It was 11:15 a.m. on this Labor Day that the Pirates emerged onto the PNC Park diamond for infield practice.
Yeah, infield practice.
Third time in four days. Not to mention third time in four days amid nothing but afternoon games, when infield practice is seldom seen anywhere. Not to mention third time in four days and the morning following a flight home from an "extremely frustrating" 0-6 week in Chicago, to borrow Derek Shelton's own description out there.
One American League scout in attendance hadn't expected to see anything when he reported for work that day. And instead, "Here's this team out there taking infield. That's impressive."
Impressive?
Hm. Try this:
Nah?
Well, look again and try to pick up, like I did live from the press box, Ke'Bryan Hayes' super-smooth backpedal to swallow up a one-hopper that might've ensnarled a lesser third baseman. Meaning most of them.
As Shelton put it, "Everybody in the ballpark probably felt that was a routine play. But to be able to move your feet like that, that’s not routine. There’s probably three or four guys on the planet who can do that."
Yep. And one of them's employed by an organization that, for all the other ills that've befallen it through this brutal 2021 season, endlessly emphasizes catching the ball. Every day and, evidently, holidays, too.
“Coming out of spring training, defense was definitely one of the things we wanted to improve on as a team," Hayes would say after glovework galore -- plus his own three hits and two RBIs -- doubled up the Tigers, 6-3. "Defense is definitely a priority, especially if we’re not swinging it well. You can’t be making errors on the defensive side."
With all due respect, that's not Hayes speaking. It's echoed across the roster. Which means it's emanating from Shelton, who both preaches it and practices it relentlessly. Win or lose. Home or road. Day. After. Day. I've witnessed it myself, at this place and everywhere else. And I'm plenty comfortable, by way of comparison, saying the push is unlike anything from any of Shelton's predecessors I'd covered the past two decades.
"It’s something that we work really hard on, trying to pick teammates up and make all the plays that we can for the pitching staff," Kevin Newman would say. "I think today was a good example of the hard work that we’ve put in."
There were multiple examples, and actually, way more of the 11,141 on hand audibly appreciated these more than the one above, including another from Hayes:
Ha!
And this from Chris Stratton off the mound:
And best of all by a broad margin, this beauty by Newman on a turn-and-run into left-center:
My goodness.
"Incredible play," Bryse Wilson marveled.
Incredible, and yet not. Because ...
“Every day that we take ground balls, Kevin and Joey end his ground-ball session with one of those pop-ups," Hayes said, referring to Joey Cora, the third base coach and infield instructor. "I’m sure if you ask Kevin, it was routine for him even though it looks like a super-hard play. But he practices that play every single day. It’s just little things like that, whenever they show up in the game, they won’t feel too foreign.”
Newman confirmed, "We’ve done it every single day, and this is the first time it’s shown up in the game. Off the bat, it’s kind of just a sprint backward and look up and try to find the ball. It’s kind of just a timing thing and and knowing where your outfielders are. I knew they weren’t going to have the chance to get there, so obviously, I'm going to do my best to try and get to the ball. Thankfully, I got there and held onto it."
That's mostly all I've got on this. There are no feathers, no parades, no participation trophies for a team that's 49-89 and careening hard toward 100 losses.
And yet, it feels relevant toward the infinitely more relevant future that these Pirates, despite some highly visible and ill-timed gaffes like the couple whoppers at Wrigley Field over the weekend, have the third-fewest errors in Major League Baseball at 54. And the seventh-best fielding percentage at .986. And no fewer than half of their everyday lineup -- Hayes, Newman, Bryan Reynolds and Jacob Stallings -- who could reasonably be called Gold Glove candidates.
Because if any foundation's going to be built for this franchise that genuinely applies to the top level right now, even with the prospect cavalry still a year or two away, it's instilling fundamentals.
Which are, of course, far more about work and applied principles than about natural talent.
There's nothing new I'm sharing here. I've felt this way and expressed as much throughout the season. But I'd be lying if I didn't add that this felt different, fresh off Chicago. Because, to be blunt, it can't be much fun for anyone to teach this stuff, let alone absorb it appropriately when they're a lot more likely to go smashing a fist into a cement wall.
I asked Shelton about that.
"The one thing I give our group, our staff and our players, credit for is, win or lose -- now, if you play the game and get your butts kicked, it's a little bit harder -- but we've played close games over the last six days, and we've done a lot of good things," he replied. "We haven't finished games. A couple of those games, we didn't win because we didn't make defensive plays, so we're able to have teaching moments. But our staff, whether we win or lose, they're talking to guys about things. If we weren't doing that, we’d be deficient in terms of where we're at in our process. We have to continue to teach. We have to continue to develop."
It both sounds -- and looks -- like that message has made it through. Including to the players who matter most.
