Two outs. Two aboard. Two runs needed.
And when one of the franchise's two foundational hitters stepped to the plate on this spectacular Sunday afternoon at PNC Park, I'd bet that almost all of the 17,578 suddenly standing and applauding did so in anticipation of a ball sailing over a fence.
Instead, Ke'Bryan Hayes did this:
Which was, of course, fine. He'd worked the count full against Milwaukee's flame-throwing closer, Josh Hader, and he'd have been a fool to hack at anything other than Hader's two strikes:
MLB.COM
He extended the game. He loaded the bases to bring up that other foundational hitter, Bryan Reynolds. He did his job.
But there's something to spoken, I'd think, for the sense I had in the moment that Reynolds was the better man for that job, anyway.
Following me here?
Now, Reynolds didn't come through, flying out to left-center to finish the Pirates' 2-0 blanking by the Brewers. And that felt beyond fitting on a day when they'd go 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position and, as Derek Shelton would bemoan, never "get the hit that took us over the top."
Nope. But please don't mistake this as an exercise in studying the archaic concept of clutch. Rather, it's about the big hit. As in, the biggest hit. The home run.
The one facet of Hayes' overall game -- really, the only one -- that's still underwhelming.
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Quick, what comes to mind upon hearing Hayes' name?
For most, it'd probably be the superb defense, as exhibited on this flashy force-out on Kolten Wong in the sixth inning:
My goodness.
Which is why even when he commits an error -- and his eighth of the year came earlier in the day on a muff -- he remains nothing less than Major League Baseball's premier defender, according to the analytics at FanGraphs: His 15 defensive runs saved rank No. 1 among all players at all positions, as well as four ahead of the next-highest third baseman, the Cardinals' perennially decorated Nolan Arenado.
For some, I suppose, it'd be Hayes' consistently productive bat, also evidenced on this day with a first-inning single up the middle:
He's batting .256 with a .331 OBP, just a bit below his career figures of .271 and .337, he's recorded at least one hit in 47 of his 70 start, and 20 of his 69 hits have gone for extra bases: 15 doubles, two triples and three home runs.
But yeah, that last figure's the one that leaps out, isn't it?
Because, if we're being honest, the other thing that'll naturally come to mind upon hearing Hayes' name is that he's now the highest-paid player in Pittsburgh's 136-year baseball history, having signed an eight-year, $70 million extension on opening day in St. Louis. And within that alone, he carries the additional burden of ... oh, just about everything.
He can't just be good. He's got to be ... if not great, then at least very good.
In turn, then, he can't just hit. He's got to hit at the level expected of a corner position, and that very much includes home runs.
He knows it, too. In a long talk he and I had at his clubhouse stall after this game, he spoke of the pressure, the push and, above all, the progress he's made in this regard.
"I'm just trying to fight. Fight every day. Hammer it home," he'd reply as soon as I brought up power. "I'm kind of ... right now, I'm just not not really where I want to be. Early on, I was. I felt like, for the first two months, I was putting together good at-bats, taking walks. Right now, I just feel like I gotta get back to hitting the ball."
Meaning hitting it anywhere. He just dragged through a wholly un-Hayes-like .198 June, and his past seven games alone have seen five hits, three walks and a solitary RBI in 30 plate appearances.
As such, he's doing what he's always done in times of trouble: Go the other way.
"That's middle-middle away on the plate," he'd continue. "Get back to hitting that. There's like a fine line between being aggressive early in the count and still hitting what you want to hit. And I feel like lately, I’ve just kind of taken too many pitches away out over the plate and then swinging at too many pitches on the inner half."
An attempt to pull the ball for more power?
"No, it's just not getting my body in the right position to hit balls. They're beating me in a little bit, which causes you to hit the ball on the ground, kind of like I was doing last year a lot. It's more just swinging at the right pitches that are up in the zone, and then being on time and being able to get the bat out in front."
But, as I came back, he's always preferred oppo, and he's shown a bunch of his power that way, as well.
"Yeah, definitely. I feel like for me, especially in 2020, I was hitting fastballs middle-away to right-center or between first and second. But off-speed, sliders, changeups, I was pulling those. I feel like, for me, the way my swing is whenever I'm doing that, I'm really hitting. That's usually a good indicator for me that my body's in the right spot. I've just been fighting for that."
He managed a slight smile through this, but I'm sure it's easy to gauge the frustration just through reading this. Maybe some confusion, too. This is how hitters sound when they aren't hitting the way they know they can hit. It's very much how Reynolds sounded through the first two months, almost every time we'd talk.
Forget trying to decipher the mechanics of what he's describing up there, and focus instead on these two things he's got to do:
1. Hit better.
2. Find fresh confidence.
3. Hit for power.
Very much in that order. As I'd confirm
"Yeah," Hayes replied to that. "For my mindset, I have to be, in a sense, a doubles-type of hitter and, then, if it goes out, it goes out. But yeah, I would love to get the ball in the air a lot more. As of recently, I haven't been doing a good job of that. So yeah, just trying to work every day."
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The kid references the 2020 season, the one condensed to a couple months by COVID, a ton. As anyone would. He was promoted for the final month and proceeded to slash a superhuman .376/.442/.682 for one of the most productive first months in baseball history.
