DENVER – The enduring trait of Rockies left fielder Jordan Beck is the feeling that something good is about to happen, mainly because he feels that way.
“To be honest, every time I get into the box, I believe I can get the job done,” Beck said in the Rockies’ clubhouse a couple weeks ago. “I believe I can do anything that I need when I step on the field. Obviously, sometimes it doesn’t happen. You’ve just got to keep reminding yourself and believing in yourself. At the end of the day, that helps you.”
What had been a lopsided game in the Padres' favor Saturday turned into a nail-biter when he launched a Jeremiah Estrada fastball a Statcast-projected 447 feet to straightaway center for a three-run homer in the seventh inning.
Mickey Moniak’s homer in the ninth cut the difference to two runs. Beck’s two-out, ninth-inning single off Robert Suarez kept the game alive and brought Brenton Doyle up with the chance to tie, before Doyle’s fly ball ended the 10-8 loss at Coors Field.
After seeing his team nearly overcome a 10-2 deficit, Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer expressed surprise, but not about Beck’s 15th homer of his first full season.
“It was a big swing for us, got us right back in the game,” Schaeffer said. “I didn’t realize it had been a month since his last homer.”
That’s right. Before Beck turned Estrada’s 96.8 mph fastball to cut the difference to 10-7 on Saturday, Beck’s last homer came Aug. 3 at Coors against Pittsburgh's Mitch Keller. The day before that, Beck hit an opposite-way, three-run shot off the Pirates’ Paul Skenes, who is practically the National League Cy Young Award winner-elect.
“It feels like it’s been that long to me,” Beck said. “Maybe not to you guys, but it feels like it’s been a while.
“If you have the potential to hit home runs, everybody wants to hit as many as they can, as often as they can. You go through spurts, or you have a bunch of doubles and don’t have any home runs. It’s been a while. I feel like I hit some balls pretty well, but hadn’t been hitting the ball in the air super well.”
Beck carries himself as someone who either is hot or is about to be. It’s why Schaeffer has been willing to keep Beck’s name in the lineup through dry spells. Most recently, he went without an RBI for 15 games from Aug. 17 through Tuesday.
But Beck’s slump is morphing into a torrid streak. In his last five games, he is slashing .421/.421/.684 with two doubles, one homer, six RBIs, no walks and five strikeouts.
Beck, 24, and catcher Hunter Goodman – whose homer Saturday got him to 29 on the season, surpassing Wilin Rosario’s record for a Rockies catcher (2012) – are, either because of health or production, the most consistent names in Schaeffer’s lineup. Schaeffer has made sure of that since Beck has shown to be a difficult-to-defend option to Triple-A Albuquerque in April.
The Rockies would rather their learning curve not include the worst-in-MLB record of 40-102. But to be a part of the attempt at a better future, players can reveal themselves as the types who can push aside the tough times and make themselves threats to do something special the next game – or even during a game that looked bleak when starting pitcher McCade Brown yielded six runs and five hits in 1 2/3 innings in his third Major League start since being summoned from Double-A Hartford.
Drafted 38th overall out of the University of Tennessee in 2022, Beck breezed through the Minors and debuted last April. A hand injury limited him to 55 Major League games in 2024.
Like other players on the Majors’ youngest active roster (26.0 years average), Beck is experiencing the grind of the schedule at a new level. With 128 games for the Rockies and eight at Albuquerque, this is easily the most baseball he has ever played.
Beck has admitted feeling a couple of recent stretches without a team day off. Thursday, in fact, was the team’s first day off during a homestand in five weeks. Maybe the one day’s respite, plus being at Coors -- where he is batting .320 as opposed to .210 on the road (but he has eight homers at home to seven on the road) -- has helped Beck return to hitting balls high and deep.
“I’ve been on stretches before where I’ve been 0-for-30 and gone on a 10-straight-homer stretch,” he said. “It’s a fun game.
“We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”