"We play hard every day, whether we’re on a three-game winning streak or a five-game losing streak," Hayes said. "We’re a young team. We’re all still learning. We’ve had a whole bunch of moving pieces this year. We’re trying to battle every day, come in every single day with a clean, fresh slate.”
Clean baseball makes for an inspired, ideal place to start.
JUSTIN BERL / GETTY
Ke'Bryan Hayes slices a two-run single to right field in the seventh inning Monday at PNC Park.
• Repeating for effect: No feather. No parade. No participation trophy.
Also, no excuse for a reprise of this in 2022. None whatsoever.
If the Chicago trip underscored anything, as Alex Stumpf wrote from Wrigley, there's a hard price to be paid for abandoning any piece of the big-league roster, as Ben Cherington did with his bullpen after the trade deadline. Nothing at all justifies entering a two-month period with two reliable relievers, meaning Stratton and David Bednar.
That. Can't. Happen. Again.
Even if all the other steps are proceeding swimmingly, the entire thing risks being blown up if Pittsburgh gets -- no, stays -- embarrassing.
• The Pirates' payroll commitment for next season, for anyone who doesn't know, is zero dollars and zero cents. At least in terms of existing guaranteed contracts. So they'll have ample space, even after taking care of all the requisite players, to help avoid another one of these.
And if Bob Nutting's leaving that up to Cherington, that won't be good enough. He'll need to ensure it happens.
(I know, I know.)
• We're reaching the point where Bednar needs to be mentioned in the same breath as Hayes and Reynolds in the context of the future.
Kid's throwing 98 mph, upstairs, upstairs, upstairs, then undresses poor Harold Castro with a soul-crushing curve for the final out and his third save:
That's unfair.
And believe it or not, the curve's "a work in progress," per Shelton, who credited pitching coaches Oscar Marin and Justin Meccage as well as Bednar himself before adding, "He threw two or three today that were elite. And you talk about development, I mean, here's a guy with an elite fastball, an above-average split, and now all of a sudden he's added another thing into his arsenal."
• Yoshi Tsutsugo singled! Twice!
Remarkably, they were the first two of his 14 hits since arriving -- half of which have been home runs -- that didn't go for extra bases. Not remarkably, given how he's generally mashed, one of them was a two-out, two-run rope into right to put the Pirates up, 6-3.
DH for the National League, anyone?
• The reason Anthony Alford won't stick in the bigs isn't that he strikes out a ton. It's that he comes equipped with only one mode at the plate.
He stepped to the plate in the first with runners at the corners and one out. Two runs had already resulted from Newman's home run into the bleachers. Another was there to be had by doing something, anything to apply lumber to ball. But he couldn't take anything off the swing. Not even after getting down, 1-2, in the count. He tried to blast one to the ALCOA headquarters up the river and whiffed.
That won't work. Not now. Not ever.
• Addendum to the defense discussion: Everything Stallings does behind the plate is better than everything everyone else does in this uniform all summer. He's the best catcher on the planet. And I'm not saying that solely because it's supported by voluminous analytics, but I'll take the assist.
He also singled and doubled on this day, which really should be noted somewhere, but he's the one guy in the lineup who could bat .000 and bring value. He's that good.
• Be wary of judging minor-league systems based on wins and losses. In the Dave Littlefield days, then again in the later Neal Huntington/Kyle Stark days, they'd try to mask prospect deficiencies by stocking a bunch of journeymen with a certain affiliate to keep the record respectable.
That said, knowing what we know about how Cherington's system is being built, the cumulative record of the Pirates' full system -- from Class AAA to Class A -- is currently 317-263, a winning percentage of .547 that's fifth-best in baseball. And two of those teams, Class A Greensboro and Bradenton, where most of the prospects are, have chances to win championships.
The four teams ahead of the Pirates, in order, are the Rays, Yankees, Mariners and Red Sox, all obviously in the American League.
• It's back to the South Side for football the rest of this week!
Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday!
JUSTIN BERL / GETTY
Jacob Stallings congratulates David Bednar on his save Monday at PNC Park.
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. Jacob Stallings, C
6. Anthony Alford, LF
7. Ben Gamel, RF
8. Cole Tucker, 2B
9. Bryse Wilson, RHP
And for A.J. Hinch's Tigers:
1. Akil Baddoo, LF
2. Jonathan Schoop, 1B
3. Robbie Grossman, RF
4. Jeimer Candelario, 3B
5. Eric Haase, C
6. Niko Goodrum, SS
7. Willi Castro, 2B
8. Derek Hill, CF
9. Tarik Skubal, LHP
THE SYSTEM
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates will probably start Dillon Peters (0-2, 3.07) -- still to be announced -- while Detroit will definitely start righty Wily Peralta (3-3, 3.68) in the series' second game Tuesday, 6:35 p.m. first pitch. Alex will be back on the beat.
THE CONTENT
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