At this point in the season, Kevin Newman would take a hit wherever it could be found. And right now, it's difficult to even figure out which strings to pull.
"Man, I wish I had the answer in one sentence," Newman joked during a one-on-one interview Tuesday afternoon at PNC Park. "I wish I did because if I did, I'd be doing it."
After Gregory Polanco and Phillip Evans opened the seventh inning of Tuesday night's 6-3 victory over the White Sox with consecutive singles, Newman was not asked to swing the bat against the talented Chicago lefty Garrett Crochet. With Polanco representing the tying run on second base, Newman was tasked to drop down a sacrifice bunt.
He did just that. And he laid it down in such a perfect position that White Sox third baseman Yoan Moncada had to hustle to field the ball just off the line and rush a throw to first base that kicked into right field. Polanco scored on what was rightfully ruled a Moncada throwing error. But Newman was credited with a hit. And, again, rightfully so. It was a terrific bunt.
"It was just placed better than I intended," Newman said in a postgame Zoom call. "I got on, so it was a win-win."
Things have not gone well at the plate for Newman this season. That bunt single was his second hit of the contest, which matches a season-high he's met just 12 times in 66 games. His fifth-inning, two-out double off White Sox ace Lucas Giolito, just his sixth of the year, was his second extra-base hit in the month of June.
When he was asked about getting out of that extra-base hit slump, Newman grinned and offered nothing more than a coy response, saying that he just got a good swing on an elevated Giolito changeup. But it was an obviously sigh of relief for a player that's really been struggling with the bat all year.
"Baseball is a game of adjustments, so there's a lot of tinkering, a lot of small things that probably a lot of people don't see when you're just really looking at an at-bat," Newman said on the field. "But Rick Eckstein and I have worked on a lot of things, and we continue to do that."
The Pirates' season to date has been defined and hindered by an inability to sync excellent pitching performances with productive at-bats and vice versa, with Tuesday's victory an obvious exception. That's sort of a perfect analogy for Newman, who has not been able to find a balance between his alarmingly unproductive season at the plate and what's become some of the best shortstop defense in baseball.
His improvements defensively are proof that the work ethic is absolutely there. And there will be more on that later this week. But even with his bat where it is, he's been too valuable in the field for the Pirates, as they're presently constructed, to not have him in the lineup every day.
It's obviously not an ideal situation for Newman or the Pirates. But Newman feels he's gained an understanding of how to approach both sides of the game, even with the tremendous disparity.
"Ironically, I've learned this year to separate the two," said in the one-on-one chat. "Which is a really good thing. If you're struggling at the plate, you don't want to take that out on defense, and then have your defense struggle. I've been able to really focus on defense when I'm on defense, and when I put the time in the cage and hitting and at-bats, like, I focus on hitting."
Newman is the only regular shortstop in the majors who has not committed an error this season. But he's also batting .207 with a .516 OPS this season. To his credit, he rarely strikes out -- just north of six percent of his total at-bats -- and he went more than 70 plate appearances without a whiff earlier this season. But he's made some consistently soft contact throughout his career.
According to Statcast, the 27-year-old is within the third percentile in hard-hit rate, average exit velocity and barrel rate. There are metrics that might help the theory that he often hits into hard luck, but at best that would make an awful season mediocre.
"The results haven't been there as much as I'd like," Newman said on the fiel. "But, I've been able to really separate defense. And that's actually a bigger benefit."
The double on Tuesday and his homer last week in Washington were encouraging signs that the ability to hit the ball with some authority is there. However, his struggles at the plate have likely put him on thin ice in terms of seeing the lineup with consistency.
But his value to the team is in the field. It would be easy for a player to bring their bad at-bats out there with them. But that's very obviously not happening. The performance at a premium defensive position has been such that even a mediocre offensive season would go a long way for Newman and the Pirates.
