Luis Robert has been hitting plenty of balls hard during Chicago White Sox intrasquad games, and he continued that Saturday despite falling down. During an intrasquad game at Guaranteed Rate Field, Robert homered to center field off Carlos Rodon while falling down:
Luis Robert hits bombs even when he’s falling. 😂 pic.twitter.com/GVRkj42FZd
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 11, 2020
Here’s another angle of that:
The Luis Robert falling-down home run for the intrasquad ages pic.twitter.com/WCcNxwXz0Z
— Vinnie Duber (@VinnieDuber) July 11, 2020
Daryl Van Schouwen of The Chicago Sun-Times has some fun quotes on that:
“He’s a special talent,” said bench coach Joe McEwing, who is in charge of the club while manager Rick Renteria is away for a funeral. “He’s the kind of individual you will pay to watch play. You can come to the ballpark and understand he has the chance to do something special every day in every aspect of his game, whether it’s running, playing defense, throwing or hitting.”
…Robert has the kind of talent worth buying a ticket to see, but his career will start in empty stadiums, which hitting coach Frank Menechino said might not be all bad. Should he go into an 0-for-10 streak, playing with no fans would allow him “to ease into it and get comfortable with it and to really check and see where he’s at,” Menechino said.
“I would have loved to see 162 games so he could make adjustments and stuff, but it is what it is and I think he’s just going to go out there, actually see what it’s about,” Menechino said. “He’s going to go out there and be Luis Robert. We’re going to see what he can do. It’s going to be a great test for him.”
2020 will mark Robert’s major-league debut. Last year, he hit .453/.512/.920 in 19 games at the high-A level (with eight home runs), .314/.362/.518 in 56 games at the double-A level (with eight home runs), and .297/.341/.634 in 47 games at the triple-A level (with 16 home runs). We’ll see how Robert (who turns 23 in August) does with his transition to the majors, but he certainly has plenty of power. And hey, hitting this one out of the park meant that falling down didn’t cost him any bases.
