Marco Gonzales was the story of the night Friday for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The veteran left-hander came off a three-month stint on the injured list to get the win in the Pirates’ 4-1 victory over the White Sox in Chicago. He gave up only one run in five innings.
However, another player who provided a ray of hope for the Pirates was third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes. He was 2 for 4 with an RBI and was the only Pirates player with multiple hits.
The season has been a struggle for Hayes and a disappointment after he finished last year on a high note.
Hayes is hitting just .234/.289/.299 with three home runs in 69 games. That is not what the Pirates thought they were getting when they signed Hayes to an eight-year, $70-million contract in 2022.
And there was every reason coming into this season to believe that Hayes was ready for a breakout. He was outstanding after the All-Star break last season, hitting .299/.335/.539 with 10 homers in 49 games. It was easily Hayes’ best stretch of hitting in the major league since he debuted during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and had a .377/.442/.682 slash line in 24 games while homering five times.
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington admits that Hayes’ poor season has baffled the baseball operations department and the on-field staff.
“It’s really hard to know,” Cherington said. “It’s a very regular part of the conversation, for sure. We know that Ke’Bryan is a really important part of this team. We know how talented he is. We’ve certainly seen him perform offensively at a higher level than where he’s at right now and that’s important for him and for us that we do whatever we can and Ke’Bryan does whatever he can to put himself in that position where he is performing.
“He’s focused on it. He’s thinking about it all the time. We’ll continue to do that. If there was an easy, perfect solution we already would have done it. Still believe all the components are there for him to be a really good major-league hitter, I really do. Beyond that, it would be total speculation for me to say, ‘how much of it’s this? How much is that?’ I don’t know. We’re going to keep focused on it. He’s important to us.”
The Pirates certainly need a better showing from Hayes in the second half of the season if they are to contend for their first postseason berth since 2015. The Pirates rank 21st in MLB in runs scored with a 4.12 a game and are 28th with a .665 OPS.
Hayes started the season strong by going 8-for-18 in the Pirates’ four-game sweep of the Marlins in Miami. He had two hits in each game.
However, Hayes has just 14 multi-hit games since then and only one three-hit game this season, coming June 6 against the Los Angeles Dodgers at PNC Park.
“We need to get him going,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He’s a big part of our offense. I think at times we see the consistency of at bats and then he goes away from it. I think more going towards having consistent at-bats is important because I think as we’ve seen when he’s been a good offensive player, we are a much better team. He’s an important person to us.”
Hayes’ importance to the Pirates is obvious. He won the National League Gold Glove last season when he had 22 defensive runs saved.
That number has slipped to five this season, which raises questions about Hayes possibly trying to play through what have become chronic back problems. He sat a little more than two weeks in May with back inflammation.
“He’s battled the back issue and I think we have to monitor that,” Shelton said. “It’s why we have to give him off days, that’s why we have to monitor that. We know over, not just with Ke, but the course of time with hitters when you have stuff going on with your back it can throw everything else off. Trying to be mindful of that and sometimes you have to be mindful of the work with that too. The last component is just making sure he can get in a good position to hit consistently.”
Consistency is something the Pirates need from Hayes. That is why they are paying him $70 million.
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