Quick look: Khris Davis is having his best week in months

It’s been a tough season for Khris Davis. He got off to a hot start in April but then dealt with a couple of injuries early on, and he never really got back on track. The slump has lasted months now, and it’s cost him a chance at a fourth straight year of 40 homers. He’d have to bat over .400 the rest of the way just to reach his normal .247 average.

But wait! Khrush has shown signs of life at the plate over the last week. Last Sunday against the Tigers he knocked a two-run double off the top of the Coliseum’s tall wall for the eventual game-winning runs. He homered in the 21-run blowout against the Astros (and was robbbed of another dinger by Josh Reddick), and singled in a big insurance run against them the next day. In the Friday opener in Texas, he went yard twice.

Davis, last 6 gms: 8-for-22, 3 HR, double, 2 BB, 10 RBI

That’s good for a .364/.417/.818 line. Of course it’s just one hot week, after three months of batting .195/.264/.299 from Jun-Aug, but that’s just the thing. He hasn’t had a week like this in a long time.

To find him hitting three homers within a week you have to go back to mid-June, when he hit three in seven games (and four in nine games). He had a nice run of five games in mid-May when he went 8-for-20 with two homers (or extend it to 12-for-33 over 10 games). In late-July he went 8-for-23 with a homer and a double over six contests. But to match that recent 1.235 OPS you have to look back to April, when he went on a six-game run of 9-for-25 with five homers and a double.

These latest homers were the real deal, too. The one in Houston went 422 feet, and last night he blasted one 432 feet. Those are two of his three farthest for the season, and he hasn’t hit one that far since April (426 feet). The shorter one on Friday was only 388 feet but it was also opposite-field. Here’s the 422-footer:

So what do we do with this info? It’s just one week, which is too small of a sample from which to draw any serious conclusions, but it’s also the best week he’s had in months so it’s at least a little bit exciting. Better yet, the homers weren’t just wallscrapers or Crawford Box specials; one of them was his farthest of the whole season, which seems like a big deal for a slugger who’d temporarily misplaced his power. And of course, the latest big day came in Arlington at Globe Life Park, where he’s always been at his best and most dingeriffic, but that doesn’t make it count any less.

At the very least, it’s something. Maybe it won’t last — after all, he’d been 0-for-18 entering that Tigers game Sunday, and his bat could disappear again like it has so many times this summer. But we’ve been waiting a long time for Khrush to break free of his slump, and this past week has been as encouraging as anything we’ve seen from him in months. And with the team entering the final two weeks of a tight Wild Card race, it sure would be an especially clutch moment to suddenly get their star slugger back.