Donavan Tate Finally Shows Signs of Life

Man, it was brutal to look at Donavan Tate’s statlines from the Arizona League and think “This is the guy who was picked 3rd overall?”

Facing mostly low-level draftees and acclimating Latin American prospects, Tate was 6-for-31 with 16 strikeouts and just four walks in June–over half his at-bats were strikeouts.

But the calendar has turned to a new month, and July 1 apparently brought life into Tate’s bat.

The 19-year-old center fielder finished a triple shy of the cycle on Friday, going 4-for-4 with two singles, a double, and his first professional home run. The game took his statline from .194/.286/.258 to a much nicer-looking .286/.375/.457.

It’s just one game, but it sure makes Tate’s overall performance look a lot closer to what we all were expecting. Good to see that he’s starting to figure things out–he got on base twice in each of the three games before that as well.