Standing on one leg at his stall for a second, Henry Davis slowly lifted his left foot to show me where a foul-tip had done the fiercest of dive-bombs.
"Man," he'd muster upon setting it back down, "it hurt, too."
Yeah, sure looked that way:
Owwwwwwww ... that's 99.4 mph with sink carrying into that carom. And soon, that'd be Derek Shelton and the Pirates' athletic trainers sprinting to the box after Davis had fallen to all fours.
Funny thing, though: I've been watching this wonderful young man work in a Pittsburgh uniform for not even a couple weeks, and yet the following two thoughts had hit me almost immediately up in the press box:
1. He'll bounce right back up.
2. He'll win the damned game.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Same thing, I swear," Nick Gonzales would tell me after I shared those thoughts with him. "Henry's one of the toughest guys I know, in general. I knew he'd get back in there and come through. And that's exactly what he did."
"Same thing," Josh Palacios essentially echoed to the same subject. "With Henry, you just feel like you know it's coming. We all feel it."
Anyone else?
If not, maybe that'll be the case after this ...
... cue-break of a shot that found some friendly grass to, oh, you know, win the damned game by a 5-4 final over the Padres on this Thursday afternoon at PNC Park that was nowhere near as toxic as the air around us.
But forget all that for now.
Forget the smoke. Forget Luis Ortiz's rare rough start. Forget the bullpen's 4 1/3-scoreless-innings bailout, from Ryan Borucki to Dauri Moreta to Angel Perdomo to four dominant outs from David Bednar. Forget even this three-game sweep of a $247 million opponent that just might've begun righting the broader course.
Because what matters most from this scene is that a No. 1 overall draft pick's part of the here and now. And he's not only playing like one but also conducting himself like one.
Proof positive?
Check out his expression once he saw that ball was landing:
JUSTIN BERL / GETTY
Henry Davis smiles upon dropping the tiebreaking single into shallow right field in the seventh inning Thursday at PNC Park.
Happy over his third hit of the day?
Uh-uh. More like capping the rally that overcame an early 4-0 deficit. And that, my friends, is as authentic as everything else about Davis.
Which starts, of course, with the actual baseball: Statistically, through 10 games, he's slashing .351/.415/.486 with 13 hits, two walks and two hit batsmen in his first 41 plate appearances, plus a home run, two doubles, six RBIs and two steals. In this series alone, the first time Shelton moved him up to third in the order, he'd go 7 for 13 with five of those six RBIs.
These were the other two hits on this day:
There's been no hard pattern, either. He'll hit all pitches to all fields, as his spray chart illustrates:
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BASEBALL SAVANT
“He grinds through every at-bat,” Shelton would say. “You don’t see a lot of young players who come to the big leagues and their focus is every single pitch. I think that’s something we knew about him when we drafted him, and we’ve seen it all throughout the minors. For a young player to not ever give away not only an at-bat, but a pitch, is why he’s had early success.”
All that, and he's been more than adequate in right field, which might matter depending on how serious management stays about having him return to catching someday.
But here's my stat of choice, tiny sample size and all: The Pirates are now 3-0 when he bats where he belongs. Meaning both in the heart of the order and, before long, as the heart of the franchise.
No hype.
"One thing with Henry: He's all about winning," Gonzales told me. "And with him, it shows. Its real easy to talk about that kind of thing, but to go out there every day like he has his whole life to show it, to prove it, that's different. That's just him. Henry loves it."
Steve Bertholomey, Davis' agent but also "my best friend," as Davis reminded me, has told me tons of tales about Davis' rise in the sport, all of which pointed to this as his primary trait.
There was one I loved more than the rest.
"Right after Henry signed, he went immediately to Pirate City," Bertholomey was sharing with me after this game, referring to 2021 and the team's spring facility in Bradenton, Fla. "There were still COVID lockdowns, and the facilities were all shut. You weren't even supposed to leave your room. So every day, we were figuring out ways to get him to some facility to work out. There'd be many days where he'd sneak out to work out some random high school field by himself, or he'd driving an hour up to Tampa to hit in some guy's basement that I knew. Days after signing as the first overall pick, he wasn't willing to take a single day off."
The trait's been duly noted by his new teammates, as well. Including the veteran leadership.
Tuesday night, when Carlos Santana pulled off the individually impressive feat of taking Blake Snell deep, take a look at how the kid on the basepaths in front of him reacted:
Reminder: That was Santana's home run. Not his.
"I know. I saw," Santana would tell me after this game. "He's a good teammate. A very good teammate."
With how Santana's respected in this clubhouse, there isn't higher praise available.
Good luck attaching it, though. Ask Davis about a team result or concept, and he'll elaborate with eloquence. Ask about anything to do with just him, and he'll come back with, "I just want to battle up there," or "I saw my pitch," two actual responses to other reporters' questions here.
I gave it a shot myself, one-on-one:
Why so stoked for Santana?
"Yeah, I was pretty excited. It's just a great swing by Carlos. And I mean, it got the game started the way we needed it."
Where does the passion for winning originate?
"I don't know. I just, I mean, it's not just baseball. It's in everything I want to do. I just want to win."
How about that winning hit? And that big smile?
"I was just happy it landed. Honestly, I didn't put the best swing on it, but I put the ball in play. Good things happen sometimes. Can't get ahead there if I don't put it in play."
Have to watch getting too high with these hot early results he's had?
"I wouldn't say it's results-oriented ... it's team results-oriented. It's wins and losses. Let's just prepare the way we prepare, go out and do our best every day and, if we all execute like today, it's a really good feeling. But regardless of execution, the preparation's the same, so just stick with that."
Right. Stick with that. Like, for another decade-plus.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: OF Bryan Reynolds (back), 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes (back)
• 15-day injured list: LHP Jose Hernandez (calf), RHP Colin Holderman (wrist), LHP Rob Zastryzny (forearm), RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)
• 60-day injured list: SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Jack Suwinski, CF
2. Andrew McCutchen, DH
3. Henry Davis, RF
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Connor Joe, LF
6. Nick Gonzales, SS
7. Ji Hwan Bae, 2B
8. Jared Triolo, 3B
9. Jason Delay, C
And for Bob Melvin's Padres:
1. Fernando Tatis Jr., DH
2. Juan Soto, LF
3. Manny Machado, 3B
4. Xander Bogaerts, SS
5. Jake Croneworth, 1B
6. Rougned Odor, RF
7. Ha-Seong Kim, 2B
8. Trent Grisham, CF
9. Austin Nola, C
THE SCHEDULE
Here comes the Crew, fresh off sweeping the Pirates up in Milwaukee two weekends ago. For the series opener Friday, it'll be Osvaldo Bido (0-1, 3.45) against Freddy Peralta (5-7, 4.65) with a 7:05 p.m. first pitch. Weather forecast: Far less smoke but far more Furries.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT
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