ST. LOUIS — Colin Moran backpedaled up the line after touching first base and toppled over, causing his helmet to bounce into foul territory Wednesday night at Busch Stadium. The Pirates' third baseman picked himself up and ripped the velcro on each of his batting gloves as Trevor Williams walked up the dugout steps to return to the mound.
Moran had just grounded into an inning-ending double play, and his only hit in the 2-0 shutout of the Cardinals was a sharp single to left that had no impact on the result. However, each of his four at-bats illustrated why his rookie year hasn't gone according to plan.
His left-handed bat hasn't provided much pop, and he's not consistently driving in runs. Instead, Moran's hitting soft line drives to the outfield — 26 of his 29 hits since the All-Star break have been singles — yet he and those overseeing his development expressed confidence that an answer has been found.
"We forget that this guy’s a rookie sometimes because he’s so mature," Jeff Branson, the Pirates' hitting coach, told DKPittsburghSports.com. "This is his first full year in the big leagues, and he’s going to go through trials and tribulations. He’s made a lot of adjustments, understanding it’s more about approach and how guys are pitching him differently. ... It’s taken some time because when you have success doing one thing, you don't want to get away from it."
In Moran's case, he had so much success pulling the ball in his breakout first half last season and upon debuting with the Pirates in March that he kept trying to hit the ball to right field, even when pitchers were throwing him breaking balls low and away. That led to more ground balls — his 45.3 percent ground-ball rate is the fourth-highest among National League third basemen — and fewer line drives.
Pitchers finally figured out how to attack his greatest strength. Moran, standing 6-foot-4, crowds the plate, which led many teams to pitch him inside early this season. That's exactly what Moran wanted since his hands are quick enough to turn on inside pitches.
He was batting .292 with a .833 OPS in mid-May, while showing the same power potential that intrigued the Pirates when they acquired him as part of the Gerrit Cole trade back in January. Moran batted .308 with a .916 OPS and a career-high 18 home runs with 63 RBIs in only 79 games for the Astros' Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League last season.
"We’re constantly talking about looking for mistakes," Branson said. "Where are the mistakes made at? Are they made up and over the plate? If you get the bat head out to a ball out and over the plate the ball is going to go without you trying. It’s about simplifying his game plan and mindset. His hands are that good, he’s quick enough inside, that he can get to it if they make a mistake there."
Unlike pitchers in the PCL, major leaguers were able to poke a hole through his game plan. First, they started throwing him inside fastballs out of the zone to get him to try to pull the ball, and they followed by throwing those breaking balls low and away. That emphasis on pulling the ball also prevented him from hitting mistakes thrown over the middle. This heat map from BrooksBaseball.net illustrates Moran's ground balls per ball in play from the catcher's perspective, where the red squares show most of that weak contact has come on pitches he should either be hitting hard or ones thrown to the outside corner:
"I've definitely been forcing it," Moran said. "It’s not putting more pressure on myself. Pulling the ball should be a thing you can do. It shouldn’t be what I rely on. I fell in love with trying to drive the ball pull side. I’m trying to slow things down a little bit. I was getting sped up in my at-bats. Trying to slow things down and use the other part of the field a little bit better."
His four at-bats Wednesday showed exactly how pitchers are attacking him. Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas struck out Moran in the second inning with a fastball inside and off the plate, and the double play occurred in the fourth when Moran rolled over on a slider on the outer half. His single in the sixth came on a pitch thrown down the middle by reliever Chasen Shriever, and Moran struck out again in the eighth on a cutter thrown to the outside corner.
Branson and assistant hitting coach Jeff Livesey have encouraged Moran to hit the ball where it's pitched. Their thinking is that if Moran focuses on making better contact in other parts of the zone that power will follow. There are signs that he's breaking out of those bad habits.
Though all of Moran's eight home runs have been to right field, he's hit 10 of his 15 doubles to either left or center field. That's helped him emerge as one of the offense's few bright spots in the second half. Moran has batted .315 since the All-Star break, though that's included a .708 OPS.
He's done that while not starting for long stretches, either. Moran started only four of the first nine games this month because the Pirates faced a string of left-handed starters while David Freese was hitting well. Yet, Moran's excelled as a bench player with 11 hits in 24 at-bats, and other indicators show improvement. His 17.3 strikeout percentage is fifth-lowest among NL third basemen, and his 99 hits are second among all NL rookies.
"I think that’s one of the most interesting opportunities I have as a manager, to watch first-year players play — what they go through physically, mentally, positionally, relationally in the clubhouse, in the dugout, on the field, watching the league adjust, watching them readjust," Clint Hurdle said. "I think he’s been intentional with his work. ... I think he believes there is more power there and it will play out over time. He learned the ability to try to look to launch early then cut it down a little bit with two strikes. So, I just love the professional approach."
It's not only adjustments on the field. Moran's learning how to better utilize his time before games. He's prone to overworking himself in the cage to the point that he's exhausted by the time batting practice is over. The 25-year-old has also stopped trying to tinker with his swing at the first sign of trouble, a problem that followed him throughout the minor leagues.
