PHILADELPHIA -- Even toward the tail end of a last-place season, you can usually find Anthony Alford smiling.
There’d plenty of cause, too. In his personal life, he and his wife are expecting their second child, his first son. Professionally, he’s a major-league outfielder again at age 27, something that seemed in jeopardy back in April when he was outrighted off the Pirates' 40-man roster to the minors.
Being outrighted meant every other team passed on him. Given how the past few months have gone, some teams have to be kicking themselves over that. After posting an OPS over 1.000 in half a season with Class AAA Indianapolis, he forced management's hand to call him up again and, more important, he has performed much better.
Now, he’s in a much better spot mentally.
“That’s never an easy thing to do,” Alford told me Saturday afternoon on the field at Citizens Bank Park. “Overcoming that, staying positive, making those adjustments. Really just finding that peace.”
That peace has led to much better results. Even after an 0-for-3 in the Pirates' ensuing 3-0 loss to the Phillies, he’s slashing an impressive .263/.333/.526 with four home runs this September. It’s easily the best month of his big-league career.
He couldn’t find that peace early in the season for a variety of reasons, among them a lack of consistent playing time. Alford was once the Blue Jays’ top prospect, but his struggles in the upper levels of the minors and Toronto cameos caused that organization to designate him for assignment in 2020. The Pirates claimed him, but he suffered a season-ending elbow injury in just his fifth game.
His new club carried him through the offseason, but once spring training began, they hedged their bet in the outfield by picking up another former top-100 prospect in Dustin Fowler. The two split time in center field, and both did horribly before being exposed to waivers within the first month of the season. The pressure of playing every-other day got Alford. He would sit on the bench the day before, anticipating his next start. The game would happen, and if he didn’t have a hit, he would have another day to let that 0-for stew.
So this month of playing better was a product, as he views it, of everything that occurred.
“In the grand scheme of things, the big picture, it was a positive,” Alford said.
Those issues that had plagued him earlier in his career have started becoming less detrimental, notably his strikeout rate. This time, Alford is trying to be more willing to take his walks and get the bat to the ball in two-strike situations. As a result, his contact and chase rates have improved, and his strikeout rate has steadily dropped:
“I think as far as the transition back to the big leagues, it’s been more approach-based than it has been mechanic-based,” Derek Shelton said. “He's really bought into the message that our guys have given him.”
That approach stemmed from a series of conversations he had with Indianapolis hitting coach Jon Nunnally. Early on in his demotion, the two discussed changes that weren’t based as much on his swing as what he should be trying to do at the plate. Where he should be hunting pitches, what he should be laying off.
Early on, the results weren’t there, and Alford was losing faith. So, while Alford isn’t a big analytics guy, Nunnally and a team analyst met him in Nashville, Tenn. and showed him definitive proof that, even though the hits weren’t there, they were right around the corner. Those areas where he was whiffing were also where his best batted balls originated.
“He was showing me damage,” Alford said. “Damage doesn’t necessarily mean hitting home runs or doubles, but where are you hitting balls hard. He was showing me the places in the strike zone where I was hitting the ball the hardest and most consistently. It just made me buy into what he was saying more. This is working, you have to stay with it. This is when I was hitting a buck-80. It’s kind of hard for me to commit to this when I’m hitting a buck-80. But when he showed it to me, it all made sense. You just have to stay the course. Fast forward a few months later, I’m hitting .320.”
Fast forward a few months after that, and Alford is getting consistent playing time in the majors and positioning himself for a return in 2022, something that looked completely off the table back in May.
When Alford was in Indianapolis, he changed his mindset of how he was going to approach this season. He wasn’t going to look over his shoulder. This was, as he put it, a “showcase.” Not in a he-wanted-to-leave way, but a he-wanted-to-show-everyone-what-he-could-really-do way. The best way to help the team and himself was to just go out there and play.
