It's far too early to say whether general manager Jon Daniels and his insightful horde of talent evaluators have unearthed yet another Darren O'Day in Jason Grilli, but you can't help but like what you're seeing right now:

● If my own travails through higher education are any indication, sometimes figuring it out is as simple as hearing what has repeatedly been driven home by your instructor from one of your classmates -- or, as it evidently so happened in this case, from one of your teammates.

Before struggling first baseman Chris Davis engaged in pre-game batting practice on Thursday evening, infielder Omar Vizquel -- who is nearly 20 years his senior -- reportedly affirmed a tip previously floated by hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, suggesting that Davis focus on hitting balls back through the middle during his turn in the batting cage rather than hitting home runs; the unspoken implication was that the resultant sharpened bat control would be more conducive to Davis snapping out of his prolonged offensive funk than the pre-game power exhibition:

"Sometimes you have to make an adjustment and you don't even know what you're doing at the plate," Vizquel said. "I just told him something to change his mind a little bit, and it seemed to work. Today, he came through."

After enduring a dreadful 6-for-44 stretch (.136/.208/.250) and being subjected to increasingly audible calls for his demotion, Davis resoundingly responded to Vizquel's advice with arguably the best game of his brief major league career, going 4-for-5 while drawing just his fifth free pass since May 29th and clouting the 12th-inning bomb -- belted on a change-up which he anticipated would be a fastball, yet managed to drive to straightaway right field nevertheless -- which positioned Texas ahead of Arizona for good:

[Direct link available here.]

That Davis amassed his largest single-game WPA (Win Probability Added) since his unforgettable walk-off blast against the Mariners back on May 14th and second-largest WPA of his major league career isn't particularly surprising given the importance and timeliness of his offensive contributions, and this was a tremendously important performance in the confidence-bolstering sense (with Davis taking a fair number of pitches and consistently putting himself in a position to succeed), but more than one game will obviously be necessary to determine whether this outburst is indicative of brighter days ahead, and it's worth pointing out that five of Davis's eleven swings made contact with nothing but air molecules (an even worse ratio than his seasonal swinging strike average of 42.1 percent), so there is still plenty of progress to be made in that regard.

I will say this, though: Davis suddenly figuring it out would solve a whole lot of problems.

● Omar Vizquel's lumber has cooled considerably since his monster .372/.413/.512 run at the plate through May 23rd (spanning 48 plate appearances), but long-coveted hit No. 2,678 -- smacked in the top of the first inning -- vaulted the 21-year veteran past Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio for the all-time lead in career hits amassed by a native Venezuelan (an accomplishment deserving of plaudits), and while he went hitless over his final three at-bats of the game, the dazzling display of defensive prowess at shortstop and pair of walks certainly made for an adequate consolation prize.

While the offense-inclined nature of his home ballpark means that his offensive productivity on the whole is not quite league average (with this being due to the modern statistical marvel known as park adjustments), both his glove and quietly effective baserunning have been assets in limited playing time, and given the apparent strength of the relationship between player and club and Vizquel's intangible value, it's not inconceivable that the Rangers might seek to have Vizquel reprise his role again in 2010. And I'm not so sure that's a terrible idea, either.