CHICAGO — It was harder not to notice him back in college, when Pedro Alvarez was one of the top collegiate hitters in the country at Vanderbilt. Yet his teammate there, Ryan Flaherty, said the accompanying spotlight and attention never suited him.
Then, as now, Alvarez essentially just wanted to be able to hit baseballs, preferably quite loudly before retreating back to his preferred quiet.
That's how Alvarez, whose signing in March seemed like a luxury for the power-packed Orioles roster, has managed to pace the club's attack for nearly two months as so many of the other sluggers went cold with almost no recognition for it.
"He very quietly, for about a month now, has been a real threat for us at a time of need," manager Buck Showalter said. "He's been a real contributor for us. He's had solid at-bats, and being a lot more selective."
"He has been kind of under the radar," Flaherty said. "He's been like that a lot. … He never wanted the attention to all be on him, and he likes it that way."
Alvarez homered two more times in Friday's 7-5 win over the Chicago White Sox, giving him six in five games and 18 in 72 games this year. The effort raised his batting line to .262/.317/.540 on the season, and 15 of his 18 home runs have come since June 1. In 17 games since the All-Star break, Alvarez is batting .297 with nine home runs, the most in the majors since the break.
"You can tell he's in a good place," Showalter said. "He's seeing the ball well, he's spitting on some pitches that he wasn't, and when he's getting his pitch he's not missing it. You see him driving the ball the other way — he's as strong as anybody we've got. He's got a chance to have 20 home runs in the role that he was in, and that's what we had hoped. He's been everything we hoped he'd be."
It's all a far cry from his early season struggles, when Alvarez went days, even against right-handers, without getting in the lineup. In June, Showalter lamented how Alvarez had shown signs of heating up several times but had never been able to sustain it.
He was batting .194/.294/.350 with 10 extra-base hits and 11 RBIs in 35 games entering June. But that was around the time when the Orioles lineup shifted to not include rookie outfielder Joey Rickard every day, and thus featured more opportunities for Alvarez at designated hitter and Hyun Soo Kim in left field. Alvarez attributes the uptick in production to "just getting repetitions, getting [at-bats] and getting opportunities."
"Anytime you get to go out there and see a pitch, get an at-bat, it's an opportunity to continue to get better and get more comfortable," Alvarez said.
Flaherty said those first two months at the plate were impacted by the overall adjustment to life after Pittsburgh, where the Pirates drafted Alvarez as a franchise savior in 2008.
"I think it's probably one of those things where it was a little bit of an adjustment period, coming into a whole new league, whole new clubhouse, whole new setting," Flaherty said. "He's adjusted well, and he's been a really big contributor for us, kind of when we needed it most."
Several factors have set off that need, all of which seem to be detracting attention from Alvarez. Right fielder Mark Trumbo went into the weekend clinging to the major league lead with 31 home runs despite having just three while batting .171 in his first 20 games after the break. First baseman Chris Davis, last year's major league leader in home runs, arrived in Chicago having not homered in 17 games since the break, striking out out 25 times in 59 at-bats in that span. Even third baseman Manny Machado, the team's best overall hitter in the first half of the season, scuffled to a .219 average in his first 19 games after the break.
Alvarez spent the first two months of his Orioles career watching those players thrive, and now is getting to enjoy some of that success on his own.
"Everyone just wants to contribute," Alvarez said. "This is a team that's very capable of doing so, one through nine; literally every position player here. When everybody's going on all cylinders, it's a lot of fun. You see how loose the guys are here, and how much fun they have with each other. I think it's more that competitive edge everybody has, and it works well because it works in cohesion with everybody. It's a lot of fun when the ball's rolling the right way."
Alvarez is even starting to sustain his stroke through his days off. For all his success this season, he has done it almost exclusively off right-handed pitching. He has played once against a left-handed starter this year, and entered Friday a career .200 hitter off lefties. His home run Thursday came after he sat Wednesday against left-hander Cole Hamels, and his absence in the lineup that day came despite him socking two home runs Tuesday.
His role on days when the Orioles face left-handed starters has become clear, but Alvarez doesn't let himself feel a negative impact from those days in the dugout.
"My job is to come here every day ready to play, and to help out any way I can whether I'm in there or not," he said. "I just control what I can control, and that's my attitude and what I come to do every day. That's it. That's all I'm worried about. As players, we have to come in here and just play. Everyone's got to do their job, and I just come here ready to play every day, and that's it."
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