By AvesIce51 for Redszone
Dragons’ All-glove Infielder Surprising with the Bat
Janish batting .440 after six games
Sure the season is only six games old and the Dragons are 1-5, but so far one of the bright spots for the Dayton Dragons is seeing their gold-glove quality shortstop hitting the ball. Paul Janish (Yah-nish) hit only .254 last year in 55 games with the Dragons. In his elite career, he has only hit over .300 one time, and that was his senior year at Rice University when he hit .345/.428/.545/.973.
Despite those solid numbers, Janish was drafted for his glove, not his bat. He is very slick with the leather, but the bat has yet to be shown during his pro career. This year could be different.
Through the first six games, the 5th round pick for the Reds in 2004 is batting .440 (11-25) with 4 RBI. He has only struck out twice in the young season for a rate of one strikeout every 12.5 at-bats. After his first two seasons of professional baseball, he was striking out at a rate of once every 4.97 at-bats.
One thing that is helping is that Janish is getting protection from two prospects in the Reds organization, Jay Bruce and BJ Szymanski. The latter two are considered the future of the Reds outfield, but were handled easily by Toronto prospect Chi-Hung Cheng, going a combined 0-7 with five strikeouts. Janish, on the other hand showed his experience by going 4-4 on the day, three of those hits off Cheng, including the would-be game winning RBI on a line drive to left field.
Janish will be 23-years-old by the end of this season, which makes him relatively old for a prospect in low class-A ball. No matter how he hits throughout the season, barring a massive slump, Janish will get the chance to try his stuff in high-A Sarasota which should be a good challenge for the Texas native. In the future, there is a possibility of Janish playing a bit of second base as well because of Felipe Lopez hopefully holding down the shortstop position in Cincinnati for years to come.
