After his second at-bat against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday night, Ke’Bryan Hayes sat in the dugout at Great American Ball Park and studied video of his first games back after two months on the injured list.
The Pittsburgh Pirates rookie third baseman was looking for clues to his hitting woes, as he’s been out of sorts since missing first base on a home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers on June 8.
Hayes watched his batting average dip from .348 to .235 over the next two months and has gone 96 at-bats without a home run, a 25-game stretch dating to July 5. That didn’t go unnoticed by Pirates manager Derek Shelton, a former hitting coach with the Tampa Bay Rays.
“He looks like he’s in between,” Shelton said of Hayes on Wednesday. “I think that’s the biggest thing, and when you’re a young player in the big leagues and people start to adjust to you, you have to pick one side or another, and I think we have to get him back on one side.”
Hayes searched for the right side by seeking out signs of his early success, studying his pre-pitch setup in an effort to ”hunt the good.” He looked at the width of his feet and his hand placement and “just tried to mirror that.”
The result was a single in the fifth inning that snapped an 0-for-19 streak at the plate. He grounded into a double play in his final at-bat of the 7-4 loss but a switch was flipped in his mind.
“I just felt more comfortable standing there at the plate,” Hayes said, “because the last few weeks or so, I just haven’t felt comfortable, even just standing at the plate before he’s even thrown the pitch.”
Hayes mirrored that early-June video while doing work in the batting cage before Friday’s game. Suddenly, he was hitting the ball hard again.
“The ball was flying off the bat in BP,” Hayes said. “So I just took that into the game and I just feel a lot more comfortable up there right now.”
The result was a 2-for-4 performance in Friday’s 10-0 loss to the Reds, his first two-hit game since July 28. More important, Hayes registered two of the top five hardest-hit balls in the game. Hayes’ lineout to left field in the third inning was 108.8 mph, according to Statcast. That was second only to Mike Moustakas’ 110.8-mph seventh-inning double. Hayes also drilled a 105.3-mph single to center in the fifth inning, the fifth-hardest hit of the game.
“It’s not even so much the hits. It’s just being able to hit it hard,” Hayes said. “My second at-bat, the ball that I hit to left, even though it was an out, it was one of the hardest balls — and it was on the pull side — that I’ve hit in a while. Just going up there feeling comfortable has me in a better mindset of when I want to hit, being able to get the pitch that I want to hit and being able to put a good swing on it.”
Hayes spent time talking with Pirates hitting coach Rick Eckstein on Wednesday in Milwaukee and with Shelton during batting practice Thursday about his mental approach to the game. Although Shelton downplayed it as a fun conversation about travel baseball tournaments, it meant something to Hayes.
“They were seeing where my head was at, making sure I’m still having fun, all those types of things,” Hayes said. “Just reminding me to control the things that I can control, just keep working hard and fighting and don’t worry about the result. They were just seeing where I was at mentally.”
It’s worth a reminder that, for all the hype surrounding Hayes, he’s only played 80 games in his major league career. Boosted by a spectacular September that earned him NL rookie of the month honors, Hayes is hitting .285/.353/.464 with 19 doubles, three triples, nine home runs and 33 RBIs. He still has another 50 games to play this season.
“I feel like that’s one of the biggest things, even when I was in the minor leagues. We played 20 or 30 fewer games, but it’s still a long season,” Hayes said. “You just have to find ways to stay positive no matter the results that you’re having, continue to work on the things that you’re working on. Just create a plan whenever you go up there each and every day. At the end of the day, we’re playing a game. So you just have to find ways to have fun and seek the positive.”
Kevin Gorman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Kevin by email at kgorman@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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After being 'in between,' Ke'Bryan Hayes studies success to find stroke again for Pirates - TribLIVE
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