The bat definitely wasn't to blame.
Gregory Polanco had just distributed most of his equipment throughout the home dugout early Friday night at PNC Park, flinging the helmet first, then the gloves, then ... what was left, wristbands? OK, those, too. All now buried in the sunflower seeds, spilled drinks and other messes that might as well have been as deep and dirty as his own statistical hell for 2018.
I'll show you why this happened, but first, please, hide any sensitive eyes because this is baseball-gruesome:
Don't say you weren't warned.
This was in the second inning of the Pirates' 3-2 edging of the Reds. Bases were loaded, nobody out, and to the delight of probably nobody among the 23,007 paying to watch, Polanco and his .204 batting average stepped into the box. And when the count went 2-2 on four Matt Harvey sinkers, the broader sink began to palpably set into the place.
Why's this guy even playing?
Where's that Meadows kid?
When's Hurdle going to give this up?
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TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS, VIDEO[/caption]
But then, after taking to run the count full, Polanco fouled off three fastballs -- 94.9, 94.8 and 95.5 mph -- with the last of those a missile that missed the Clemente Wall, to bring the battle back where he wanted it. He was in control now. He could feel it.
As he'd tell me later, "It felt perfect."
And if it was possible for that to feel more than perfect, the ninth pitch brought that. Because he sized up that final fastball -- 95.4 -- and timed it and tore into it, so much harder than it had arrived -- 110 mph! -- to scorch it ... right at the shortstop. With enough force that Jose Peraza, who had clear sight of the ball from launch, still couldn't catch it and, in fact, would seek treatment from the Cincinnati athletic trainers for his glove hand.
Yeah, that hard.
"So hard," Polanco would say. "So hard."
Even hurting Peraza ended up hurting. Because the ball dropped, Peraza could relay to second and barely across for the 6-4-3. A run scored, but the deflating, individually and collectively, was real as the bemoaning beforehand.
Polanco screwed up again.
And maybe, judging from all that strewn stuff in the dugout following the first failure, he thought that, too. But it evidently didn't endure. Because before his next plate appearance in the fifth inning, he sat alone near the left end of the bench, raised that same bat, the one someone else might have splintered into toothpicks, and gave it a kiss.
For real. That's capture in the Matt Sunday image above.
And sure enough, as the baseball gods would have it, he was finally rewarded. This time, on another Harvey heater, he ripped one to deep center. Much of the crowd began to rise. The Pirates' bench leaped up onto the railing. Harvey's shoulders slumped.
And ... and ...
Scott Schebler did that.
I brought this up with Polanco, and he was pretty much speechless.
"I don't know. I don't know," he said. "I'm trying to do the right thing."
I brought it up with Clint Hurdle, too, and he was at least momentarily speechless.
"Man ..." the manager began, glancing down at a scoresheet that showed yet another 0-for-3. "Man ... he didn't get rewarded. He didn't. Nine-pitch at-bat. That one he crushed just foul. He hit the ball better. He did. That drive to center field. ... He's swinging the bat better. I thought the at-bats looked better on the road trip, and they're still that way. He's working hard. He wants to get that barrel out front, and he's starting to do it."
No one wants to hear this. I'm aware. The bulk of baseball fandom still fixates on batting average, and Polanco's average, now .201, is terrible. By nightfall Saturday, he could be below the Mendoza Line. No sane person anywhere suggests that a .201 batting average is a good thing now, any more than in 1987 or 1887.
At the same time, no one even moderately familiar with baseball's modern analytics looks at batting average in isolation.
If it's accompanied by other equally terrible figures, there are real problems at hand. But when Polanco's on-base percentage is now a surreal 100-plus points above his batting average -- .303 to .201 -- something's weird. And when his OPS is .705, right where Neal Huntington recently and rightly referred to the "National League average for right fielders," and this is happening despite batting bleeping .201, something's weird. And when he's being more selective than at any point in his career, seeing 4.24 pitches per plate appearance while drawing 30 walks, and he's still making contact with the same frequency as his two most productive seasons -- 60 strikeouts now compared to 121 in 2015 and 119 in 2016 -- something's really, really weird.
And what's at the root of the weirdness, in all likelihood, is some savagely lousy luck, like what was on display in this game. There's a beautiful metric called batting average on balls in play, or BABIP. It's one of the simplest ones, in that it tracks nothing more than the number of times a ball is put in play into fair territory -- exempting home runs -- and how often that results in a hit. The median figure for that across Major League Baseball in 2017 was .300. That doesn't vary much, even going way back in history, so it's a real anchor.
Put another way, 30 percent of all balls struck into fair territory result in hits. For almost everyone.
Polanco's BABIP right now: .232.
Here's another: Polanco's average exit velocity when he makes contact is 89.4 mph. Corey Dickerson's is 87.1, and Starling Marte and Austin Meadows are both at 88.0. Which means Polanco's hit the ball harder than anyone in that outfield.
This isn't an opinion, mind you. It's a radar gun reading.
Which would all be hilarious if it weren't so hurtful to both the player and the Pirates as a whole.
He needs to play. Not for himself but because this team needs something special to recover from this deficit, now eight games off the Central lead. It'll take a dramatic turnaround and, thus, it'll have to be built on dramatic individual turnarounds. Polanco's at the forefront, but Josh Bell is in there, too. And Ivan Nova. And Felipe Vazquez. And others.
This will not happen without Polanco, meaning by riding the other three outfielders. Dickerson's performed at an All-Star level most of the season, but he's 4 for his past 26 and hasn't homered since May 4. Given his second-half plunge with the Rays last summer, that's a red flag. Marte also had a fine first two months, but he's at .209/.280/.349 in June. And Meadows was bound to fall back from his Ruthian debut, and he has in going 9 for his past 42 for a .214/.252/.407 line.
