it felt like any other hit I’ve ever had. So we’ve gotta plow through all this, he needs to get all his firsts out of the way.
"Yesterday was the first hit, he’s made some first defensive plays, he’s also punched out on a bad call, he’s also chased. Just get me to, like, April 25th and let him decompress and then we’ll talk again."
After closing strong as a rookie, Bregman took his game to another level in year two. He was a top-five MVP finisher by year three, a top-two finisher by year four. He's been one of the best players in baseball for the past five seasons. He was 0 for 17 and 2 for 38, and he was always going to be great.
"I feel like I belong here," Torkelson said Tuesday. "And I feel like I’m seeing the ball great. As long as I trust myself, everything is going to follow."