Tauchman ready to show he belongs - on a permanent basis

Mike Tauchman was coming off a tough night when he was summoned to the manager's office.

Waiting for him was ex-Cub and 13-year big leaguer Glenallen Hill, the skipper of the Colorado Rockies Triple-A Albuquerque affiliate, after a 7-6 loss to Fresno late last June. The former Fremd baseball and football star was worn down from striking out 3 times in 4 at-bats and a tiring 900-mile road trip from New Mexico to California.

"I thought the umpire had a little inconsistent strike zone," Tauchman said. "We talked about that and he said, 'You're too good to let a strike zone like that beat you. Days like that you've got to battle.'

"He said, 'If I hear in the big leagues you are doing that, I'll be really mad at you.' "

Tauchman stood there silently for a moment when it hit him. Hill was delivering the message that Tauchman was going to "the show" for the first time.

"I get chills even thinking about it now," Tauchman said.

The next day, the lefty-hitting outfielder was getting his first big-league at-bat at San Francisco's AT&T Park. Two days later Tauchman collected his first big-league hit and start.

It was the first of three stints with the Rockies for Tauchman, who went 6-for-27 (.222) in 31 games and was on the active roster for a Wild Card game loss to Arizona. And now he is in spring training looking to win an outfield job and experience his first big-league Opening Day.

So far Tauchman is doing everything he can to make it a tough decision on manager Bud Black. Through Saturday, he had a slash line of .294/.385/.559 with 2 doubles, 2 triples and a homer in 34 at-bats.

"In big league camp last year, he played good defense, showed some speed, showed the bat-to-ball skill," Black told MLB.com's Thomas Harding earlier this week, "and when the season began in Albuquerque, he just took off and was a focal point of a lot of our player development people."

Making a strong impression required some adjustments along the way.

The Rockie Road

Tauchman, a 2009 Fremd graduate who earned Daily Herald All-Area honors in baseball and football, went on to a stellar four-year career at Bradley. As a senior he hit .425 with 2 homers and 41 RBI, was a first-team Rawlings American Baseball Coaches Association All-American pick, made the second team on three other All-American teams and was the Joe Carter Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year.

The Rockies selected him in the 10th round of the 2013 draft. And he hit right from the start with averages of .297, .293 and .294 in his first three pro seasons at Class A and AA.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Tauchman spent all of 2016 at Triple-A Albuquerque with a slash line of .286/.342/.373. He had 24 doubles and 7 triples but was nagged by homering only once in 475 official at-bats.

"I always felt I was definitely strong enough and athletic enough to hit for power and I never could figure out why it wasn't happening for me," said Tauchman, who had 11 homers in 965 at-bats from 2013-15. "I had to find someone who could help me make those mechanical changes.

"I worked with a guy in Chicago the last two off-seasons and that was my primary focus. I allowed myself to put my body in a better position to drive the baseball in the air."

Last spring his goal was to get as many at-bats as possible to see if the changes worked. He saw positive results despite battling wrist soreness from a bad slide.

In his first month back in Albuquerque there were more signs the changes were working but inconsistency. Then he got rolling and the results were impressive. In 110 games and 420 at-bats, the slash line jumped to .331/.386/.555 and he had 16 homers, 30 doubles, 8 triples and 80 RBI.

"The physical changes weren't anything crazy, but the biggest changes were more from the mentality I wanted to take to the plate," Tauchman said. "I wanted to be a lot more aggressive.

"With the mechanical changes, I was on time more with my body consistently and dynamic with my movements. The mental started to match the physical. I found the rhythm and timing and started to believe in the changes I was making."

Having a manager such as Glenallen Hill the last two years in Triple-A also made an impact. Hill hit .271 with 186 homers during a big-league career that included a pair of stints with the Cubs.

"We just became very close in the way we talk about the game," Tauchman said. "He's one of the most perceptive coaches I've been around. He can pick up tendencies on pitchers and evaluate pitchers.

