LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Tigers were staring at a week-long winless streak to open Grapefruit League play as MLB No. 2 overall prospect Kevin McGonigle stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning Friday afternoon. A two-run lead had vanished in the top of the inning against a Phillies split squad low on Major Leaguers.
Even for Spring Training, this was a bit much for the guys.
Up stepped McGonigle against Phillies prospect Yoniel Curet, a hard-throwing but wild right-hander averaging nearly 12 strikeouts per nine innings for his Minor League career.
McGonigle took two fastballs out of the zone to work a 2-0 count. He whiffed on the 2-0 fastball on the outer part of the plate, but then pounced when Curet left a cutter over the middle. The resulting line drive clattered into the right-field corner for a leadoff double, scorched at 107.7 miles per hour.
“It’s always good to have a plan going into any at-bat,” McGonigle said. “Everything was going away from me, so I kind of wanted to see him in a little bit. I don’t really sit pitches or anything like that. Just looking in one spot, and if it starts there, go. If it doesn’t, spit.”
Nearly 20 minutes, five runs and a pitching change later, McGonigle came back up to the plate in the sixth against Minor League reliever Andrew Baker. Again, McGonigle took ball one, a slider well inside. Baker came back at him with a 96 mph fastball at the top of the zone. McGonigle crushed that one even harder than his double, a 108.3 mph line drive that had just a 13-degree launch angle but went screaming into right field for an RBI single.
The 11-run inning included two runs and an RBI from McGonigle, who turned in two of the three hardest-hit balls of the game.
“We definitely needed it. We needed a game like that, an inning like that,” he said. “I think it just gets everyone back on the right track.”
The next inning, McGonigle came up to bat with two outs and nobody on in a lefty-lefty matchup with veteran Minor League reliever Andrew Walling. McGonigle fell into an 0-2 hole on two borderline pitches, a fastball below the zone called for strike one followed by a heater at the top of the zone for strike two.
McGonigle stuck with his plan and refused to chase, not the ensuing high fastball, nor the three cutters that followed, one of them nearly in the same spot where strike two had been called.
“First walk of the spring,” McGonigle said. “Didn’t swing the bat once that at-bat, but I didn’t really get any pitches I wanted to swing at. Just trusted my eye and it worked out.”
It was an impressive stretch for McGonigle, who had entered the game at third base in the top of the sixth. It was also a microcosm of what makes McGonigle such an impressive hitter that he has a chance to crack Detroit’s Opening Day roster.
“He’s got a great feel for the game, and he has a plan,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “The results are the results, but his process is really mature, which is a good sign. He has a plan, he goes up and he executes it. We hear him talking on the bench to our hitting group.”
McGonigle entered Saturday’s game against the Rays batting 4-for-11 with a double, walk and three strikeouts this spring. But none of those hits have been soft. He has hit four balls at 104.5 mph or harder, three of them for hits. His other hit was a 91.8 mph gapper off of Braves All-Star Reynaldo López on Tuesday.
McGonigle added to that ledger in his first at-bat Saturday, lacing a triple to right at 102.2 mph off veteran right-hander Nick Martinez.
“I think it comes out of just getting my A swing off on any pitch in the heart of the zone, swinging pretty hard,” McGonigle said. “I’m still thinking bat-to-ball, but that’s the adjustment I made from my first year in pro ball to now: Two strikes, don’t think slap. Just go up there and still swing the bat hard. That’s probably where the exit velo comes from.”
When McGonigle has started games, he has usually hit high in the order, ensuring he would face a starter; he batted second against the Braves when he singled off López.
“He’s going to have a ton of opportunity to settle in, which is what the first 10 days have been,” Hinch said. “Clearly [Friday] is a good example of why we love him.”