Christian Moore stays hot, records 2nd multi-home run game for Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas
Just a few games into his professional career, Christian Moore is red-hot. The former Tennessee star continued his strong start with the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas, record his second multi-home run game in just his fifth game with the team.
In the third inning of Friday’s game against the Birmingham Barons, Moore took Tyler Schweitzer deep to right center for his fifth home run in the minors and fourth with Rocket City. As if that wasn’t enough, he blasted another one in the sixth inning for his second 2-homer game since coming up from Single-A Inland.
Moore hasn’t missed a beat since the Los Angeles Angels selected him with the No. 8 overall pick in the MLB Draft. The moonshots also increased his batting average to .526 since joining Rocket City.
It’s the latest big moment for Christian Moore since his promotion to Rocket City after just two games at Single-A. He had a four-hit night on Wednesday, including a walk-off home run to give the Trash Pandas the 6-5 victory over Birmingham.
Over the weekend, Moore made his debut for Rocket City, where he hit a home run in his first-ever Double-A game. He continued that effort on Wednesday to lead the Trash Pandas to a win. He finished 4 for 5 with two home runs and three RBI.
“It was really just knowing the plan,” Moore said in a postgame interview. “Just knowing there was a runner in scoring position, knowing what (the pitcher) wants to do in that situation, ride it and put a good swing on it.”
Moore hasn’t missed a beat since his college career came to an end. He set the new Tennessee single-season record for home runs this past season with 34 to help the Volunteers to the first national championship in program history. In addition, he hit for the second-ever cycle in College World Series history while leading Tennessee to the mountaintop.
It’s safe to say, Moore is living up to the billing as he starts his next chapter. He got plenty of praise ahead of the draft as one of the top prospects on the board.
“His right-handed swing can get overly long and he still chases too many pitches out of the zone, but he’s making more consistent contact in 2024,” MLB.com’s scouting report read. “Though Moore’s big hacks lead to below-average run times out of the batter’s box, he can show solid speed once he gets going and looks to steal and take extra bases.
“He can make some fine plays in the middle infield but also can botch some routine ones and needs more defensive consistency. He played briefly at shortstop this year but his average arm strength means he’s probably more of a second baseman, and it’s possible that he could wind up in center field.”
Barkley Truax contributed to this report.
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