They've all been struggling, and all Hurdle's doing is ensuring he doesn't bury the one most likely to emerge soonest.
• I hate scapegoating, in general, if only because it's almost always aimed at symptoms rather than causes.
So amid all the civic claptrap over Polanco, Sean Rodriguez and Hurdle's lineups -- the latter results in fewer than seven total runs over a full 162-game season even if optimized by a higher power -- the underlying issue gets buried: A team that everyone knew wouldn't get far without another starting pitcher and more bullpen help didn't bother to add another starting pitcher and more bullpen help, all while slashing payroll by $20 million and pocketing an additional $50 million check from MLB's sale of advanced media properties to Disney.
Sorry to interrupt.
• Hey, did I mention the Pirates won?
Sure did, and it marked their first back-to-back wins since ... hang on, I've got to look this one up ... May 16-17. So, uh, yikes. And double-yikes when it's weighed that those back-to-back wins came against the last-place White Sox and last-place Padres, while this one came against the last-place Reds (after beating the first-place Diamondbacks).
But hey, baby steps, right?
They're back to being a game below .500 at 34-35, and the Reds' hotels are booked here through the weekend, so ...
"A win's a win," Jordy Mercer told me. "They're all nice, but this one felt a little extra nice because we had to battle through some mistakes."
Three errors, he meant.
"But we stayed with it."
• One of those errors was a whopper, Chad Kuhl's fling into left-field foul territory that handed the Reds a run in the third inning:
And being the firebrand he is, Kuhl reacted by jumping into the air, shouting something unpleasant into his glove ...
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Chad Kuhl reacts to his throwing error in the third inning. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS[/caption]
... then pitching lights-bleeping-out. Really, Cincinnati put the leadoff man aboard, one way or another, in five of Kuhl's six innings, but he held them to two runs -- one earned -- over those six innings, while holding the Reds' lefty bats to 2 for 16 and retiring a total of nine batters on three or fewer pitches.
"The credit goes to Kuhl," Scooter Gennett said of his Reds winding up 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position for the night. "He did a great job. He was able to minimize the damage."
Hotheadedness isn't exactly a welcome trait for a starter, but Kuhl was adamant when I brought up the error that he quickly reset:
Good for him. He's certainly got the stuff to be part of the solution this summer, as well.
• Bell does, too, so what do you think of his new, wider stance?
On the just-completed trip through Chicago and Phoenix, he went 5 for 14, and he singled in his three at-bats on this night, a hard rap up the middle in which his swing looked as fluid as it has for a spell now. He's also reached base 12 times in his past 20 plate appearances, through six hits and six walks. That's encouraging, to put it mildly.
More encouraging, if you ask me, is that he sounded so very comfortable with the switch when I asked about it afterward.
"It's something I did in the Florida State League," he explained, referring back to Class A ball in Bradenton. "It's basically designed to keep my hands back and then have them be more active."
He demonstrated with an authoritative flick of both wrists.
"I'm focused on the solid contact."
Because if he achieves solid contact, with all that natural power ...
"Yeah, the rest takes care of itself."
• Give it up for Tyler Glasnow, another potential part of the solution.
He hadn't pitched in eight days, and he'd conceded four runs over his two previous starts, but there came Hurdle's call in the seventh to protect a one-run lead. That's hardly nursing him to the next level, as the Pirates had been doing. That's giving him a chance to make a difference.
Three up, three down.
And the three were the Reds' best: Joey Votto, Gennett and Eugenio Suarez.
"That felt really good," Glasnow told me, and he was referring to the summons. "You want to pitch in situations. You want your team to count on you. I just threw all three of my pitches, relied mostly on my fastball, and went after strikes."
Nine pitches, six strikes.
"What I liked was that Tyler was mentally ready for it," Hurdle said. "That's something we talked about."
• By "we," he meant himself, Ray Searage, Euclides Rojas and the entire bullpen, from what I was told. All met before the game Friday because Hurdle wanted to stress a de-emphasis on firmly assigned reliever roles. Felipe Vazquez obviously remains the closer, but everyone else was told to be ready for long and short, sixth through eighth, whatever's needed.
Most likely, it'll result in shorter spurts.
"More touches," as Hurdle put it.
It seemed to go over well.
"We're all just looking to do what we can to contribute," Kyle Crick said after following Glasnow with a 1-2-3 eighth and two Ks. "It really doesn't matter what kind of label we have."
• The overall game wasn't artistic, with all the misplays, or memorable, with the Pirates scoring their three runs on Polanco's double play and two sac flies. But it had a sizzler for an ending.
Vazquez opened the ninth by spraying a couple fastballs, but he got pinch-hitter Alex Blandino to shatter his bat, then hung the golden sombrero on Schebler, who'd been overmatched all night. But when Tucker Barnhart singled, Billy Hamilton pinch-ran and stole second with the ease that most of us breathe, and Votto had the game on his handle.
"That," as Hurdle pointed out, "is why you buy a ticket."
It was worth that, too. After opening with swinging strikes on two 98-mph fastballs from Vazquez, Votto took a waste pitch, then fouled off the next three, including a slider well outside. By this stage, both were at their best.
But Francisco Cervelli put it away by lining up on the outer corner and calling not for the possibly expected slider sequel but for straight heat. Vazquez crushed it ...
... and all Votto could offer was a check-swing in vain, as home plate umpire Mike Winters had him rung up, anyway.
Baseball can be awesome.
• I'm taking this Father's Day weekend to spend with my dad. Chris Bradford will have your coverage Saturday and Sunday, while Lance Lysowski will catch up with Class AAA Indianapolis over in Columbus.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
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Pirates vs. Reds, PNC Park, June 15, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS[/caption]
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