By Paul Gotham
HORNELL, N.Y. — Jimmy Latona (Monroe CC) managed four multi-hit games during this past spring’s junior college baseball season.
The Chili, N.Y. native went 3-for-5 Thursday night for his seventh New York Collegiate Baseball League game with two or more hits. Yes, less than halfway through the NYCBL slate, Latona has almost doubled his output from that with the Monroe Community College Tribunes.
Just don’t expect NYCBL’s reigning hitter of the week to stop and enjoy the feat. Like his home run trot, Latona keeps moving full steam ahead.
At 15-3 Hornell’s Dodgers sit comfortably atop the NYCBL’s Western Division. Four and half games separate the Blue and White from the second place Geneva Twins. Similarly, Latona is well ahead of the pack hitting a league-leading .576 with an on-base percentage of .736 (both numbers more than 75 points better than the next closest hitter).
Latona credits a late-season adjustment that Monroe coach Dave Brust made in his approach at the plate.
“I still have the same mindset that he was talking to me about,” he said after Hornell’s 17-1 victory over Olean. “Just letting the ball get deep, keeping my swing short, have a nice little A-to-B swing and just drive the ball as best I can. It worked out for me at the end of the season at Monroe. It’s carried on nice so far this summer.”
The Hornell catcher finished a triple short of the cycle and plated four runs on the night.
“I was just trying to drive the ball,” Latona noted. “I’ve been trying to keep it as simple as I can in my head.”
He beat out an infield single in the second, doubled home a pair of runs in the fifth and drilled his first home run of the season in the fourth – a one-out blast to left field.
“I got a good hitter’s count. I was thinking more fastball. The kid hung a change up. I took advantage of it and barreled it up pretty well.”
The two-run shot was part of a three-run fourth that gave Hornell a commanding 7-1 lead.
“That part of the ballpark points out. I didn’t know if it was going to or not, but I get to second base and everyone is yelling and everything.”
Just in case Latona never broke stride nearly catching teammate Carlos Olavarria (Concordia) as they rounded the bases.
“I’ve always done that,” Latona said of his not-so-home-run trot (fans of a different era think Mickey Hatcher). I’ve never been a kid to really jog around the bases. I was taught young by my dad that ‘why do you have to jog around the bases and show up the pitcher when you just showed him up and hit a home run?’ Why not get around the bases as quick as you can, get in the dugout and get ready to go play defense.”
Latona has 10 hits in his last 15 at bats and is riding a modest six-game hitting streak. Couple that with 14 base on balls (second in the league), and he has what the kids call “video game numbers” (fans of a different era will have to trust the reference).
“It’s awesome,” Hornell first baseman and Monroe CC alum Spencer Scorza said of his teammate’s work at the plate. “We know he’s going to do something every time he goes to the plate. He’s still working a lot of walks, just great at bats.”
Latona came to the plate in the eighth. Talk in the Maple City Park press box centered around how a 3-for-6 night might take a bite out of his numbers.
As if that mattered.
Latona showed that despite his current rank in the NYCBL, he is not afraid to “wear one” – something he did 22 times this past spring (fans of a different era think Ron Hunt). When an Olean reliever came inside with a 3-1 pitch, Latona didn’t flinch as he took it off the shoulder. He dropped his bat and head and broke into full stride down the first baseline.
“He always plays hard,” Scorza said. “He always run things out. He’s got a way he plays the game, and he has a lot of fun.”
Latona and Hornell get an off-day Friday before travelling to Oneonta for the weekend in a rematch of last year’s NYCBL finals.
Leave a Reply