Bryan Reynolds and Jacob Stallings were chatting outside the batting cage on June 3 when the outfielder confided in the catcher.
It felt like the only hits Reynolds had been getting lately were home runs.
“I was like, 'what's wrong with that?’ ” Stallings shot back.
The two laughed it off, with Reynolds realizing there really isn’t anything wrong with that -- other than perhaps a question of sustainability.
Perhaps this swing Saturday answers that question:
That three-run, seventh inning blast that bounced into the Allegheny was the difference in the Pirates’ 6-3 win over the Indians at PNC Park.
It was his second homer in as many days and his fifth of the month.
So, is only hitting homers still an issue?
“I mean, I want to mix in other ones, too,” he joked.
Don’t worry, he’s definitely getting plenty of hits in play, too. With his 2-for-4 performance Saturday, he is now slashing .345/.424/.655 with 13 RBIs and as many walks as doubles (eight) over 66 plate appearances in June. Going by FanGraphs’ live leaderboards, his .925 OPS is sixth best of all National League hitters this year, while his 2.7 WAR ranks fifth.
It’s no coincidence that Reynolds is a bit more jovial this year than last. That 2020 abbreviated campaign was extremely out of character for him, finishing with a batting average below the Mendoza line.
Coming into spring training, Reynolds' focus was on flushing those 60 games away.
“It's a new year,” he said, firmly, during his first interview of the 2021 season back in Bradenton, Fla. “I'm ready. Ready to attack it."
He’s done just that. With his hits Saturday, he got his batting average back to an even .300, where it had been for him every year before 2020.
Reynolds says there hasn’t been a major change in mechanics or approach. What’s been different, according to his manager, is where he is hitting the ball.
“The thing that really stands out to me are his contact points,” Derek Shelton said before the game. “It looks like he’s getting the ball in front of the plate on a more consistent basis. At times last year the ball beat him, whether it was because of timing or the contact point. But he’s in a better position to hit and his contact points are farther out, and that’s why you see him drive the ball.”
Shelton elaborated on that postgame, citing an at-bat Reynolds had in the sixth. He hit a four-seam fastball hard, with an exit velocity of 103.1 mph, but he was behind the pitch a bit. As a result, it was popped up a bit and resulted in a fly out to center.
The one in the seventh he got in front of.
“[I’m] trying to get my barrel in a spot that it was ready to fire from instead of wrapping it so much, and I feel like that's helped me to deliver more consistently,” Reynolds said.
Putting a ball in the river is a nice way to reinforce what he’s been doing of late.
Before going to his postgame Zoom, Reynolds saw the photos of the fan who took off his shirt and jumped into the river to retrieve his homer.
Would he do the same if he saw a ball out there for the taking?
“Yeah, I'm jumping in for sure,” he said with a smile.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Reynolds' homer was the insurance on what was a historic seventh inning for the Pirates. They drew six walks in the inning, marking the first time had accomplished that since was April 13, 1976.
Ben Gamel and Kevin Newman walked to start the frame, and it was, who else, backup catcher Michael Pérez who came through with the go-ahead shot to right:
While he hasn't been quite Reynolds-level this month, Pérez has also found a bit of a groove at the plate, going deep twice with an .892 OPS over 22 plate appearances. He drew a walk in addition to his homer Saturday.
"My mindset, my mentality is just to make sure that I'm getting good at-bats," Pérez said through translator Mike Gonzalez. "That I'm going to the box sticking to the plan, trying to stay in the middle. Making sure that I'm seeing on top of the ball. Hopefully they make a mistake, and if they don't, I'm sticking to my plan. The results are showing that I'm executing on the plan."
Perhaps this is more an indicator of the Pirates than Pérez, but in just 86 plate appearances this year, the backstop is tied for third on the team in home runs with five. The only players ahead of him are Reynolds (12) and Gregory Polanco (seven). Jacob Stallings also has five long balls.
"He takes aggressive swings," Shelton said. "We knew when we got him that he had the ability to drive the ball. Those were the reports we got from some of the guys in Tampa. He's taken advantage of it. Today, he took advantage of where the pitch was gonna be and got the head out and put us ahead."
Reynolds' home run was also set up by a pair of walks, so the Pirates certainly made the most out of those free passes.
So which did Shelton like more: The walks or the homers?
