Kubel optimistic hitting slump is over

The Diamondbacks lit up their bats Monday night, scoring
nine runs on 16 hits against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Arizona was in a slump last week with the absences of
outfielders Justin Upton and Chris Young, scoring just 10
runs in a five-game losing streak.

But the team hopes the same mindset on Monday will
continue now that they’ve got Upton back in the lineup.

“Before the game, we were hitting in the cage, and I could
tell, and he could tell, something just clicked yesterday
before the game,” outfielder Jason Kubel told Arizona
Sports 620’s Burns and Gambo Tuesday. “He took that into
the game and hit everything hard, and I think he’s back.
With him going and CY coming back, we can keep up what we
did last night, and it’s pretty good.”

Both Upton and Kubel drove in runs in the first inning and
both homered in the fourth en route to a 9-5 victory.

Kubel said he had trouble hitting in the first several
games because of getting used to the National League
pitchers after coming over from the American League’s
Minnesota Twins, but has come alive the last few games,
raising his batting average to .294.

Kubel is optimistic that with the night they had, they
won’t be seeing the hitting numbers they had last week for
a while.

“I sure hope that last night kinda perks everybody up a
little bit. We hope we keep it rolling, but it’s been
rough,” Kubel said. “We’re not going to be clicking every
day, so hopefully we can be just a little more consistent
now and put up more than the one, two or zero runs we were
doing this last week.”

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