First, James has been a Gamespeed athlete since the eight grade.  A special project of mine and Erik Johnson and one of the original  “Athletic Infielder” prototypes along with Brandon Crawford of the Giants. He is showing what a decade of proper training can do. James got his feet wet late last season and was called up briefly for the Padres. His performance was nothing of notice but typical for a rookie debut. However, James wasn’t satisfied and he came back to GS this summer and worked extremely hard. We focused on infield footwork, outfield jumps to the ball and increasing hand speed for hitting.

Fast forward last week James was called up and he has made the most of his training and its showing spectacularly! He has made three amazing plays in three different games all high-lighted on national TV. Two getting ESPN play of the week honors.

Check them out:

  1. Darnell first major league home run off Strasburg.
[mlbvideo id=”21453933″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]
  1. James makes a great play and throw at third base.
[mlbvideo id=”21396401″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]

3.  James diving catch in left field

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=21490101&topic_id=&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_21490101&v=3