OAKLAND, Calif. – Adam Dunn has tried them all, and he has finally settled into a designated-hitter routine.
And the winner is …
“I sit there and watch the game and don’t do anything until about two batters before I’m due up,” the White Sox first-year DH said Friday. “Then and I go down, stretch a little and take 10 or 15 swings and I go with it.”
Dunn, a DH for the first time in a career that had been limited to the National League before the Sox plunked down $56 to sign him as a free agent, wasn’t thrilled with the idea of not playing the field, but to his credit he has embraced the DH role and is bent on making the most of it.
He’s finding out it’s not such a bad thing, after all.
“If you’re hitting and winning it’s probably the best gig you can have, you know?” Dunn said. “I’m starting to feel a lot more comfortable doing it. Trying to get where it’s second nature.”
Dunn hates to say he told you so, but his bat is heating up after a sluggish extended start that coincided with the team’s offensive woes.
“I feel good,” said Dunn, who had four hits including a home run and double in the Sox’ 6-4 win against the Angels in 10 innings Wednesday night. The difference between when I’m doing good and not doing good is I’m taking pitches I should be hitting or I’m fouling them off.”
Going into the Sox’ game against the Athletics in Oakland on Friday night, Dunn was 10-for-21 (.476) with five doubles, a hoe run, four RBI and seven runs scored in his previous five games.
