Pirates 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes having red-hot month at plate, making a case for Gold Glove

The ball came off Bobby Witt Jr.’s bat at an exit velocity of 106 mph, a sure extra-base hit that could have scored a run for the Kansas City Royals if it wasn’t hit in the wrong direction.

His problem: Witt drilled it down the third base line, where Ke’Bryan Hayes made a spectacular backhand stop and turned to throw to second base for a forceout in the sixth inning.

Hayes went 4 for 4 with an RBI double and a run scored in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 5-0 win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium, yet his biggest moment on Monday night came not with a bat in his hands but a glove that is looking as good as gold.

“He had a big game at the plate,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “The one thing I don’t want to go unnoticed is the play he made on Bobby Witt. That changes the whole course of the game.

“If that ball goes down the line, they’re going to score a run. With the way (Witt) runs, he’s probably going to end up at third and we’re in a whole different situation. (Hayes’) at-bats were really good, but I think the play down the line was the game-changer.”

After missing all but one game in July with low back inflammation, Hayes is having a red-hot August at the plate. He’s slashing .323/.366/.570 with six doubles, a triple, five home runs and 18 RBIs in 23 games, raising his batting average 21 points since Aug. 2.

Hayes attributed his success to finding a routine that works and his back feeling “a little bit better.” He’s also studying himself, looking for clues to his success at the plate as well as his failures.

“Finding things to look for when, say I swing at a bad pitch,” Hayes said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “Being able to know why I swung at that pitch. What did my body posture look like? I’m kind of reviewing in my head, ‘What am I looking for? Did I get away from that?’ Just getting my body in a better position to be able to swing at good pitches and hit them hard.”

Hayes’ numbers in August aren’t quite at the level of his first month in the majors, when he hit .376/.442/.682 with seven doubles, two triples, five homers and 11 RBIs in 24 games in September 2020 to win National League rookie of the month honors.

But they aren’t far off, and should put Hayes in consideration for NL player of the month honors. He’s also been outstanding on defense. Hayes entered the six-game road trip with 18 defensive runs saved, the highest total at his position and tied for third-best of any player in the majors, per Sports Info Solutions.

This could finally be the year Hayes ends St. Louis Cardinals star Nolan Arenado’s 10-year run of consecutive Gold Glove awards. With 825 1/3 innings, Hayes has exceeded Rawlings’ requirement 698 innings through the first 138 games of the season to be eligible, which disqualified him from consideration in 2020 and ‘21.

Last year, Hayes had the highest DRS (24) of the three finalists and, per FanGraphs, was worth more Outs Above Average (18), had the highest fielding percentage (.972) and the most putouts (109), assists (307) and chances (428), only to watch Arenado win both the Gold Glove and a Platinum Glove as baseball’s best defender.

“I just try to make every play that I can for whoever is out there on the mound,” Hayes said. “Sometimes, I surprise myself even a little. Sometimes, it’s kind of just instincts and you try to just trust your work that you do.”

Did Hayes surprise himself when he robbed Witt of a hit?

“A little bit, yeah,” Hayes said. “Whenever you make certain plays, you kind of black out during it. It just happens. We try to make all the routine plays and whenever you get plays like that, you just trust yourself and try to be athletic.”

Hayes made several athletic plays to provide support for Pirates starter Johan Oviedo, who tossed a two-hit, complete-game shutout. He made a difficult play appear routine in the seventh inning, fielding a grounder to third by MJ Melendez for the second out.

“We see him every day and we just assume every ball hit to him (is an out),” Shelton said. “The one ball Melendez hit to him off the end of the bat that’s spinning a weird way that’s not an easy play, either. If you’re watching it, you’re like, ‘OK, that’s a slow roller.’ But the way that ball’s spinning, to catch it and to know the speed of the runner … just all the things he does over there is what makes him elite.”