SEATTLE -- It wasn't strike three anywhere near as much as it was strikes one and two.
Bases were loaded. Tie game. Tenth inning. Two outs. And Ke'Bryan Hayes stepped into the box with a chance to put his team up, plus erase what'd been a most miserable Sunday afternoon for himself here at T-Mobile Park, having already hacked his way to 0 for 4 with three Ks.
And uh ...
... not exactly.
Robert Stephenson blew this one by serving up yet another stinker in the form of Eugenio Suarez's three-run moon shot in the bottom of the 10th. Connor Joe'd go 0 for 5 with a golden sombrero of his own. And Derek Shelton, to be blunt, might've made the biggest mess of all.
I'll get to all that. But none of those individuals are anchored to the franchise for the better part of the coming decade, as Hayes is. And what happened here isn't exactly some outlier. Not this game, not this series in which he'd go 1 for 14 with eight Ks, not this month of May in which he's batted .207 with one home run and six extra-base hits and, really, not for this season in which he's slashing .223/.275/.344 with two home runs and 17 RBIs.
Among Major League Baseball's 21 third basemen with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, Hayes ranks 20th with a .619 OPS.
I spoke with Hayes every day of this trip, each time about hitting. We discussed the legit oddity of the hard contact that's resulted in lineouts to the outfield. We discussed the lack of home runs. The lack of launch angle. The lack of staying within his zone. And he offered no excuses.
"It's not just the hard outs," he'd tell me Friday, the day he'd piled on one of those franchise-record-tying seven home runs. "I haven't had the kind of at-bats I need to be having."
He didn't elaborate then, but both he and Shelton did after this game. A bit, anyway.
"Yeah, I think he's a little in-between," Shelton would respond when I'd used exactly that phrase, a favorite of his that references a hitter's indecisiveness, in my question about Hayes. "We've got a couple guys that are in-between. And when that happens, you don't swing at the right pitches."
I mentioned to Hayes at his stall that Shelton felt he was in-between.
"Not really," came the reply. "Just ... missing the ball. Swinging at pitches that I can't really do anything with. Kinda one of those things. Gotta swing at better pitches."
I'm in no position to argue the specifics, but I'm quite comfortable supporting the concept that flat-out missing the ball is part of the problem.
Here's a diagram of the full plate appearance:
MLB.COM
The first pitch, strike one, sails right into a hitter's sweet spot. A mistake and a half on Tayler Saucedo's part. Should've been crushed into Canada. Never earned a bleeping swing.
The second pitch is trash, a wasted changeup that wound up drawing one of the worst swings of anyone on either side all series.
At that stage, Saucedo probably thinks Hayes will hack at anything, so he flings three more changeups a mile outside. But then, the sixth and seventh pitches, another changeup and the first slider, go right back into that same sweet spot ... to no effect, both fouled off.
Finally, the eighth pitch could've been ball four and a Pittsburgh lead, but Hayes flails over it.
Want to see what Suarez did when Stephenson threw precisely into the same sweet spot?
Uh-huh.
This needs to be solved. Shelton's a former hitting coach. Andy Haines at least has that title on his business card. This isn't a player who lacks wherewithal, and I can't be convinced that he does. Rather, he's a classic case of requiring the guidance to get through being in-between or wherever he happens to be. Even beyond the massive investment the franchise has in him, it's paramount that he's put right.
And look, again, Hayes was hardly alone in culpability for this game or for Seattle taking two of three in the series.
Stephenson's April was as awesome as his May's been awful: Seven innings over nine appearances, nine runs, nine hits, seven walks, three home runs. He's 30 years old, he's not part of anyone's future, he's a tee-free batting practice, and he might well be driving down DFA avenue.
Similarly, Joe's batting average from last month to this one has plummeted more than 100 points, his slash line going from .288/.387/.575 to the current .185/.274/.308 that's remarkably got him a point below Austin Hedges on the average. That ain't easy.
And there's no way to absolve Shelton's managing in the ninth inning.
Ji Hwan Bae, one of the game's fastest runners, opened with a double. With the righty Trevor Gott pitching, the setting was clear for light-hitting Chris Owings to put down a bunt and get Bae to third and, after that, have Tucupita Marcano, the Pirates' hottest bat of late, pinch-hit for Hedges. From there, Andrew McCutchen could take a turn.
Makes sense, right?
Instead, Shelton batted Marcano right away for Owings. So when Marcano lifted a flyout to center, a move that would've scored Bae from 90 feet away, nothing at all resulted: Josh Palacios walked, and Cutch bounced sharply into a 6-4-3.
Why?
"We had some thoughts there," Shelton acknowledged of having Owings bunt, undoubtedly referring to himself and Don Kelly. "We thought Marcano would get a first-pitch fastball and, with his ability to hook the ball, you know, that's what we were hoping for. We were going to hit for Hedges there, and ... obviously, we didn't get to that situation."
Obviously.
I'll reiterate one final time from the Pacific Northwest: I've got no idea where any of this is headed. The record's now 26-26, all the way back at .500 following the 20-8 start. The Brewers beat the Giants on this day in Milwaukee. And the Pirates are flying down the West Coast to San Francisco to face that same opponent, among the National League's perennial powers.
Water's rising, my friends. Take a deep breath and enjoy this level while it lasts:
MLB.com
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, RF
2. Bryan Reynolds, DH
3. Connor Joe, LF
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Rodolfo Castro, 2B
6. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
7. Ji Hwan Bae, CF
8. Chris Owings, SS
9. Austin Hedges, C
And for Scott Servais' Mariners:
1. J.P. Crawford, SS
2. Ty France, 1B
3. Julio Rodriguez, CF
4. Jarred Kelenic, LF
5. Eugenio Suarez, 3B
6. Cal Raleigh, DH
7. Teoscar Hernandez, RF
8. Tom Murphy, C
9. Jose Caballero, 2B
THE SCHEDULE
It's off to San Francisco for three more. The Memorial Day matinee, 8:05 p.m. Eastern, will pit Rich Hill against Anthony DeSclafani.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team feed for all the latest around the clock and our team page for everything else.
