Dunn's recent surge is above average

CHICAGO -- There's a reasonable expectation that Adam Dunn will always hit for power. Lately, though, his average has been climbing.

Dunn is hitting .315 over his last 21 games entering Wednesday, raising his average from .156 to .199 in that span. He's also driven in 23 runs, hit nine homers, scored 16 runs and walked 15 times.

"He is [locked in]. He's swinging it good," manager Robin Ventura said. "Even [against the Orioles on Tuesday] he gets out, but he still lines out, a lot of hard contact from him lately. He's going to walk, he's going to strike out, but the hard contact is probably the best thing. This is a good stretch for him."

Dunn hit a long home run on Tuesday night to extend the lead in the seventh. He has 20 or more homers in the first half of the season for the 10th time in his career. But even when he wasn't hitting so well at the beginning of the year, he tried not to over-analyze.

"I just think once you continually put yourself in a good position to hit, for the most part everything else takes care of itself," Dunn said. "I can't guide the ball. It's not an Xbox. You can't make it move the way you want it to go. So you just put the barrel on it, put a swing on it and whatever happens, happens."