Busch breaks out with five-hit game

Even though he was struggling at the plate, Michael Busch didn’t let the noise get to him.

Baseball’s No. 39 overall prospect broke out of an 0-11 slump, with a five-hit, five-RBI game en route to Triple-A Oklahoma City’s 20-3 victory over Round Rock.

“I struggled the past few days,” said Busch. “ So I just tried to keep things simple and get a good pitch and just try to put a good swing on it.

“That's the fun part about baseball. You can go 0-for-5 one day and then have five hits the next day.”

Busch did more than put a few good swings on the ball. He started his night with two singles in consecutive innings- a single driven to left in the second followed by an RBI single in the third. Busch then displayed his power and pushed an opposite-field three-run home run to left in the fifth inning. The 24-year-old wouldn’t stop there as he pulled another single to right field in the sixth. Busch capped off his night with another RBI single popped up to center in eighth.

“I had a few balls that snuck through some holes that added a couple extra hits there,” said Busch. “I just tried to stick with it and not get too high.”

Despite entering the game with a .259/.319/.462 slash line, Busch had endured some struggles in the past few games. The Dodgers broke a six-game losing streak the night before and Busch was enduring the second-longest lump of the season. However, the woes of the game didn’t affect the Dodgers No. 3 prospect as he used it to improve his game.

“Baseball is obviously a game of failure,” said Busch. “You're gonna go through ups and downs, so [I’m] not trying to dive in too deep but just trying to get through some things and trying to clean up and find something that can relate. And if nothing is standing out to me, I'll just keep going. But if something stands out, I'll try and hone in on it in a cage and get after, then try to focus out on the field.”

Alongside his focus, comes discipline. The former first-round pick relies on his routine in the cages to be productive in his craft.

“I feel like everybody has different routines just based on what they're feeling or what they like to feel,” said Busch. “So I developed that over the course of, honestly my career, especially over the past couple years. As soon as I got into pro baseball, it was kind of a good time to hone in on some things and be specific with certain things. So just developed over the last couple of years a routine and try to stick with that.”

Since joining the Oklahoma City Dodgers, Bush has posted a. 270/.328/.480 line and tallied 14 home runs and plated 53 runs. While he has delivered throughout the season, he hopes to build stability throughout the rest of the season.

“The biggest thing for me is just being more consistent at the play and defensively, trying to be the same guy every day,” said Busch. “I want to be the guy that the coaches know what they're going to get out of each and every day, no matter the circumstance, no matter guys on or, or anything, just they know what they're gonna get.”