Cory Spangenberg finished April and started May on a high note.
The 31-year-old third baseman from Clarks Summit, playing his first season in the St. Louis Cardinals organization with the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds, broke out of an extended early-season slump with back-to-back, two-hit games April 30 and May 1.
Memphis won three straight games over the Durham Bulls to improve to 14-10, good for third out of 10 teams in the International League West.
Despite being 6-for-19 (.124) in his previous 13 games, Spangenberg was in his second straight game in the leadoff spot in the Memphis lineup when he went 2-for-6 in an 11-4 romp at Durham April 30. The next day, Spangenberg went 2-for-3 with a double in a 3-2 victory.
Spangenberg, who led Abington Heights to a 2009 Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class 3A state championship, is in his first season back in North American after two seasons of professional baseball in Japan.
In his last season in the United States, Spangenberg batted .309 in 113 Triple-A games at San Antonio, earning a late-season shot in a key role in the Milwaukee Brewers 2019 late-season push and putting him in the Major League Baseball playoffs for the first time. He is a .298 hitter in 550 career Minor League games.
Spangenberg is batting .194 through 16 games with two doubles, three home runs, seven runs scored, 10 RBI and four walks. He is 3-for-4 stealing bases.
The St. Louis Cardinals signed Spangenberg as a free agent March 25 and assigned him to Memphis at the end of spring training.
The former 10th overall pick in the 2011 Major League Baseball Draft out of Indian River Community College in Florida – following a one-year stop on the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I level at Virginia Military Institute – made it to the San Diego Padres, the team that drafted him, for the first time in September, 2014.
Spangenberg is a .256 career hitter with 29 home runs and 34 stolen bases in 419 career Major League games over six seasons with the Padres and Brewers.
