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Jamie Romak Rolling as Blue Rock

By Todd Devlin

June 18, 2010

Sometimes baseball careers simply don’t go as planned.

Jamie Romak can attest to that. During his first six years in pro ball, he seldom experienced what he had anticipated when starting his career.

“It’s not how I drew it up, trust me,” Romak (London, Ont.) said over the phone from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where his Class-A Wilmington Blue Rocks were enjoying a rare off day. “But I have to roll with it. It’s given me some perspective, that’s for sure.”

That perspective, as it turns out, may be exactly what Romak needed to turn his career around. Physically, he’s a more mature and experienced hitter, but it’s the mental maturity that may finally have him back on the right track.

After a slow start to the 2010 season, Romak has heated up in a serious way. From May 23 to June 10, he compiled an 18-game hit streak, batting .441 (30-for-68) with 12 RBIs during that span, falling just one game shy of a franchise record co-held by current Milwaukee Brewers right-fielder Corey Hart (2001) and Justin Cowan (2002).

“I was hitting the ball well before then, but [during the streak] hits started falling in at a pretty good pace,” Romak said. “And the next thing I knew, I was on a roll, expecting to get two hits, and then three hits, and then four hits. It seemed anything less than a hit or two a night would feel like I was in a rut.”

The streak raised Romak’s average a remarkable 79 points to a much more respectable .275 mark after a weak start to the year.

“It was nice to get my numbers back closer to where they need to be,” he said. “I’m not there yet, but it’s nice to be rewarded for a lot of the hard work I was putting in.”

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case for much of Romak’s career. On the contrary, his first six years as a pro were filled with injuries and setbacks. There were highs to be sure, but the lows seemed to win out. 

And that’s why Romak currently finds himself in Class-A ball, a long way from where he imagined he’d be in his seventh pro season.

“When you get drafted, you think it’s the golden path,” said Romak, who was taken as a 17-year-old third baseman by the Atlanta Braves in the fourth round (127th overall) of the 2003 draft. “You think, ‘oh, I’m just going to put in my time and then I’m going to play in the big leagues.’ But, shoot, my first three years in pro baseball I only played three months. The next thing you know, you realize it’s not that easy path that you seemed to think it might be.”

It was injuries that limited Romak to just 333 at-bats during those first three seasons -- all at the Rookie-Ball level. Back problems sidelined him in 2003 and 2004, while a broken wrist knocked him out after one month in 2005 (he still has a screw in his wrist from that injury).

In 2006 he was finally able to display some of the power that made him so highly regarded by scouts. In 108 games -- at his new outfield position with Class-A Rome -- Romak had 16 homers on top of 26 doubles and 68 RBIs.

It was enough to get scouts interested again, which Romak found out during the offseason. On Jan. 17, 2007, the Braves traded their first baseman, Adam LaRoche, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher Mike Gonzalez. The teams also exchanged minor-leaguers, and the Pirates landed Romak.

“It was exciting,” said Romak, who was thrilled the Pirates were high enough on him to make the youngster part of the deal.

Between Class-A Hickory and Class-A Lynchburg in his first season in the organization, Romak hit .256 with 20 home runs and 60 RBIs, solid numbers considering he’d been limited by injuries yet again. The outfielder missed a month with sprained ligaments in his hand, the result of being hit by a pitch. His elbow also started acting up, and he was forced to have bone spurs removed during the offseason.

Still, he was in good standing with Pittsburgh, and when Baseball America announced its top 10 prospect lists for 2008, Romak found himself No. 7 in the Pirates organization.

He responded by putting up his best season yet: .259 with 25 home runs and 80 RBIs between Lynchburg and Double-A Altoona. This time his home run total led all Pirates farmhands, despite the fact he missed the first month of the season recovering from his elbow surgery. Still, at the time of his promotion to Double-A in late July, he led the Carolina League in homers (18) and slugging percentage (.552).