Moran will surely enter 2019 as the Pirates' starting third baseman, and the hope is this first full season in the major leagues will prepare him to be a pillar of a core that includes Josh Bell, Gregory Polanco, Starling Marte, Adam Frazier, Corey Dickerson and a young pitching staff.
But the Pirates need more. They rank 12th in the NL in home runs and ninth in OPS. Moran's .277 average is promising, but he has only 48 RBIs with a .730 OPS in 119 games.
"I feel like I’ve done a good job this year of being the same guy so I really don’t let one at-bat affect the other," he said. I was pretty hard on myself up here because you want to do so much better. You always want to do good, but it’s the big leagues. It’s something you have to adjust to."
1. Williams' role continues.
Maybe the Pirates' place in the standings caused Williams to not say much following the win. They're now 65-68 and 8 1/2 games back in the wild-card race with six teams in front of them. But what the right-hander has accomplished in the second half has been extraordinary. He had a career-high eight strikeouts over six scoreless innings Wednesday night, while stranding six runners on base.
Williams has started eight of the Pirates' 14 shutouts — the second-most in the NL and the team's most since 2014 — and he leads the majors with eight scoreless starts of five or more innings. The 26-year-old has allowed only four runs over his last 48 innings for a 0.75 ERA dating back to July 11, and his 0.83 ERA since the break is the second-lowest behind the Cubs' Cole Hamels.
"It's been fun for everybody," Hurdle said. "To watch the starting pitchers gravitate to the front row seats, to watch the guys engage on defense behind him. The work with the catcher." Again, it seemed as if Williams was on the brink of disaster. He had two runners in scoring position with no outs in the first inning, only to get three consecutive outs, capped by this strikeout of Paul DeJong:
He allowed a two-out double to DeJong in the fourth inning before getting a ground out, and stranded two more in the sixth when he struck out Tyler O'Neill before DeJong flied out to left. Williams relied on fastballs thrown to the top of the zone, but this time he used each of his four pitches to get a swinging strikeout.
"That’s unusual because usually when I get strikeouts they are looking," Williams said. "It’s unusual, too, because not all of them are fastballs up in the zone. This start is going to be a little asterisk on the year saying, 'What did I do successfully today, and how can I build off that the rest of the year?'"
Williams has been one of the few bright spots of this team in the second half. He had a 7.02 ERA over nine starts earlier this season, but he found a solution by throwing fewer sinkers and more four-seam fastballs. That made him less predictable. There's nothing sexy about his pitching. His fastball velocity is the lowest on the staff and even his breaking pitches can be unreliable. But he's again shown that he's another arm the Pirates can rely on beyond this season.
2. Too soon to part with Mercer?
The offense had a pulse again. They had 10 hits and chased Mikolas, who was 13-3 entering the start, after only five innings. They even forced him to throw 31 pitches in the first. It wasn't until the fifth that the Pirates broke through, and it was Jordy Mercer who started the rally. Mercer doubled to lead it off and scored on Starling Marte's bloop single to left.
Gregory Polanco added to the lead when he singled after a textbook hit-and-run by Adam Frazier. The story, though, was Mercer, who was activated from the 10-day disabled list before first pitch. The 32-year-old has shown this season that he can still provide a jolt for this offense. He had eight hits in 28 at-bats prior to suffering a left calf strain earlier and is making his case to return in 2019.
"I’m so glad to get out of [the training room], to be honest with you," Mercer, a free agent this winter, said. "I’ve had some nightmares in there, it seems like. It’s good to be back healthy and get back out and play, just enjoy the game.”
His limited range on defense could be a problem since the Pirates intend to have Moran start at third again next season. But the Pirates may regret letting him walk in favor of Adeiny Hechavarria or Kevin Newman. Hechavarria has shown signs of being a better hitter than numbers would indicate; however, he's still only a .255 career hitter. That's only two points less than Mercer. What can't be overlooked here is Mercer's ability to bat eighth in the order.
Mercer has a .712 OPS in 1,418 career at-bats in the eight-hole, while Hechavarria has a .643 OPS in only 294 at-bats there. The Pirates better be confident they have a capable replacement on the roster because there's value in being able to contribute when hitting in front of the pitcher. Mercer and Hechavarria will likely demand similar salaries on the open market, and remember that Mercer has a close relationship to Newman, who is likely the long-term replacement.
"There was battle in all the at-bats and the grit," Hurdle said. "That's a really good pitcher out there."
3. Frazier will frustrate, but he's ready.
Frazier's going to drive the coaching staff crazy with his defense. There's no question he's improved since making his big-league debut more than two years ago, and he's even looked more athletic at the position. There's also this unflappable confidence that he can make any play, no matter the degree of difficulty. He showed that again Wednesday by tracking a pop fly in shallow center before making an over-the-back catch to prevent Matt Carpenter from tagging at third base in the first inning:
"I saw it off the end of the bat, turned around and ran," Frazier explained. "I realized Marte didn't have a good read on it with the tough sky, and I just kept running. Luckily, it fell into my glove."
On the other hand, he tends to make mistakes on easier plays. Marte cut off a ball hit to left-center field by DeJong in the fourth inning and fired a perfect throw to second that would have resulted in an out had Frazier not dropped the ball.