Chris Owings returns to D-backs with focus on home stretch

PHOENIX — Chris Owings wasn’t quick to talk about any difficulty of being sent to the minor leagues in his sixth big league season.

The first words out of his mouth on Monday afternoon were about the D-backs’ games in Los Angeles this weekend, which included some particularly difficult losses. He expressed his looking forward to the next series, not any anger or disappointment that he may have about his season.

“It’s go time now,” he said. “It’s the home stretch, and we’ve got to play some good baseball.”

Owings is back in the big leagues — joining a team that entered Monday one game out of first in the NL West — after Arizona sent him to Triple-A Reno on Aug. 3. The 27-year-old has played more major-league games in his career (567) than minor-league games (522). He led the league in triples in 2016. He’s a career .250 hitter in MLB and has played every position except first, catcher and pitcher.

This season, he played the majority of his games in the outfield — a reversal from the norm at the beginning of his career in the bigs, when he played middle infield exclusively until 2016. He wasn’t an everyday starter at any one single position for this season and hit .198 before being sent down.

“We asked a lot of him,” Lovullo said. “We asked a lot of him throughout the course of the year with bouncing around, and he was going to get at-bats a bunch of different ways. He didn’t have the type of year I know he wanted. Offensively, it wasn’t as productive as he wanted it to be. He played very good defense, but when it came to that time, we had to make a decision.

“We needed to let him go and get his offensive approach and get his offensive game back in line, which he did. And that’s a credit to him.”

Owings is not the first established big league player to get sent to the minor leagues.

The Diamondbacks sent outfielder Chris Young to Reno back in August of 2009 when Young had only hit .194 on the season. In 2014, Arizona sent right-handed pitcher Trevor Cahill to Single-A Visalia as he owned a 5.66 ERA with the D-backs for the year. In 2016, right-hander Shelby Miller was optioned to Reno with a 7.14 ERA.

All three of those players returned to continue their career in the majors.

“He expressed a lot of frustration to me, which I was glad that he did when we initially sent him out,” Lovullo said. “I wanted him to get that off his chest. And then once he turned the page, he went down there and did what he had to do.”

Owings’ option to Triple-A served as an opportunity for the utility player to get regular reps at different positions and work on his offense. Doing both of those things can make him a better player, a substantial silver-lining in what may seem a tough pill to swallow.

“I just went down there and played hard, worked on stuff with my swing, and it was good to play second, third, center consistently,” Owings said. “I haven’t played infield a ton this year so it was nice to kind of get back and get acquainted back to the infield.”

Lovullo said Owings would have chances to get “big at bats” as the season comes to a close, though he wasn’t sure specifically when or where those would come.

Either way, the fact remains: Owings is a major league baseball player. The same one who has played more than 500 games in a Diamondbacks uniform.

“We felt comfortable knowing he was going to be coming back here,” Lovullo said. “But he’s still the same guy.”

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