MINNEAPOLIS — The changeup from Twins reliever Jovani Moran was well off the plate, clearly meant to set up Javier Báez for another strikeout with a runner in scoring position. Báez chased it, but instead of a swing and a miss, he connected for a line drive into the gap in left-center field and past speedy center fielder Michael A. Taylor. And from there, Báez was off.
While Spencer Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter scored easily to tie the game at 4-4 in the fifth inning, Báez raced around second. By the time the ball came back on, he was standing on third. It was just the seventh triple the Tigers had hit this season, an oddly low total for a team that plays its home games in spacious Comerica Park, but Báez’s home-to-third time of 11.56 seconds was just a tick off of Riley Greene’s 11.54 seconds for the fastest triple by a Tiger this year.
Three pitches later, Eric Haase hit a ground ball right to second baseman Kyle Farmer, who was playing in on the front of the infield dirt to try to hold Báez at third. But when Farmer looked over, Báez was already more than halfway down the line, four strides and a slide from the plate. Farmer took the out at first base, and the Tigers took a lead they wouldn’t relinquish on their way to an 8-4 victory on Thursday night at Target Field.
“I was going on contact, and I had a pretty good jump,” Báez said. “That’s why there wasn’t a throw, but I think it was going to be a close call at the plate, too. I don’t know why that was the decision. I just got a good jump.”
This is what Báez can do when he gets going. Obviously, the home runs are big, but when Báez hits the bases, he can cause havoc. He just needs to do more of it.
And yet, plays like that triple show the risk and reward when Báez is hitting. He struck out eight times in 19 plate appearances over his previous four games, many of those strikeouts coming on similar pitches off the plate to the one he hit Thursday. Báez fanned in his first at-bat, chasing a sweeper off the plate from Twins starter Sonny Gray. Yet, he connected with a similar sweeper from Gray on a full count, this time right on the outside corner, and lined a hard single to left his next time up.
Add the single to the triple, and Báez had his third two-hit game in four days and his fifth in June. After a 9-for-58 slump to end May, he’s batting 10-for-32 over his last seven games.
To some degree, that’s Javy being Javy, which is why the Tigers have to balance emphasizing plate discipline while not forcing him to be passive at the plate, something manager A.J. Hinch hinted at before Báez’s recent stretch.
“He is not the root of all our offensive struggles,” Hinch said last weekend. “But the more he’s tried to overcompensate for that, the more he’s continued to struggle. And some of that has been contact driven, and the contact on the ground.
“He’s obviously chased a lot these last couple weeks, but we’ve got to continue to ride it out and continue to encourage him. It’s not going to get any easier with the pitching that we’re facing, but history has told us that he has snapped out of this, usually with a sort of massive hot streak. We certainly need that.”
This might not be massive, at least not yet, but it’s impactful. But that momentum swing doesn’t come by accident. Báez was on the field for early batting practice for most of the just-completed homestand, trying to work on tweaks to allow him to see pitches better.
“Focus has been the same,” Báez said. “I was looking at the video with the hitting coaches and found out I was getting set up the wrong way. I just made that adjustment again, and I’m seeing the ball better. I still have to get the ball closer to me, but I have to keep doing me and make that adjustment during the game.”
Said Hinch: “For him, the No. 1 thing is seeing the ball. All I hear about is how he’s picking the ball up, how long he’s able to track it. … The posture, the open stance, it’s all an attempt for him to try to find that rhythm.”