PHEONIX -- After falling, 6-3, to the Rockies on Friday night, the D-backs are now in the middle of their first three-game losing skid since they dropped three straight at the start of June. But there was one silver lining in the loss.
Chris Owings went 2-for-4 and smashed two homers, pushing his season total to 11. In the midst of a breakout season, he is now fourth in the Majors in homers among shortstops and second in doubles, trailing only Francisco Lindor of Cleveland.
His second blast, which Statcast™ projected at 442 feet, was the second-longest homer of the year by a D-backs player and kept Arizona in the game on a night when their 2-3-4 hitters went a combined 2-for-14. Owings is now 6-for-10 lifetime against Colorado starter Jon Gray, who struck out 10 on the night.
"That first at-bat, he looked pretty good," Owings said. "The first couple innings his slider was sharp. He was fresh coming off the DL, so it was tough to kind of watch some video on him from previous starts. So I feel like next time we'll be ready to go and lay off some of those pitches."
Owings' first homer came in his second at-bat against Gray on a first-pitch, 94.1 mph fastball that he deposited over the center-field fence.
"He threw me all offspeed my first at-bat," Owings said. "Just ready to go that first pitch and luckily he was up in the zone, which is kind of what I was looking for after I'd chased some pitches out of the zone that last at-bat."
His second homer came on another early count fastball, this time from Colorado reliever Mike Dunn, and left his bat at 108.1 mph, according to Statcast™.
Owings has seen an increase in power numbers across the board this season; he has already topped his career high in homers, and is six doubles short of matching his career high of 27 from 2015. He has been particularly potent against righties, with nine of his 11 homers coming against them, but he's still hitting .290 against lefties.
"He's got a very compact, short swing where he can impact the ball on any pitch," Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. "He single-handedly kept us in the ballgame with his approach. The power doesn't surprise me. He's very capable offensively of doing anything at any time; that's how I think about him."