Miguel Amaya lifted just his front heel off the ground, loading his swing with a shift in his hips rather than leg kick. Then he let everything uncoil to mash a grand slam into the back rows of the left-field bleachers.
In the Cubs’ 10-2 victory against the Tigers on Thursday, Amaya’s second-inning grand slam, the first of his career, set the tone for the rout. And the Cubs (63-65) claimed the series to put a bow on a 4-2 homestand.
“That was a huge swing by Miggy,” manager Craig Counsell said.
It continued a hot streak for the young catcher. Amaya entered Thursday slashing .274/.321/.452 over the last seven weeks.
For Cubs starter Justin Steele, who faced Amaya at the Cubs’ alternate site in 2020, Amaya’s recent success has simply supported what the lefty had long seen in Amaya.
“He was still so young at the time,” Steele said, “and he was, to me, one of the scariest at bats at that alt site in 2020.”
At the mention of their battles in 2020, when the minor-league season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the club’s top minor-leaguers practiced and scrimmaged in South Bend, Amaya couldn’t help but grin.
“I don't know if he said it, but I took him deep,” Amaya said. “After a couple strikeouts, though.”
Now they’re working together at the big-league level, with Steele backing up his 2023 breakout season with another impressive showing this year, and Amaya settling in as the team’s primary catcher.
On Thursday, Steele recorded a season-high 10 strikeouts in seven innings with Amaya behind the plate. The lefty held the Tigers scoreless until the seventh, when Spencer Torkelson put Detroit on the board with a two-run homer.
All the offensive potential that Steele, and the Cubs organization, saw in Amaya, however, took a while to come out this year.
Then the team gave Amaya a three-day break from the lineup July 4-6 to work on his swing and eliminate his leg kick.
“With Miggy, we were pretty confident that was going to be a pretty good [adjustment],” hitting coach Dustin Kelly said in a conversation with the Sun-Times, “because he's always worked a little bit better from a wider base, and we knew in the minor leagues he had messed around with that. … And we knew that if he could just be on time a little bit more, that he has plenty of bat speed and power – that it wasn't going to take away any of that.”
The results followed immediately. Amaya went 11-for-21 in his next nine games. And four of his six home runs this season have come in the past month and a half.
“What comes first, the confidence or the adjustment?” Counsell said. “He's got both going right now. He's swinging at good pitches. When he gets a pitch to hit, he's doing some damage with it. And he has the power to do this; this is not fluke stuff. He hits the ball hard, and he's getting some results from it and some good feedback from it.”
Amaya tends to downplay the adjustment. He’d used a similar setup as a two-strike approach in the minors, so it was familiar. But Counsell stressed how difficult it is to make in-season adjustments.
“The results beforehand necessitated it,” Counsell said, referencing Amaya’s .186 batting average before the adjustment. “But it's tough to do, and he's done a really good job with it.”
Amaya went 3-for-4 at the plate Thursday, and the Cubs put together a few more rallies. But the grand slam stood as the defining moment of the game.