Romak was chosen to play in the Arizona Fall League, an offseason circuit that features many of the top prospects following the strong campaign. He also earned a spot on Team Canada’s provisional roster for the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Things seemed to be falling into place.

“I got off to a couple real good years with the Pirates,” he said. “I was on a pretty good path there.”
But that all changed in 2009, and Romak was knocked off that path in a big way.

“Last year things just didn’t work out at all,” he said. “I guess I got derailed a bit.”

That derailment saw the former fourth-round pick post dismal numbers across the board -- a .191 batting average, .265 on-base percentage, eight home runs, 38 RBIs and a whopping 110 strikeouts compared with 32 walks in 108 games overall.

A broken pinkie finger from another hit by pitch had factored in, but Romak was the first to admit he simply didn’t perform. It was a disastrous season, and it had come at the worst possible time. With six years under his belt, Romak was due to become a minor-league free agent at the end of the 2009 campaign.

“They (Pirates) approached me in August,” Romak said. “They said they wanted to re-sign me and send me back to Double-A and kind of get back on track. I said that I would do that, but at that point we were about to get into the playoffs and I didn’t want it to be a distraction, so I said I would talk to them after the season was over.”

Romak finished that season on a high note, going 3-for-4 with three RBIs in an 8-7 win over the Salem Red Sox that clinched the Lynchburg Hillcats the Carolina League championship. The season was over, but the Pirates never called.

“That kind of threw me for a loop,” Romak said. “I didn’t hear from them at all.”

It was a crossroads in his career. It was the first time in six years he didn’t have an employer. That was a big deal since his performance the previous year didn’t exactly make him an attractive signee, and he knew it.

“You have to be honest,” Romak said. “If you’re a farm director who’s trying to sign minor-league free agents, you’re looking for guys that have produced. And at that point, coming off the year I had, I hadn’t produced. So I was in a real tough.”

There were teams still interested, but none of them had a spot for Romak. The Kansas City Royals fell in that category, but they signed him anyway. Led by GM Dayton Moore, a former assistant GM with Atlanta, the Royals were known for signing former Braves prospects, and they made Romak the latest.

“Luckily, the connection there helped,” Romak said. “These were guys that had written me up as a prospect before. They said they needed right-handed power in their system, so I was fortunate enough to get hooked up with them.”

The Royals told him the reality was he might have to go back to A-ball. Was he okay with that?

“I told them, ‘I don’t care. You can send me anywhere,’” he said. “Last year was so miserable for me, I just wanted to have fun playing the game again. I wanted to get back to being a good hitter. And I’ve also realized from playing this game long enough that it really isn’t about where you are as long as you’re getting everyday at-bats. Everything else will sort itself out.”

Romak showed up to spring training rejuvenated, partly because he took a pass on offseason baseball for the first time in his career. After years of playing long after the season, including stops in the instructional league, Arizona Fall League, Winter Ball and the World Cup, Romak decided to take a much-needed break.

“It was a great relief to step away from the pressure of it all,” he said. “I was able to forget about it [poor 2009 season] and move on.”

It turned out to be the right decision. At Triple-A spring camp, he tore the cover off the ball, hitting big-league, Triple-A and Double-A pitching alike.

“I’d never hit that good in my life,” he said.

Still, Romak was sent to Class-A Wilmington, and he still didn’t have an everyday spot. His spring had earned him everyday at-bats though, and Blue Rocks manager Brian Rupp moved him around to get his bat in the lineup. It didn’t hurt that Romak had the ability to play both corner infield and outfield spots.

He was penciled in to play left field for the season opener against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Braves). In his first at-bat he lined a single to centre to score third baseman Alex Gordon, who had opened the 2010 campaign on a week-long rehab assignment with the Blue Rocks. No stranger to adversity himself, Gordon, the Royals’ starting third baseman in 2007 and 2008, was sidelined by hip surgery in 2009 and struggled when he returned. He was optioned to the minor leagues in both 2009 and at the beginning of May this year.

