Colorado Rockies: Pat Valaika Talks Home Runs and Outlook

Colorado Rockies fans, it’s time to meet Pat Valaika, your spring training home run leader as the calendar turns to March 7.

Valaika, a 24-year-old utility infielder, crushed his second and third homers of spring training in Monday afternoon’s win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Serving as Colorado’s designated hitter for the day, Valaika took the ball deep in his first two plate appearances of the day.

His second-inning bomb was part of a back-to-back effort with Gerardo Parra homering right before him. It should’ve been the third consecutive long ball of the frame for the Rockies, but Mark Reynolds deep blast off the center field seeing eye wall was ruled as a triple instead.

“Good day. Glad we got the win. It felt good,” Valaika said. “I’m feeling good. The main thing is that I’m under control now and not trying to do too much. When you’re in that zone and you’re not trying to do anything, that’s when things happen.”

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Valaika was singled out by Colorado manager Bud Black in this article and the Rockies skipper has been looking forward to seeing him play.

“How about Valaika? He had a couple of really nice swings,” Black said. “He jumped on that first pitch fastball and got another ball he drove. We like Pat as a group, as a coaching staff and front office. We’re really high on what he might become. He has a nice skill set and he swings the bat.”

Those are great words to hear for Valaika, who saw action for the Rockies in 13 late-season games last year and hit a homer at the Major League level. He posted a .263 batting average in 19 plate appearances.

But that was then and this is now for Valaika, a ninth-round draft pick in 2013 out of UCLA. He knows he’s in the middle of a competition for playing time in a crowded infield. However, he says he’s intent on focusing on taking things one day at a time.

“I just come to work every day and try to do my best,” said Valaika, who is hitting .385 in 13 at-bats this spring. “Things are going to work out how they work out. It’s not something I have control over so I don’t really worry about it.”

Black is liking what he is seeing out of his utility man, not just on Monday but ever since Black came on with the Rockies in the offseason when he first started learning about Valaika.

Next: Flashing Back to When We First Met Valaika Last Season

“Just doing my homework and talking to our scouts and reading scouting reports,” Black said when asked about his learning experience with Valaika’s skills before spring training. “It’s good to see that, in the future, he could be a guy who fits in somewhere on the big league club.”