Ji Hwan Bae sat his locker, head down. Most of his teammates were already in the shower or dressed. He needed a moment.
It was apparent that what had happened in the eighth inning of the Pirates' 6-1 loss to the Rangers at PNC Park Tuesday was still eating at him.
Trailing by five runs in the eighth inning and with Bae on first base, Andrew McCutchen lined a base hit to right, possibly giving the Pirates one last gasp against tiring Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi. Bae rounded second, and with his speed, seemed to have third base easily. Ranger right fielder Adolis García certainly seemed to think so, as he leisurely threw to the cutoff man at second.
Instead of taking third, Bae hit the breaks about a third of the way there and went back to second. Marcus Semien was there to apply the tag, and any hopes of a late-inning rally were over.
"[I] didn't read the play properly, so ended up getting out," Bae said after showering and collecting himself, via interpreter Daniel Park.
"Once he commits to going, he’s got to go with his speed," Derek Shelton said. "We saw that García was coming up and throwing the ball to second, too, but once he commits he’s going to go, he’s got to go."
To add insult to injury, that was actually Bae's second miscue of the game, the first coming when Eovaldi picked him off first base in the third inning. As Eovaldi made his turn, Bae's first move was to second base.
Bae has 80-grade speed and ranks near the top of the league in sprint speed. Nobody goes from home to first base quicker than him, going by Baseball Savant's data. Yet speed alone is not enough from getting out of these bad spots.
"It’s a matter of a young player learning what he’s going to do at the Major League level and a young player with a really elite tool," Shelton said. "It’s part of our job just to continue to coach him on what’s the right opportunities and what’s not."
In April, the Pirates wanted to take advantage of the new pitch clock and disengagement rules and become more aggressive on the bases. Bae became the poster child for that movement. He stole 11 bases with only one caught stealing. Going by FanGraphs' base running runs, no National League player was more valuable on the base paths than the rookie that month.
That's changed of late. Bae's been caught stealing four times with just one swiped bag over his last 14 games. He's reached base safely 15 times in that stretch, but made an out on the bases one way or another on six occasions. Again going by FanGraphs' base running runs, entering Tuesday, his -1.1 runs on the bases since May 5 was tied for the third-worst in the National League. It will likely go down again at the next update.
Bae has incredible speed, but the league knows that and has adjusted.
"He needs to slow down a little bit," Shelton said. "Right now, he’s going a little fast. I think you see young players that have speed, at times, they try to create things instead of just letting things come to him. Right now, he’s probably trying to do a little too much. The weapon that he has is a true weapon, but if you use it recklessly, then you run into outs and you can’t have that."
May has also been a difficult month for the Pirates, who have gone from being 20-9 at the end of April to 25-23 and out of first place in the National League Central. Had Bae not been picked off in the third, then a Bryan Reynolds double later that frame could have potentially tied the game early and potentially changed the outcome later.
Bae has some of the worst batted ball peripherals in the league and a .666 OPS overall. Much of his production is going to come from speed, and he admits he's trying to do too much to create chances to take an extra bag.
"When I look at the score, and when we're losing, down, I definitely want to help my teammates," Bae said, "so I feel like I'm doing a little bit too much. "
"As much as it stings now, those are teaching moments and we have to make sure that things like that don’t happen again," Shelton said.
Teaching moments were a common theme through Shelton's first years as manager, but it hasn't been brought up as much in 2023, most likely because the team has a winning record. Does the tolerance for accepting a miscue as a teaching moment change whenever the expectation is to start winning now?
"The tolerance is we have to be better in those moments," Shelton said. "We’re still going to continue to teach because we have a bunch of young players and they’re going to make mistakes. So, I think that’s the thing: minimizing them as much as possible."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• It didn't stop on just the bases. The Pirates were sloppy in just about every facet Tuesday.
It started with the first batter, where Jack Suwinski let a Semien line drive go by him for a leadoff triple. Later that inning, Rich Hill would balk home a run, one of two times the Pirates balked someone home -- Jose Hernandez being the other offender.
Hill would go on to allow four earned runs over 5 1/3 innings, faltering in the sixth inning to give the Rangers some breathing room.
On offense, the Pirates were hitless with runners in scoring position and Eovaldi pitched a complete game, continuing one of the most torrid stretches for an American League pitcher this year.
"He had everything working," Shelton said. "The split was really good. He came into the game with the [2.83 ERA] and tonight’s about as good as his split could be. When you have the fastball that he does and the split works off it, it gives you a ton of trouble. We didn’t get many good swings off him."
Just not a good day for the Pirates, who still haven't won a series in May.
• Hill was reminded that he did strike out nine batters on the evening, but he did not want to hear it.
“You can look at strikeouts or whatever but, at the end of the day, it’s the score. Coming out of that game at 4-1 deficit late in the game, that’s not putting us in a position to win. I think if you want to look at it as a good outing, fair outing or whatever, in my mind that’s not a championship mindset. So you’ve got to hold yourself to a higher standard and you’ve got to be able to execute pitches throughout the entire game to be able to put yourself and give the team the opportunity to win.”
• Duane Underwood Jr. pitched two innings in his first outing since exiting with elbow tightness on Friday. He allowed a solo shot but held steady with his velocity in his first game back.
• Ji-Man Choi was taking grounders from his knees before the game, one of the baseball activities he's cleared to do, like swinging in a cage. No decisions have been made yet for a rehab assignment, but he is eligible to come off the injured list as soon as June 14.
"We saw the ability to control the zone, the ability to impact the baseball," Shelton said before the game on what getting Choi back would mean. "That's important. We've talked about professional at-bats and that's what he does. That will help lengthen our lineup."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 15-day injured list: RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)
• 60-day injured list: 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Andrew McCutchen, DH
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Jack Suwinski, CF
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
6. Tucupita Marcano, SS
7. Josh Palacios, RF
8. Ji Hwan Bae, 2B
9. Austin Hedges, C
And for Bruce Bochy's Rangers:
1. Marcus Semien, 2B
2. Kyle Seager, SS
3. Nathaniel Lowe, 1B
4. Adolis Garcia, RF
5. Josh Jung, 3B
6. Jonah Heim, C
7. Robbie Grossman, LF
8. Ezequiel Duran, DH
9. Leody Taveras, CF
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates will try salvage the series before embarking on a west coast road trip. Johan Oviedo (3-3, 4.69) will try to build off of his encouraging start the last time out against Martin Perez (5-1, 4.01). First pitch will be at 12:35 p.m. I've got you covered.
THE MULTIMEDA
THE CONTENT
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