'Beloved' McGonigle continues high-powered spring with first Grapefruit homer

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The word should be out by now: Don’t start off Kevin McGonigle with a cookie.

Six days after the Tigers’ top prospect – and MLB’s No. 2 prospect overall – started off the Tigers’ visit to the Dominican Republic by turning on Luis Severino’s 98 mph fastball for a Statcast-projected 461-foot leadoff home run, he slugged his first homer of Grapefruit League play in somewhat similar fashion. It was the seventh inning, not the first, but when Rays reliever Jake Woodford started the inning with a 90.2 mph heater, McGonigle crushed it a projected 391 feet to right field.

It turned out to be the tying run in the Tigers’ latest draw Monday, this one a 4-4 deadlock to bring Detroit’s record to 3-8-4.

Though McGonigle’s latest home run began the inning, it ended his day. He began the game at third base and was one of the last members of the starting lineup still playing, batting eighth. The Rays had kept him hitless at that point with a steady dose of offspeed and breaking pitches.

Rays starter Shane McClanahan threw McGonigle one fastball in a six-pitch at-bat his first time up, and the heater was well out of the zone. McClanahan recovered from a 3-1 count with back-to-back changeups – one that McGonigle fouled off at the bottom of the zone, the other that McGonigle chased below the zone for the strikeout.

McGonigle was much more patient in his second at-bat against veteran reliever Bryan Baker, working the count full without swinging the bat. Again, the only fastball McGonigle saw was well out of the zone. Baker challenged McGonigle on the 3-2 pitch with a changeup over the plate. McGonigle made hard contact but got under it for a flyout to center.

Manager A.J. Hinch stuck with McGonigle and second baseman John Peck after others had left in hopes of getting them a third at-bat.

“That’s why you wait around for that at-bat,” Hinch said with a smile, “because something good can happen.”

The first-pitch fastball was that good fortune. But so was the short memory that McGonigle continues to show, declining to carry a bad result into his next time up.

“Every at-bat for him is a singular event against a pitcher with a plan,” Hinch said. “That’s the maturity that I know we have seen in the Minor Leagues. We’re seeing it in big league camp. It’s one of the reasons he’s beloved.”

McGonigle has already seen a wide mix of pitches (eight), even with opposing pitchers still working into their regular-season form. Four of his seven hits in Grapefruit League play have come off four-seam fastballs, off which he’s batting .800 according to Statcast. He entered Monday with a 12.5 percent whiff rate on four-seamers and an average exit velocity of 98.3 mph.

That average is going up after Monday’s homer, hit at 107.5 mph. It was McGonigle’s third-hardest hit ball of Grapefruit League play, and ninth ball hit at 100 mph or harder.