The way Matt Kemp hits a baseball in the air reminds Dodgers Manager Joe Torre of the way Alex Rodriguez hits them. Or the way Mike Piazza, Darryl Strawberry and Dale Murphy used to.
"The ball doesn't come down when he hits it," Torre said. "He's one of those guys that doesn't have to hit it on the screws."
When hitting coach Don Mattingly is in the batting cages with the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Kemp, he sometimes thinks of Bo Jackson.
"Just stupid stuff they're able to do," Mattingly says, using the word "stupid" to convey the incredible.
Veteran utilityman Doug Mientkiewicz says the 24-year-old center fielder is similar to Torii Hunter of the Angels, only to reconsider moments later.
"He hit for a higher average than Torii did early in his career," says Mientkiewicz, who was Hunter's teammate in Minnesota.
Kemp batted .290 last season, is on a torrid pace this season with a .383 average going into tonight's game against the Houston Astros and is coming off Sunday's performance in which he hit two home runs, including a grand slam. Hunter in 1999-2001, his first three full seasons with the Twins: .255, .280 and .261.
Yet what might be most telling of the expectations Torre, Mattingly and Mientkiewicz have for Kemp is that they refuse to predict what kind of numbers he might one day put up.
"That's not fair for me to put that on him," Torre says.
But . . .
"He's got all the tools of the big players. . . . I don't know what the sky would be on him with his tools."
Can he be one of the 10 best players in baseball?
"Tools-wise, yes," Torre says.
Mattingly: "I don't even want to put numbers out there because it's not fair to him."
But . . .
"There's more there," Mattingly says. "He's got a chance to do some incredible things. He's one of those rare guys who can do everything."
Mientkiewicz: "You don't want to put pressure on him."
But . . .
"He has super-superstar potential."
What's "frightening" -- that is Mientkiewicz's word -- is that Kemp is already producing.
The numbers say it all.
Kemp is the only Dodger to have hit in each of the team's 13 games this season. He has an on-base percentage of .434 and a jaw-dropping slugging percentage of .723. He has belted three home runs, including those two in the Dodgers' sweep-clinching victory over the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, and has driven in 14 runs. He also has stolen four bases.
