PITTSBURGH – A three-week stint on the disabled list did nothing to cool the bat of veteran infielder Gordon Beckham, who’s having a bit of a career revival so far in his first season with the Braves.
After going 0-for-2 in his first game back from the DL, Beckham was 10-for-23 (.435) with five doubles, five RBIs and a .500 on-base percentage in seven games before Thursday’s series finale at Pittsburgh.
That included a ninth-inning RBI double in Wednesday’s 3-1 win, in his lone plate appearance after entering the game on a double-switch in the eighth inning.
“I feel good about what I’m doing,” the Atlanta native said, “and that’s the most important thing, is being confident in your approach and how you go into each at-bat.”
Beckham, 29, entered Thursday batting .340 (17-for-50) with seven doubles, eight RBIs and a .901 OPS in 18 games, and he’s become a lineup regular at either second or third base. He had a .394 average with eight RBIs and a .459 on-base percentage in his past 10 games.
With the Braves holding a majors-worst 10-29 record through Wednesday, he’s had a hard time deriving a great deal of satisfaction from his own resurgence.
“It’s kind of tough to focus on individual stuff when … I’m from Atlanta and take a lot of pride in actually having us win,” said the former Westminster Schools and University of Georgia standout. “I’m not going to be here for a long time unless I get re-signed, so this might be the only chance I have to get to play in a Braves uniform. So I want it to mean something, I want it to matter. And it does matter to pretty much everybody in this clubhouse.
“Hopefully we can just start winning some games and get back to respectable and you never know. I mean, you keep doing stuff like we did the last couple of nights, all of a sudden a month later you look up and you’re like, hey, we’re not that far out. And then there’s a chance.
“It’s still relatively early. I know we have a huge deficit, but we do have some talent in here. So hopefully we’ll just keep doing what we did last night, get some good starts like we’ve been getting from those (pitchers) the majority of the year, and just start climbing back into it.”
Beckham, 29, signed a one-year, $1.25 million contract with the Braves after a career-worst season with the White Sox in 2015, when he .209 with 14 extra-base hits, 20 RBIs and a .607 OPS in 237 plate appearances.
