Baseball players don't always point to a specific spring or summer as a turning point in their careers.
A perfect example would be Chattanooga Lookouts center fielder and leadoff hitter Michael Siani, who finished last summer hitting just .216 in 97 games for the Single-A Dayton (Ohio) Dragons.
"I did the whole Fall League thing last year at the end of the season out in Arizona, and that kind of ended things on a better note," Siani said last week at AT&T Field as the Lookouts prepared to start their 138-game Southern League schedule. "It gave me some momentum coming into this season, and I felt good in the spring, so I just have to keep that approach of being aggressive at that plate and trusting what I do in the field.
"Hopefully that will continue to be what it is, because I want to be a guy who gets on base constantly and can hit it all over the field."
The early returns have been promising for the 6-foot-1, 188-pounder from the Philadelphia suburb of Glenside. In the three games this past weekend in Kodak against the Tennessee Smokies, he went 3-for-8 (.375) with a double and a home run.
Siani also drew five walks, giving him a .615 on-base percentage.
Chattanooga opened its 69-game home schedule Tuesday night with a 16-4 bludgeoning of the Birmingham Barons. Siani took his strong start to a new level with a single to right field, a double to left and a triple to center as part of a 4-for-5 night.
"Hitting is one of the most difficult things to do, especially in professional baseball," Lookouts first-year manager Jose Moreno said. "It's very different when you come from high school or college, and now you have older guys with a lot of velocity and movement. I know Michael is going to do a really good job. It's part of the process, because people go up and down as a hitter.
"You have to make adjustments almost every day, and he's learning. He had a really good season in the fall, and his second half in Dayton last year was good. Right now, he just needs to be consistent."
The Cincinnati Reds selected Siani out of Philadelphia's William Penn High School in the fourth round (109th overall) of the 2018 Major League Baseball draft and provided a $2 million signing bonus. MLB.com's synopsis of Siani before this season includes his ability to be a big-league center fielder now and that he is a threat on the base path, which was evidenced by his 30 steals in Dayton.
It's just a matter of maintaining what he started in Arizona, when eight hits in a two-game stretch helped erase a 3-for-21 Fall League start and catapulted him on the surge that continued Tuesday night.
"I think I just stuck to a routine every day and trusted in it," Siani said. "It took me a couple of games, because I didn't start off the best, but then I had a few games where I was just seeing a lot of pitches. I was hitting the ball hard and drawing some walks, too, and it just started clicking as it got going.
"You're not going to get a ton of pitches to hit in every at-bat, but when you do, you have to take advantage and put a big swing on it."
Eagles stun Vols
The University of Tennessee's 23-game winning streak ended Tuesday night with a 3-2 loss to Tennessee Tech at Smokies Park, a nonconference matchup in which wooden bats were used. The game drew a Smokies Park record crowd of 8,183.
Eagles pitcher Carter Gannaway did not allow a hit in nearly six innings while striking out nine to lower his season earned run average to 6.93. The top-ranked Vols, who dropped to 31-2, host Alabama this weekend.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.