Now, unless he would've unveiled that he was Ted Williams reincarnated, this couldn't have continued. So all that data, at least from my perspective, should fairly be seen as a freakish outlier that's best analyzed in the broader context of his career. Which is now this, in the most basic of statistics:
• Games: 191
• At-bats: 717
• Hits: 194
• Home runs: 14
• Doubles: 42
• Triples: 6
• RBIs: 74
• Steals: 19 of 23
Not bad, right?
All right, now go up and take a second glance at the number way at the top: He's logged all of 191 games, the rough equivalent of a season and a quarter, and he's still only 25 years old, a relative baby in baseball age.
Daniel Vogelbach, the Pirates' DH who marked his 400th game in the bigs on this day, serves as the unofficial grand poobah of this team's hitters. He's the first to greet them in the dugout, perched just to Shelton's right, as they come off the field following a hit or run. He's the most eager to talk about hitting, whether before, during or after a game.
As Michael Chavis told me this week, "Vogie's the one we go to."
I went to Vogelbach myself after this game to ask about Hayes' missing power.
"I mean, he's still young," the big man began. "You look at his career. He's uber-talented. He's super-athletic in the batter's box. He hits the ball hard. Everyone knows what he can do. I just think it takes some time to adjust to knowing who you are compared to the pitchers. When you have the level of talent that he does, man, he's only going to trend up. I'm anxious to see it. I really am. And when you put that together with the way he plays defense ... the guy's an unbelievable player, and he deserves every dollar that was given to him."
So that's it? He's a natural talent, and it'll all converge into a complete package, power and all, in time?
Um, maybe.
Meshing Vogelbach's assessment with math, it makes sense:
BASEBALL SAVANT
Know how we're all marveling now over Oneil Cruz's exit velocity?
Well, Hayes' average exit velocity of 91.6 mph this season is second on the Pirates only to Cruz's freakish 92.8. More impressive, Hayes' average ranks, as illustrated above, in the 88th percentile of all hitters in the majors, specifically 33rd out of 257 qualified players. To boot, it's a marked increase from 90.2 mph last year, when he was limited to 96 games because of an April wrist injury.
As Vogelbach suggested, Hayes hits the ball hard. Much harder than most, in fact.
The problem's been that he's blasting away at infield grass. His average launch angle of 7.2 degrees is the 35th-lowest among those same 257 qualified players and, as a result, all that powerful contact hasn't translated to power numbers.
He knows that, too.
"I've got to put the ball in the air," Hayes told me. "And I feel like I'm getting there."
He is, and that's demonstrable, too: The 7.2 degrees to his launch angle is way up from 2.6 last year. And he's now averaging 1.5 ground balls for every fly ball, which is healthily down from 2.2 last year. The norm in the majors is 1.2.
Andy Haines, the Pirates' hitting coach, and Shelton, a hitting coach before becoming the manager here, are emphasizing launch angle with Hayes, though not at the expense of production.
"One thing at a time," was how Hayes put it, citing Hader's last pitch to him in the walk on this day. "When guys are throwing 97, 98, 99 like that guy, you're not thinking about anything but the barrel and the ball."
Certainly not in the game.
"You work on launch angle over there," Diego Castillo would tell me after the game, motioning toward the batting cages adjacent to the clubhouse. "You practice it, you take your cuts, and you try to hit the ball in the air there. You can make it part of your swing. But when you go out onto the field, no, you can't think about it."
He laughed.
"I only think about hitting home runs in my bed."
Hayes might be doing that, too. He'll acknowledge he not only wants but also expects power to be part of his repertoire.
"I know what I can do," he'd say, eyebrows rising as he spoke that. "I've hit for power in the minors. I've hit for power here. I just need to keep working. Every day, a little more."
THE ESSENTIALS
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: OF Ben Gamel (hamstring), 1B Yoshi Tsutsugo (lumbar muscle strain)
• 15-day injured list: LHP Dillon Peters (back)
• 60-day injured list: SS Kevin Newman (groin), OF Jake Marisnick (thumb) OF Canaan Njigba-Smith (wrist), OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery) RHP Max Kranick (elbow), Roberto Pérez (hamstring)
• COVID injured list: RHP Yerry De Los Santos
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Daniel Vogelbach, DH
4. Michael Chavis, 1B
5. Bligh Madris, RF
6. Oneil Cruz, SS
7. Jack Suwinski, LF
8. Michael Perez, C
9. Tucupita Marcano, LF
And for Counsell's Crew:
1. Christian Yelich, LF
2. Willy Adames, SS
3. Rowdy Tellez, 1B
4. Andrew McCutchen, DH
5. Kolten Wong, 2B
6. Luis Urías, 3B
7. Omar Narvaez, C
8. Jace Peterson, RF
9. Jonathan Davis, CF
THE SCHEDULE
No baseball on the Fourth? Ugh, but hey, it's a two-game set with the Yankees here Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll be flying to Montreal to cover the NHL Draft, while Alex Stumpf and Chris Halicke will stick to baseball.
THE CONTENT
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