While most of us were scanning through twitter feeds searching for the next big free agency rumor, White Sox prospect Luis Robert did some things. He has been on a tear in the Arizona Fall League recently and on Friday he did this…
…advances to third on a sac fly by Yu Chang, and then breaks for home with the Scottsdale taking too long to get the throw in. Great hustle and heads up play Robert, all the way around the bases pic.twitter.com/R9amvbXELp
— Kyle Glaser (@KyleAGlaser) November 9, 2018
After scoring from second on a tag-play that languished in a late-fall malaise, Robert went 2-for-2 off Forrest Whitley, Minor-League-Baseball’s top pitching prospect. With those hits, Robert now has a 14-game hitting streak.
With his single in the second Luis Robert (@whitesox) extended his hitting streak to 14 games, the longest such streak this season.
— MLB's Arizona Fall League (@MLBazFallLeague) November 9, 2018
I’m getting a Gleyber-Torres feeling.
More hustle from Luis Robert pic.twitter.com/unU2NUYMu6
— Kyle Glaser (@KyleAGlaser) November 9, 2018
More impressive than the hustle is the fact that he has remained healthy for, what some would consider, an extended period of time. He’s played in 13 games and holds a .358/.414/.491 slash line with a .904 OPS. Robert hit safely in his first 12 games and dropped one home run while posting eight runs batted in over that period. This is all good news for a guy that struggled to stay on the field last season with a pesky hand injury that preceded a minor meniscus issue followed by an ankle injury.
But Robert used that downtime wisely, telling reporters on a conference call this week that he took the opportunity to begin assimilating into American culture while rehabbing.
“Any time you miss time on the field it will delay your process, especially for a young player as I am,” Robert said on a conference call through translator Billy Russo. “On the other side, all that time I was off the field has helped me adjust to this process in this new country. That’s something I feel good about.”
This seems to be a smart decision based on the learning curve necessary to learn English.
“The biggest challenge for me is the language,” Robert said. “It’s really tough being in a place when you don’t know what people are saying. I can grasp a few words but I don’t know sometimes what people are telling me. That’s definitely frustrating but I’ve been trying to learn. But also the food. If you don’t know how to speak the language you don’t know what to order.”
Food…yes, food. I remember a time when my Latino teammates couldn’t order food at a subway after a game one night. I’ll never forget the panic on their faces. But that was 12 years ago and a forgotten time in history when mobile phones didn’t have translators and dictionaries loaded on the operating systems, but I digress.
Robert appears to be settling in and doing well. We love to see the tools playing out on the field and the hustle to pair with it. In closing, I leave you with the sweet smacks of a tape-measure shot from a few nights ago.
#WhiteSox Luis Robert with an absolutely mammoth home run. Good lord. Nobody on the field moved. Make sure your volume is turned up. @MLBPipeline pic.twitter.com/OuukA6mfEV
— Mike Rosenbaum (@GoldenSombrero) November 8, 2018
That ball was smushed!
