When the Pirates acquired first baseman Spencer Horwitz in the offseason, Ben Cherington described him as having “good on-base skills.” It wasn’t exactly an awe-inspiring way to describe a power-hitting position of need.
Then came the news of hand surgery and a report of a known chronic wrist problem dating back to his time with Toronto.
Since Horwitz joined the team May 17 in Philadelphia, he’s batting .245, and slugging .349 – 40th among all first basemen in MLB – with one home run and nine RBIs. This month, he’s hitting .273 but the power and run production wasn’t there until today.
He singled in the fourth inning, but it was this double in the fifth to pull and drive the ball to the warning track in right field over the usually strong defensive right fielder Adolis Garcia that plated two important runs and changed the outcome of the game:
He did it again in the seventh inning, pulling the ball and driving it out to the right-center field gap:
As for how it felt to have three hits and drive the ball, “Yea, it definitely didn't feel bad” Horwitz said, “I felt like, I was working on the right things for the game and showed up.”
And he acknowledged the work involved his pull-side, “Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, just trying to get my best swing off and whether that be pull-side or backside, just kind of stop trying to feel it out and just kind of swing.”
It would be an important development for Horwitz and the team if they are open to the data as Baseball Savant’s new metrics on swing path and attack angle show a hitter that didn’t have the swing path to take advantage of the short 320 feet Clemente Wall as he was going to the opposite field at a 3-degree angle:
And this season, his swing path is still favoring the opposite field at 1-degree, an improvement to the pull-side but still a work in-progress.
After today, Horwitz is at 106 at-bats, a reasonable sample size to begin working more on his game and understanding what kind of hitter he is or can become, he acknowledged the data side of the game saying, “I'm around 100'ish (at-bats), I'm starting to get, not comfortable but can start to look at some data, some information, and get some feedback.”
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THE ASYLUM
Eric Bowser
11:36 pm - 06.22.2025North ShoreGoing Deep: Who's Horwitz, really?
When the Pirates acquired first baseman Spencer Horwitz in the offseason, Ben Cherington described him as having “good on-base skills.” It wasn’t exactly an awe-inspiring way to describe a power-hitting position of need.
Then came the news of hand surgery and a report of a known chronic wrist problem dating back to his time with Toronto.
Since Horwitz joined the team May 17 in Philadelphia, he’s batting .245, and slugging .349 – 40th among all first basemen in MLB – with one home run and nine RBIs. This month, he’s hitting .273 but the power and run production wasn’t there until today.
He singled in the fourth inning, but it was this double in the fifth to pull and drive the ball to the warning track in right field over the usually strong defensive right fielder Adolis Garcia that plated two important runs and changed the outcome of the game:
He did it again in the seventh inning, pulling the ball and driving it out to the right-center field gap:
As for how it felt to have three hits and drive the ball, “Yea, it definitely didn't feel bad” Horwitz said, “I felt like, I was working on the right things for the game and showed up.”
And he acknowledged the work involved his pull-side, “Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, just trying to get my best swing off and whether that be pull-side or backside, just kind of stop trying to feel it out and just kind of swing.”
It would be an important development for Horwitz and the team if they are open to the data as Baseball Savant’s new metrics on swing path and attack angle show a hitter that didn’t have the swing path to take advantage of the short 320 feet Clemente Wall as he was going to the opposite field at a 3-degree angle:
And this season, his swing path is still favoring the opposite field at 1-degree, an improvement to the pull-side but still a work in-progress.
After today, Horwitz is at 106 at-bats, a reasonable sample size to begin working more on his game and understanding what kind of hitter he is or can become, he acknowledged the data side of the game saying, “I'm around 100'ish (at-bats), I'm starting to get, not comfortable but can start to look at some data, some information, and get some feedback.”
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