"He wants you to be out there in an aggressive mindset. If you find yourself losing that, he knows exactly the right thing to say. He'll say, 'You're a killer, do some damage.' He's very perceptive and has a good sense of what players can do."

And he certainly had a clever way of delivering the best news Tauchman had received in his professional career.

Heading to "The Show"

With Carlos Gonzalez being placed on the disabled list with an injury, Tauchman found himself calling his wife and parents at 3 a.m. Chicago time with the big news and then scrambling to get a flight from Fresno to San Francisco for an afternoon game. There were concerns that weather could delay his flight and he was prepared to rent a car and drive to AT&T Park, but it turned out that wasn't necessary to finally make his lifelong dream come true.

"Over the course of your minor league career, you always feel like you're a sprained ankle or slump or hot streak away," Tauchman said. "You think, 'I'm close. I'm right there.'

"Then there are days you feel the big leagues are a million miles away. You have to really grind and there is a lot of stuff you have to mentally power through. When you get there it makes it that much sweeter.

"It really is the show. It's amazing and it can be overwhelming, but you get used to it and remind yourself you're supposed to be here."

Tauchman didn't have much time to worry. He arrived in San Francisco, got his first at-bat as a pinch hitter and grounded out to second in the 12th inning of a loss to the Giants.

The next day he was in the starting lineup and saw a familiar face on the mound for the Giants in former Creighton star Ty Blach. While Tauchman said he had a tough time against Blach in college, he walked his first two times up and then grounded a tying RBI single to center for his first major-league hit.

"It was 0-2 and then he threw a curve that I took for a ball and it was the weirdest thing," Tauchman said. "That's the moment I relaxed. I saw the pitch for a ball and saw it well, it was 1-2 and I said, 'I'm going to try to grind this at-bat out and have a good at-bat.

"That's the moment everything calmed down. I said, 'Let's see what happens,' and it was awesome."

He would go back to Triple-A on July 6, come back up for three games Aug. 18-20 and return again as a September callup. There was no time to be awestruck for a team making a posteason push.

His ability to play all three outfield spots and run the bases led Black to include him on the Rockies' Wild Card-game roster.

"It was exciting to be part of a playoff run," he said. "You have guys who go their whole career without seeing the playoffs and in your first experience in the bigs you're in a playoff game and September playoff push."

It made Tauchman hungrier for more.

Looking to Stay in "The Show"

The big-league experience also gave Tauchman a glimpse into what All-Stars such as Gold Glove third baseman Nolan Arenado, center fielder Charlie Blackmon and second baseman D.J. LeMahieu do to succeed. Tauchman said they all have different approaches.

"I just think the players who are really, really good are excellent self-evaluators," Tauchman said. "They know what they need to do to get the best out of what they have that day

"The veterans on the team are really talented players and hard workers. I tried to absorb as much as I could from watching them."

One of the biggest differences from the minors to the majors is the spotlight of millions of fans dissecting every little thing about a player. The final score usually determines how positive or negative that dissection can be.

"In the minors, sometimes the focus is almost personal development and certain guys are working on improving their skill sets," Tauchman said. "You get to the Major Leagues and only one thing matters and it's winning the game that day.

"It's almost back to a high school and college attitude. There is a competitor in all of us and it's so hyper-competitive. That's what made that playoff run and September so awesome because every game and every pitch matters."

Tauchman is trying to break into a highly competitive outfield situation in Colorado with Blackmon firmly entrenched in center and veterans Ian Desmond and Gerardo Parra looking to rebound from injuries in left and right respectively. Rockies' 2012 first-round pick David Dahl hit .315 in 63 games last year and 24-year-old Raimel Tapia hit .288 in 70 games.

But spring success that includes a homer off Matt Shoemaker, who was 38-30 in the Angels' starting rotation the last four years, is keeping Tauchman firmly in the conversation.

"It's really easy to get caught up in all of that, but there are so many things you have to worry about on a day-to-day basis," Tauchman said. "You can really get inside your own head, so I try to stay in my own routine and focus on the things in my control."

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