“I picked his [Gordon’s] brain a little bit, just talking baseball,” Romak said. “It’s fun to talk to guys that really know how to play. “It was good to have him around. He’s a really hard-working guy.”

The season progressed, and Romak got off to a dismal start, at least on paper, batting .203 over the first month and a half. But whereas in the past he may have put additional pressure on himself to perform, this time Romak simply continued his approach, which he felt was sound despite not having the numbers to prove it. It was a testament to his mental maturity as a player.

“I think being strong mentally keeps you believing in yourself and keeps you confident when your numbers aren’t where they should be,” Romak said. “And the thing is, at the end of the day people are going to look at what your numbers were for the entire 2010 season, not what they were on May 10.”

The numbers finally began to improve for the 24-year-old, and the turnaround started with an interesting twist -- Romak found himself a new bat.

That bat belonged to teammate Eric Hosmer, Wilmington’s first baseman. He was Kansas City’s first round pick (third overall) in the 2008 draft. In 64 games this season, Hosmer leads the Carolina League with a .354 average.

“I kind of joked around and grabbed one of his bats,” Romak said. “It felt good.”
He used it that night and hit a home run -- his first of the year.

“I thought, ‘we have to work out some sort of deal to get these bats in my hands,’” Romak said with a chuckle.

The next night he homered again. And that was that.

“He [Hosmer] ended up giving me like 10 of his bats,” Romak said. “I’ve been swinging them to this day. I ordered some more of the same model.”

A week later, Romak began his 18-game hit streak, which was capped by a 3-for-5, four-RBI night on June 10. Through June 18, Romak was batting .277 with a .359 on-base percentage, six home runs and a team-high 42 RBIs.

But perhaps the best part? He’s played in 64 games this season, tied with Hosmer for the team high. That’s all but one of Wilmington’s games this year, and that has Romak excited. After all, despite this being his seventh year in the minors, he’s yet to play a true full season.

“That’s the thing that keeps me hungry,” Romak said. “I know my true abilities haven’t come through yet because, really, I just haven’t been able to have the at-bats to have that happen.”

That’s all he wants. No injuries, no setbacks. Just a full season.

“I think that if I stick to what I’m doing, the numbers will be there,” Romak said. “But whatever they are will be a reflection of what sort of player I am.”

That type of ownership of his performance has really helped the 24-year-old in his efforts to get back on track. Romak, who is now settled in as Wilmington’s everyday third baseman, the position in which he was drafted, is not about to place blame on anyone else for whatever roadblocks he has experienced.

He’ll admit that baseball can be a fickle business, and that management often tends to have short memories. But overall he sees it as a fair process.

“It’s a ‘what have you done for me lately?’ sort of thing,” he said. “But I don’t believe guys get screwed over. I think you do it to yourself. I did it to myself, and now I have to earn it back.”

And what if he’s forced to stay at Class-A all year?

“So be it,” he said. “The second I stopped worrying about where I was, everything felt so much better. There was no more pressure.”

That new outlook has been liberating for the 24-year-old. He’s truly grateful for his opportunity with the Royals, and he’s having fun with it. So far the results have been favourable.

“I’ve been making consistent hard contact,” Romak said. “I’ve been handling the bat a lot better this year than I ever have. The power is always going to be there, that’s not an issue for me. What I want to do is become a better hitter, be better with two strikes. I think so far my numbers reflect that.”

He’s come a long way from the naïve 17-year-old who was drafted in 2003 from Mike Lumley's London Bagders. And he seems more appreciative than ever before to be playing the game of baseball for a living. 

Those roadblocks he’s encountered along the way? Those are a thing of the past, and they’ve led to a newfound perspective.

“There are just too many guys out there that would love to play and put the uniform on for me to sit here and be bitter,” Romak said. “It’s just not going to happen.”