In a story that probably should not have persisted through any daylight, Ke’Bryan Hayes took us inside Tuesday night’s bizarre play that nullified what would have been his third homer in seven games this season.
The most interesting thing to come out of the Zoom call with reporters in the afternoon before Wednesday night’s game against the Dodgers, was the revelation that first-base coach Tarrik Brock did see that Hayes missed the bag.
“T said that he had tried to stop me as I was going around first, but I couldn’t hear anything because of how loud the stadium was,” Hayes said of the nearly 10,000 people on hand to witness the Pirates’ 5-3 defeat. “By the time I had got to second, they had started playing my walkout music, how they do whenever someone hits a home run. I didn’t hear anything.”
Austin Barnes, the Dodgers’ backup catcher who was watching from the first-base dugout, also noticed. He was the one who urged the Dodgers to challenge the replay they eventually won.
"The majority of us were watching to see if the ball was going to get off the fence or get over it," said Dodgers first baseman Max Muncy, who was credited with the putout on the play. "Thankfully, he was at least paying attention out of all of us."
A lot of strange things had to happen for this play to develop.
Hayes didn’t just put this one a few rows deep. And he didn’t have the luxury of a home-run trot. He was busting it to second to make sure Mookie Betts didn’t throw him out on what very well could have been just a double off the top of the wall.
“I was kinda looking to see where the ball was and where Mookie was at,” Hayes said. “Just ended up, unfortunately, missing the base. The ball went over.”
Barnes did not see that Hayes missed the base, and he wasn't tipped off by Brock's supposed pleas for Hayes to return to the bag either. But based on the path Hayes took around on the turn -- even if he had hit the spot he thought he did, it would not have been on the corner that Little League coaches tell players to aim for -- he got the idea that it was something worth paying a closer look.
"It just seemed like a weird play," Barnes said. "Just the way he took off to second because he took off so fast, that it was a possibility that he could have missed the base. So, if we could save a run, it seems like an obvious choice to take a look at it at least."
Muncy didn't even realize what the Dodgers were doing until he was given the directive to go back to the base.
"Usually, that doesn't happen," Muncy said. "If a guy feels like he's not stepping on the bag, he'll go back and touch it. So, it was just one of those things where it was kind of shocking."
Hayes has received both warranted criticism and extremely unnecessary attacks because of this play. Most of the latter has come from people ignorant to the fact that he'll get a couple hundred more chances to make sure he does touch every one along the way.
At the 60-game mark, the Pirates are significantly better than last season’s 19-41 ball club that finished with baseball’s worst record. They’re already six wins better in the standings. And noticeable differences like the offensive emergence of Adam Frazier and Bryan Reynolds, and, as Derek Shelton mentioned, Kevin Newman’s shortstop defense, made for a better on-field product.
The biggest detriment for the 2021 club has been the 52 games in which they were without Hayes. There were obvious parallels drawn to the play in which Will Craig’s “brain went numb.” Both happened at the same base at the same park, basically on the same homestand with just a two-day detour in Kansas City in between.
But Ke’Bryan Hayes is not Will Craig. This probably won’t register as a footnote at the end of what will probably be a long, prosperous career. One that the Pirates’ would be fortunate to end in Pittsburgh.
He stepped right up in his next three at-bats and proved that this wasn’t the type of thing he’d be bothered by.
“I’m just going to try to forget about it. If I’m just thinkin about that, that’s taking away from all the other things I have to think about when I’m up there hitting or when I’m on defense or stuff like that,” Hayes said, while admitting that he’s pay more careful attention in the future.
“I’ll just remember to look down and make sure I hit the bag.”
As easy as it might be for those outside game to poke fun at the goofy nature of the play, it'll be difficult to find another player to revel in Hayes' misfortune. Anthony Rizzo wouldn't have been keeled over in laughter at this one. It's definitely one of those "it can happen to anybody" sort of plays.
"Sometimes when you're looking up, you don't always know where the base is," Barnes said. "It sounds like we should always know where the base is, but sometimes things get moving and you don't remember if you touched it or not. ... It's a super weird play."
A version of this story was published prior to one-on-one, on-field interviews with Austin Barnes and Max Muncy.
