For the better part of the past few weeks, a Pirates hitter has been at the top of MLB’s doubles leaderboard. Heading into Friday night’s game against the Marlins at PNC Park, that batter is Adam Frazier, who also leads all of baseball in total hits with 72.
But there was a significant stretch where the Pirates batter atop the doubles list was Bryan Reynolds, who had 15 by May 15. But recently his two-base hit pace has fallen off a tick.
Fortunately for Derek Shelton and the Pirates, the main reason for this particular drop off has to do with the ball landing on the other side of the fence.
Reynolds collected half of his eight homers this season in the past seven games, including a solo shot in Thursday night’s 5-3 victory at PNC Park.
“Just trying to put the barrel on the ball, stick to my approach the last few games and some of them have gone out,” Reynolds said.
The 26-year-old switch hitter is already halfway to his career-best long ball total from 2019. He actually approached Jacob Stallings on Thursday with the “issue” of hitting too many homers as even he was suspicious of his recent power surge.
“I was just telling him I felt like my only hits the last couple of series were homers, and I don’t hit enough homers for that to be sustainable,” Reynolds joked wryly.
Here's Reynolds' eighth homer of the year, his fourth in the past seven games.pic.twitter.com/ToL6YchjCf
— Gerard Gilberto (@Gerard_Gilberto) June 4, 2021
Reynolds does have a point. He’s got seven hits in his past 22 at-bats (.318) over those seven games, obviously only three of which have stayed in the park. Shelton also agrees that this current pace shouldn’t be expected for too much longer.
“I think that Bryan is going to be one of those guys that their homer numbers can fluctuate,” Shelton said. “And it's going to fluctuate between the balls that he hit that travel and extra three feet or four feet that are homers or they stay as doubles. He's going to hit the ball hard and have extra-base hits. But I think at times, we're going to see those numbers fluctuate just on the height of the ball or the ballpark.
“But, he does have the ability to drive the ball.”
All throughout the spring and the first two months of the season, the Pirates have been open about their offensive identity. They are not the team that will sit back and win games through a spontaneous home run derby.
They’re dead last in baseball with 38 homers as a team. They’ve been without two of their better power hitters, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Colin Moran, for a more than significant portion of the season. But through the first 55 games of the season, they’ve certainly lived up -- or down? -- to that billing.
But with the weather getting warmer, and one of the Pirates’ most important hitters experiencing what it takes to get the ball over the fence, it’s reasonable to believe that the team’s homer count could start to see an uptick.
MORE FROM PREGAME
• JT Brubaker was reinstated from the COVID-19 injured list Friday after a week-long bereavement leave. Will Craig was designated for assignment by the Pirates for the second time in the corresponding move.
Craig batted .217 with five runs and three RBIs and homered in his first game after being recalled May 13. But -- and it’s a big, huge, tremendous, but -- the unfortunate legacy of his second major-league stint with the Pirates will be the moment in which his “brain went numb” and the Pirates received the type of national attention that no team actually wants.
• While Hayes’ return leaves a lasting impact on just about every facet of the Pirates, Shelton has noticed an interesting trend in the game. The skipper said that there’s so much individualization in the way pitchers attack hitters that lineup construction won’t affect a pitch mix.
For example, hitting in front of Hayes isn’t going to allow Frazier to see more fastballs.
“Ten years ago, I would have said, 'Yeah, it changes the pitch mix.' But I think the identification in the attacking plans that people have for hitters are all individualized now,” Shelton said. “It just affects the fact that he may be on base more than people that we've had there before, so I think that's probably the biggest factor.”
• Moran (groin) and Phillip Evans (hamstring) felt no ill effects after their first rehab game with Class AAA Indianapolis on Thursday night. Moran is back in the lineup and should be at first base for all seven innings of Game 1 of the Indians’ doubleheader Friday. Shelton said Evans will get reacclimated to his initial role in his rehab, coming off the bench as a pinch hitter.
“I think it's more day to day, and that's why the conversations with them are where they're at, and neither one of them have played a full game yet,” Shelton said. “It's more just building them up on their legs and how they're feeling, but a lot of it's having to do with what they actually have to do in the games and then the conversation of how they feel.”
With Hayes back with the club and Moran obviously just as close to returning, Evans will have to get used to being multifaceted before being activated, which should consist of some extra reps at just about every position on the diamond, especially left field.