Denzel Clarke has spent just 16 major-league games roaming centre field for the Athletics, but in that short amount of time, he's already staked his claim as one of the sport's top defenders.
On Monday morning, Clarke became just the second player to win MLB's Electric Play of the Week in back-to-back weeks — an honour created by the league in 2019 — for exceptional catches made against the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles.
But by Monday night, the Pickering, Ont. native only added to his collection of "electric" plays, and likely set himself up for a third straight weekly award, scaling the wall at Angel Stadium to rob Los Angeles first baseman Nolan Schanuel with a grab that will run on highlight reels for years to come.
"My priority when I'm out there is go up and catch the ball by any means necessary," Clarke said Tuesday on the Blair & Barker radio show. "I don't think I realize how crazy some of these things are until I go back and watch the video after."
"Going back is the biggest eye-opener for me," the six-foot-four centre-fielder added. "Because I'm like 'OK, I really did run into that wall at full speed, or my hips really were above the fence. It's cool just going back and seeing them."
Despite not getting the call to the big leagues until May 23, Clarke has rapidly climbed the defensive leaderboards at an unprecedented rate. In just 125.0 innings, the 25-year-old ranks in the top-30 in all of baseball in defensive runs saved (6), in the top-eight in outs above average (8) and in the top-16 in fielding run value (7) — an impressive feat considering most, if not all, the players around him on those lists have logged 300+ innings at their respective positions.
A fourth-round pick by the A's in 2021 out of Cal State, Northridge, Clarke credited part of his defensive success to his pre-game routines while trying to learn how to play different outfields.
"I just focus on some of the biggest factors that could be different at a different ballpark," he explained. "So, I would check my distance to the wall once I hit the warning track at Angel Stadium... How does the grass play? What's the wind like? How does how the stadium is built affect how the ball may fly in that light?... There's a lot of stuff I factor in."
While Clarke has firmly established a "no-fly zone" in the Athletics' outfield, the rookie has faced his share of struggles at the plate. He enters Tuesday with a .539 OPS and 29 strikeouts in 53 trips to the plate — his only homer coming in a homecoming series against the Blue Jays — but he's continued to appreciate the accomplishment of reaching the majors.
"The coolest thing is just dreaming about this stuff as a kid and just being able to live it...," he said. "The baseball is the highest level in the world, so you gotta adjust to that. But there's a lot of good stuff you have to learn to adjust to, whether it be the new travel schedule, living in different hotels every three, four days. I guess it's different, but it's the stuff you dream about and you learn to adjust to it."
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