TROY — Ian Walters’ first Frontier League team went out of business. His second franchise was about to release him.
The Tri-City ValleyCats stepped in to trade for Walters, who is finding a home at third base.
He homered for the first time with Tri-City on Tuesday night, a two-run blast to right in the third inning of a 16-9 victory over the Schaumburg Boomers at Bruno Stadium.
Walters is batting .256 (10-for-39) with a homer and eight RBIs in 10 games with the ValleyCats, who acquired him on June 14 from the Washington (Pa.) Wild Things for a player to be named later.
In Washington, Walters was off to an awful start at .123 (10-for-81) with a homer and eight RBIs in 24 games. It was a puzzling drop-off from a year ago, when he hit .284 with 13 homers and 60 RBIs for the Wild Things.
“It was just baseball,” Walters said. “I didn’t get off to a great start and never really figured it out and I’m feeling pretty confident over here and getting back to my old self a little bit and feeling good.”
He had a five-game hitting streak heading into Thursday’s series finale with Schaumburg.
In Washington, Walters said he was in a “weird situation,” waiting for two days for his seemingly inevitable release. He had packed his things and was planning on heading home to Paducah, Ky.
Then Tri-City manager Pete Incaviglia, the former record-setting Oklahoma State and big-league slugger, stepped in to trade for Walters before he could become a free agent.
“That’s exactly what it is — a fresh start, hit the reset button and take a deep breath and it helps when you’ve got the NCAA home run leader as your manager who played 14 years in the bigs,” Walters said. “It helps having him here, helping any way he can.”
Walters said Incaviglia has worked with him on hitting adjustments. Walters has gotten off the plate…
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