Nothing says rebound like a perfect day at the plate.
On the heels of an 0-for-5 performance to close August, Aidan Miller started September doing what he had done a lot of last month — stacking up a lot of hits. MLB’s No. 28 prospect logged a career-high five knocks for High-A Jersey Shore in Sunday’s 6-2 loss to Hudson Valley at ShoreTown Ballpark.
Not long after the game, Miller was promoted to Double-A Reading, according to MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo.
Miller recorded 41 hits in 39 games for Single-A Clearwater before he was moved up to the South Atlantic League in mid-June. Philadelphia’s 2023 first-round pick (27th overall) initially struggled out of the game with the BlueClaws through late June and into July.
“I think it’s a lot of things, looking at too many things on social media, getting promoted part of my first year,” Miller told Sam Dykstra on MiLB.com’s The Show Before The Show podcast. “A lot of just not being comfortable yet. There was a lot of things mixed up, and it kind of got away from who I was.”
But over the past 31 days, the 20-year-old rebounded at the plate. He recorded at least one knock in 18 of 25 games, putting together eight multihit performances and putting together a nine-game hitting streak.
That success bled into his first contest of September.
Miller began his afternoon with a double to left field in the first inning before collecting his second knock on a single to center in the third. The right-handed hitter tapped into his power in the following at-bat, cranking a no-doubt solo homer to left off right-hander Yorlin Calderon (Yankees) — his sixth long ball for Jersey Shore, the first since Aug. 22.
Miller beat out a single to second base in the seventh and lined a single to left in the ninth to cap off his 5-for-5 performance.
After hitting .299 with a .906 OPS in August, Miller upped his High-A slash line to .258/.353/.444 in 58 games to start the new month.
“I think every player and every hitter is different, and you can’t teach hitting the same exact way,” the top Phillies prospect said. “So I’ve been really appreciative that they’re been individualized, letting me do my own thing and make adjustments here and there.”