Texas Rangers: Joey Gallo finally hits sacrifice fly

The sacrifice fly is a routine part of virtually every baseball game. That is, unless Texas Rangers slugger Joey Gallo was at the plate.

Joey Gallo has been one of the greatest examples of a Three True Outcome players in the game today. The Texas Rangers slugger has homered, struck out, or walked in 58.3% of his career plate appearances, a fairly staggering percentage. In fact, over his career, Gallo has hit more homers than he has singles.

That Three True Outcome approach had even gotten to the point where Gallo had not hit a sacrifice fly in his career. That was, he did not have a sacrifice fly until Sunday, when he finally recorded the first one of his career.

In a way, the other players on that list make sense. Greg Maddux was a pitcher, and while he had 180 sacrifice bunts, he was not likely to be in many positions where he would need to lift a ball into the outfield to bring a runner home. The total of plate appearances for Steve Sax is a bit misleading, as he did not record his first sacrifice fly until his second full season. As someone who was more of a top of the order speedster, he simply did not have many opportunities to drive in a run on a fly out.

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Perhaps it is not a surprise that it took until this season for Gallo to record that first sacrifice fly. He is off to a hot start at the plate, producing a .281/.382/.734 batting line, hitting eight homers in 76 plate appearances, with 11 walks and 25 strikeouts.

That solid batting line is also backed up by some of the progress that Gallo has made. Thus far, he has been making more contact than he had in the past, lowering his strikeout rate to 32.9%. While that may not seem like a significant improvement, Gallo has averaged a 37.7% strikeout rate over his career. While he is already a dangerous hitter, improving that contact rate will only make him even more of one.

While one sacrifice fly is reasonably meaningless in the grand scheme of things, it is another sign of that progress. That contact rate improving may be the key to Gallo truly unlocking his ability and becoming a consistent threat in the Rangers lineup.

Texas Rangers slugger Joey Gallo hit his first career sacrifice fly on Sunday. While it may not seem like much, it does show the progress that he has made in regards to improving his contact skills.