“When I’ve been at my best was when I was like, ‘Just stand and motor,’ ” Alford said. “Don’t get caught up in the results. Don’t get caught up in what could happen tomorrow, what could happen the next day. It was just about being in the moment and figuring out how to win that day, that at-bat, that pitch.”
It looks like the showcase will continue in 2022.
GETTY
Stadium workers at Citizens Bank Park talk before the game Saturday.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• It was all Ranger Suárez Saturday. The Phillies' left-hander tossed a four-hit complete game on 97 pitches -- a Maddux -- while striking out seven with no walks and three double plays.
He worked at a quick pace and filled the zone with fastballs, and the Pirates couldn't square him up. They did not advance a runner to second base.
“There’s a little deception there, for sure," catcher Taylor Davis said. "When the fastball was away, it was away, and when it was in, it was in. There wasn’t a ton of misses over the plate."
Davis had two of the Pirates' hits in his first start since being recalled from Indianapolis Tuesday.
“If felt good in my first game as a Pirates, but it would have felt better if we would have won the game," Davis said. "Obviously, the competition was good, especially against a guy like Ranger Suarez, who is pitching well right now. It was fun to do that but like I said would have been much more appreciated if we could have won the game."
• As for the Pirates' starter, Wil Crowe paid for a pair of changeups in the third inning, both of which left the yard. The second was to Bryce Harper. Crowe had looked at Harper's past 500 at-bats and found that he hadn't hit many changeups well in the low, inside part of the plate.
He left this one over the center, though, and everyone, including Crowe, knew it was gone:
🗣 M-V-3!
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) September 25, 2021
🗣 M-V-3!
🗣 M-V-3!#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/x8qtk144CW
That's now 25 home runs Crowe has allowed this season, and his 1.95 HR/9 rate is the third-worst in the National League, just behind JT Brubaker (2.03) and Patrick Corbin of the Nationals (1.96).
"It’s just a matter of learning how to pitch in the big leagues, learning how to pitch at bigger levels and coming in and grooming myself into the pitcher I want to be and learning from those things," Crowe said about what he's trying to learn from those mistakes.
A series of bloops and softly hit ground balls plated another run for the Phillies in the fifth and chased Crowe after 4 2/3 innings. He walked four and allowed eight hits with two strikeouts.
• Before the game, Shelton said he expects utilityman Michael Chavis, who has been rehabbing an elbow injury with Class AAA Indianapolis, is expected to rejoin the team when the Pirates return to PNC Park next week.
In other injury news, David Bednar is getting closer to coming back from his oblique injury. He's already thrown one bullpen session and will throw another in the next few days. The Pirates are hopeful he will return this season.
JT Brubaker (shoulder) is "continuing to progress and move forward," per Shelton, but no decision has been made of if he will be activated off of the injured list before next Sunday's finale.
There isn't a deadline yet for when those pitchers could come back.
"We'll play it on an individual basis," Shelton said. "I would be hard pressed the last day of the season to think we would activate somebody, but you never know. I think it's more just on how they're feeling and then the progression of where they're at.”
• The Pirates are now 57-97 with eight games remaining. They need to go at least 6-2 to avoid the franchise's ninth 100-loss season.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Kevin Newman, SS
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Yoshi Tsutsugo, 1B
5. Anthony ALford, LF
6. Wilmer Difo, 2B
7. Cole Tucker, RF
8. Taylor Davis, C
9. Wil Crowe, RHP
And for Joe Girardi's Phillies:
1. Matt Vierling, CF
2. Jean Segura, 2B
3. Bryce Harper, RF
4. J.T. Realmuto, C
5. Brad Miller, 1B
6. Andrew McCutchen, LF
7. Didi Gregorious, SS
8. Ronald Torreyes, 3B
9. Ranger Suarez, LHP
THE SYSTEM
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates and Phillies will conclude their four-game series Sunday afternoon at 1:05 p.m. Max Kranick (1-3, 7.28) will go for the Pirates, while the Phillies have yet to announce a starter.
THE CONTENT
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