ATLANTA -- Jack Suwinski rounded the bases for the eighth time this season, reached the dugout and was congratulated by his teammates.
His fifth inning solo shot would end up being inconsequential for the game, as it was the only run the Pirates would plate in their 3-1 loss to the Braves at Truist Park Thursday.
But if you're looking for a bright spot, in the Pirates' third straight loss, Suwinsk can definitely be that. This homer -- which ties him with Jeremy Peña of the Astros for the most homers among rookies in baseball -- shows what Suwinski has done so well since the start of the 2021 season: Pulling his fly balls.
Consider his hit chart before Thursday's game:
BASEBALL SAVANT
Almost all of his power is to right and center field. That follows league trends that pulled fly balls tend to do more damage than fly balls to the opposite field, but it's a skill you normally don't see from a 23-year-old rookie.
"I think what he's doing is he's getting pitches up in the zone that he's not missing," Derek Shelton said. "We've talked a lot, guys come up to the big leagues and they hit the ball the other way, they hit the ball up the middle. Part of their development is when they get especially offspeed pitches to get them up, get them to their pull side, and I think we're seeing him start to develop that trait."
And when your home ballpark is just 320 feet away from a homer down the line...
“Not bad playing in a park with a wall like that," Suwinski told me.
Suwinski's stroke seems almost tailor-made for PNC Park. It starts with a simple approach, both on and off the field.
Off the field, Suwinski tries to cut out social media. On it, he's trying to cut down on the window of where the pitcher is throwing from. That pitch is going to come in quickly, so he wants to minimize the range where it could potentially come out of the hand so he can watch its flight path as long as he can. He also doesn't want to get too directional to either side because it throws him off balance and creates a bad swing to the ball. One where maybe he swings down instead of going through the ball.
If he does swing in that window he creates, he can go through all of his swing cues more efficiently and find that raw power he has but getting the barrel out in front with an earlier contact point.
“When my sequence and my efficiency is good, and my path follows what my body is doing, then when I get those balls out in front to the pull side, it’s happening the right way," Suwinski said. "I don’t have to cheat to get there to yank balls that way. Now my barrel is traveling through the zone a little farther, my contact point is a little more out front.”
Contact point is something that Suwinski said he always had some feel with, even going back to high school, but as he grows as a professional, he continues to learn more about.
“That feedback made a lot of sense to me," Suwinski said. "It’s super simple, so it’s something I can take day-to-day in BP, cage, work like that.”
With his contact pretty consistently out in front, Suwinski has overcome the fact that despite posting below average exit velocity, whiff, strikeout rates and walk rates so far, he's posted above average results. Even if he's been up and down at the plate, the quality of the at-bat has been consistent.
"Early on, when he was hitting .160, we continued to talk about how controlled he was in his at-bats," Shelton said. "He didn't let things get out of hand, I think we're seeing him start to grow into being a really good big-league hitter."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• JT Brubaker paid for a leadoff walk in the second and hitting Ronald Acuña Jr. to start the third, with both runs coming in to score and, ultimately, serve as the difference in the game.
That dug Brubaker in a hole early, but he ended up finishing with one of his best starts of the year, going seven innings with seven strikeouts and only six hits and four hard-hit balls allowed.
"I thought his stuff maintained, got stronger [as the game went on]," Shelton said. "... I mean, he had a walk and a hit by pitch that scored, and that was it. We just didn't give him any run support."
The Pirates had eight hits on the night, but went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position against Braves starter Max Fried.
With two outs in the seventh, Brubaker put a couple runners on and Shelton went out to the mound to talk with Brubaker and make a decision of if he had another batter in him. Shelton said afterwards he saw it in Brubaker's eyes that he could finish the inning, and he did by blowing Dansby Swanson away with a 94 mph fastball for strike three.
“Every time [Shelton] comes out and signals us, I always want to say I got one more, but that's his decision," Brubaker said. "And today, he asked me, he goes, ‘you got this guy?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I got him.’ And that was awesome for him to let me go one more batter there. And I knew I could go right after Swanson. And I think that's just something to build off of.”
• Travis Swaggerty recorded his first big-league hit, though he had to wait to see how the official scorer would call it after Swanson's throw on his grounder was off-target.
Swaggerty hit it hard and it was going to be a bang-bang play at first. While standing on first, Swaggerty was looking for an indication of if that was a hit. He got it from the dugout.
It would have been a bang-bang play at first had the throw been on target. I asked Travis Swaggerty about waiting to see if his first big-league hit counted pic.twitter.com/ticlhvjHq9
— Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) June 10, 2022
"I didn’t know what to do," Swaggerty said, smiling. "I saw guys [waving their hands] in the dugout, I was like, ‘Yes.’ "
• Bryan Reynolds picked up three hits, all singles. It's his first three-hit game of the season, and while none of them were particularly struck well (Baseball Savant measured their expected batting averages at .050, .120 and .190), he was due a couple seeing-eye hits after tagging a couple outs recently.
• Director of coaching and player development John Baker made the trip with the team this week.
Don't read into the timing though as a possible indicator that Oneil Cruz could be coming up either during the trip or shortly thereafter (though that's very possible). Shelton said this trip with Baker was planned a month ago.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: OF Ben Gamel (hamstring), RHP Heath Hembree (calf), OF Jake Marisnick (thumb), 1B Yoshi Tsutsugo (lumbar muscle strain), Josh VanMeter (finger)
• 60-day injured list: Kevin Newman (groin), OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery), Roberto Pérez (hamstring, out for season)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Daniel Vogelbach, DH
4. Michael Chavis, 1B
5. Diego Castillo, SS
6. Jack Suwinski, RF
7. Yu Chang, 2B
8. Tyler Heineman, C
9. Travis Swaggerty, LF
And for Brian Snitker's Braves:
1. Ronald Acuña Jr., RF
2. Dansby Swanson, SS
3. Austin Riley, 3B
4. Matt Olson, 1B
5. Travis d'Arnaud, C
6. Ozzie Albies, 2B
7. Marcell Ozuna, DH
8. Adam Duvall, LF
9. Michael Harris II, CF
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates and Braves will square off in the second contest of this four-game set Friday. Roansy Contreras (1-0, 1.93) will take on Spencer Strider (1-2, 2.76), with first pitch coming at 7:20 p.m.
THE CONTENT
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