'Your time's coming, brother': Jonathan India calls big hit, year for Cincinnati Reds' CES

One of the biggest mind knocks that comes with an early season baseball slump is the way those skewed, ugly stats mock a player in enormous, brilliant lighting on the jumbo video board each time he steps to the plate.

So when the .000 seemed to get bigger and brighter with every strikeout and double-play grounder to third that Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit into, Cincinnati Reds teammate Jonathan India kept delivering the same message into CES’s ear.

“I was telling him the whole day, ‘Your time’s coming, brother,’ ” India said. “ ‘This struggle, it’s 12 at-bats. You’re gonna get something, you’re gonna do something crazy for our team. Just keep the course. Stay focused.’

“And he did.”

When Encarnacion-Strand clobbered the second pitch he saw from Washington Nationals closer Kyle Finnegan into the left-field seats Sunday afternoon it not only lifted the Reds to a comeback victory in the ninth and a series win to open the season — but it also offered a reminder of how quickly and decisively things can turn for players and teams in a long season, especially early.

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Sunday’s win followed an ugly loss, and a cynic might say the Reds should have a sweep in their back pockets as they open the tougher part of their early schedule this week in Philadelphia.

But they also came within an out of losing the series — scoring all three runs in the ninth after Finnegan retired the first two batters of the inning.

“I don’t consider two days a start to the season,” manager David Bell said. “A month or two from now we can talk about what kind of start somebody had.”

That was in response to a question before Sunday’s game about Encarnacion-Strand, who did not look good at the plate as the newly installed No. 3 hitter in the lineup, nor in the field as the guy getting first crack at being Joey Votto’s long-term replacement at first base.

By the time CES stepped to the plate in the ninth — after a 10-pitch at-bat/double by India followed by a first-pitch tying home run from Will Benson — he was 0-for-12 with four strikeouts this season and had managed to deliver six outs in his four at-bats (two strikeouts, two double-play grounders) and strand two runners in scoring position.

He’d hit exactly one ball out of the infield since the end of spring training.

“I was just trying to not do what I did the last three games,” he said. “If I was going to get out, I was just hoping it came off the bat hot.”

Two pitches later, those six outs were afterthoughts as India waited for him to round the bases.

“I was like, ‘Dude, I told you. I told you it’s going to come up to you,’ And it happened,” India said.

CES credited India with the grueling at-bat that made the winning rally possible. And said the kind of victory they pulled off “shows what kind of team we are.”

They’ve got another 159 games to show whether he’s right.

For now it’s at least a reminder of the fleeting nature of early season slumps and streaks, the thrill ride that the first few games of a long baseball season can provide and maybe even something to dream on — especially if it seems familiar to anybody who watched and rooted for America’s wild, young, run-loving baseball darlings from Cincinnati last summer.

Familiar?

Encarnacion-Strand joined that group for his major-league debut on July 17, making that trip to the plate for Sunday’s homer his 254th career plate appearance.

It was already his third career walk-off hit, including a home run against the Toronto Blue Jays for a 1-0 win Aug. 18, and a run-scoring single for a 7-6 win over the Seattle Mariners Sept. 5 — which makes it his third in his last 151 plate appearances.

“That’s sick,” India said. “That’s really hard to do.”

Or not?

“When I was young, I tend to perform good when there’s pressure,” Encarnacion-Strand said. “Maybe that’s just what I needed to get going this year.”

Until then, he said, “Stuff wasn’t landing, balls were strikes, strikes were balls. It just ended up clicking right there.”

To put CES’s self-described knack for the big moment in broader context, consider Seattle’s Julio Rodriguez, a two-time All-Star with 60 career home runs, 291 games, a Rookie of the Year award and a seven-year, nine-figure contract.

His single to beat the Red Sox in the 10th inning Saturday night was the first walkoff hit of his career. In his 1,287th plate appearance.

“Talk about believing in himself as a hitter; there’s no question he does,” Bell said of CES. “No matter what’s happened, he’s always capable of coming up with the big hit, the big at-bat.”

India sees even more in that big moment for the only player on the Reds roster who has ever hit 30 home runs in a season at any level.

“He’s one of the best power hitters in the game,” India said. “And he’s going to show himself this year. I was telling him, ‘Hey, stop beating yourself up. There’s no point. It’s so early. There’s so much baseball to be played. And you’re so good. You’ve just got to trust yourself.’

“I bet you now he’s going to go off.”

At the very least, that .077 on the scoreboard his next trip to the plate will feel a lot more robust to Encarnacion-Strand.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds' Christian Encarnacion-Strand: MLB's walkoff hit king?