"I’ll take both of them," he said. "Can I get greedy?"
• Starter Wil Crowe couldn't get out of the fifth inning, but he kept his team in position to come back.
His afternoon was partially defined by a pair of hanging sliders that turned into solo home runs by Harold Ramirez -- yes, THAT Harold Ramirez -- and René Rivera.
Crowe didn't sweat those mistakes.
"I made two bad pitches, and they hit them out. So what? Solo home runs don’t hurt you," Crowe said. "You keep them at one, you keep it there and you let the guys have a chance. That was all I was doing."
What he did do was move away from the slider because he didn't have the right feel for it, instead shifting to the four-seamer and the rest of his repertoire more as the game progressed.
"It just seemed like they were trying to hit the slider, and on top of that, I didn’t have my best one," Crowe said. "So we went with everything else and grinded through the outing."
The results were enough to keep the Pirates in the game, lasting 4 2/3 innings with just those two runs against him. He allowed four hits and two walks while striking out a pair.
Chasen Shreve stranded a pair of runners in the fifth, and Chris Stratton followed with two shutdown innings. David Bednar struck out two in the eighth, and while Richard Rodríguez allowed another homer to Ramirez in the ninth, the bullpen closed it down.
Shelton made sure to single out Stratton's efforts postgame.
"That was huge, what he did for us today," Shelton said. "The ability to give us two, to be very efficient."
It was certainly an improvement from Friday's near epic collapse.
"I give credit to Mecc [bullpen coach Justin Meccage] and our bullpen guys because they're resilient," Shelton said. "Regardless of what happens the day before, they bounce back and go."
• A win is a win, but once again, the Pirates' starter was pulled early. That's been a theme this year. Through the Pirates' first 69 games played, there have been just 13 when the starter pitched at least six innings. That's the fewest such starts of any team.
Some of that is based on results, either because a starter doesn't pitch well or fails to execute key pitches. Some of it is a product of the National League game and needing to bring a hitter to the plate.
And some of it is by design, based on situations, trying to manage pitcher innings coming off the pandemic year and, perhaps most importantly, teaching young pitchers to focus on preventing key runs from scoring rather than worry about going deep into the game.
"You have to grow to have that (conversation)," Shelton said. The one part about it is you get to go farther in games if you’re more efficient and you get to go farther in games if you execute. Let’s use Chase's [De Jong] game the other day [Wednesday against the Nationals]. He threw 71 [pitches], empties the tank and gets out of the fourth with it being a one-run game. If you’re thinking, ‘I’m going to conserve for the fifth or the sixth,’ you’re not pitching in the fifth or the sixth because you probably give up those runs in the fourth.
"What we want our young pitchers especially to think about is the fact that we’re focusing on every single pitch."
Of course, the manager has a disadvantage when it comes to those moves. We'll never know for sure if a pitcher was taken out too early. We can only find out if he was left in too long.
"Sometimes it is challenging when you walk down there and tell a guy, ‘Hey, you’re done,’ " Shelton said. "I think the one thing that we try to do with our group is we try to walk through and communicate what our thought process is, not only for the guy on the mound that day but for the other four guys and how it goes about it."
THE ESSENTIALS
Boxscore
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Adam Frazier, 2B
Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
Bryan Reynolds, CF
Colin Moran, 1B
Gregory Polanco, RF
Ben Gamel, LF
Kevin Newman, SS
Michael Pérez, C
Wil Crowe, P
And for Terry Francona' Indians:
Cesar Hernandez, 2B
Amed Rosario, SS
Bobby Bradley, 1B
Eddie Rosario, LF
Harold Ramirez, RF
Yu Chang, 3B
Bradley Zimmer, CF
Rene Rivera, C
Cal Quantrill, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates will go for that elusive first sweep Sunday. JT Brubaker (4-5, 3.88) will take the hill for the Pirates against Sam Hentges (1-1, 7.57). First pitch will be at 1:05 p.m.
IN THE SYSTEM
• Mason Martin picked up his eighth home run of the season as part of a three-hit performance as Altoona defeated Erie- 8-7, Saturday. It was Martin's third home run of the series, and ties him with Rodolfo Castro and Oneil Cruz for a team high.
• Affiliate scores
• Indianapolis
• Altoona
• Greensboro
• Bradenton
THE CONTENT
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