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PHILADELPHIA – Back in Spring Training, the Reds held a free-throw tournament designed to help with team bonding in a fun, loose environment.
Sal Stewart told his teammates he was going to win. There was no doubt in his mind.
Yes, Stewart was a standout hooper during his time at Westminster High School in Miami, but it’s been four years since he played competitive basketball. How could he have been so sure he would outlast his teammates?
“He just kept saying, ‘I’m going to win,’” said Nick Krall, the Reds’ president of baseball operations. “He won. He had a lot of confidence in himself and went out there to prove it to everybody. That's definitely his personality.”
That personality is the reason manager Terry Francona didn’t spend much time worrying about Stewart when the 22-year-old found himself scuffling at the plate earlier this month.
“He definitely has that ‘compete’ mentality,” Francona said. “He’s out there to compete in whatever it is, no matter what it is. He wants to go win. Even if it's not his best sport, he’s going out there to compete and try to win, and he’s going to fight and fight and fight until he figures it out.”
After winning National League Rookie of the Month honors in April, Stewart endured a 2-for-28 slide in early May, which included an 0-for-19 stretch.
But Francona didn’t see a typical rookie at the plate. Stewart wasn’t tinkering with his swing or changing his approach.
“The really good hitters I've been around, when they're 0-for, they know they're going to hit,” Francona said. “Sal knows he's a good hitter; he's been a good hitter everywhere. He uses the whole field, and when you use the whole field, you get rewarded for it. Tony Gwynn, you couldn't defend him. Sal, when he hits the ball to right field, he can hit the ball out of the ballpark. When you do that, normally, you're doing a lot of things right.”
Stewart, who hit nine home runs in his first 27 games this season, also went through a power outage, hitting only one homer in his next 20 contests. The player who looked like a foundational piece of Cincinnati’s lineup was nowhere to be found, but Stewart knew there was light at the end of what was becoming a very dark tunnel.
“I'm confident, because I work really hard,” Stewart said. “When you work hard, you have to be confident in yourself. When you study for hours for a test, you go into that test knowing that you're prepared for everything. It might not go well, but you're prepared. Same thing with sports; if I work really hard, I'll be prepared. It might not go well, but as long as I'm prepared, I feel good.”
Stewart began to show signs of life at the plate with a five-game hitting streak from May 7-12, hitting .333 with a .935 OPS. He fell back into another slide, going hitless in his next 19 plate appearances over four games, but that confidence never wavered.
“When you bring anybody who's 21 or 22 up to the big leagues, they have to figure it out for a little while,” Krall said. “You have to make the adjustments; you’re facing guys that are in the prime of their career that have been in the league for six or eight years, and they’re going to figure out how to pitch you. Being able to have that confidence – and not lose that confidence – in yourself and your ability to play is really big.”
A two-hit game Sunday in the finale of the Reds’ series in Cleveland started to get Stewart back on track, but this week’s series in Philadelphia cemented the idea that the rookie should be hitting in the middle of Cincinnati’s lineup.
Stewart went 7-for-12 (.583) with a pair of home runs against the Phillies, posting the first four-hit game of his young career in the series-clinching victory on Wednesday. His ninth-inning homer Wednesday traveled a Statcast-projected 441 feet, a career best. He enters the weekend riding a 16-game on-base streak, slashing .290/.380/.484 in that time.
Through 50 games this season, Stewart owns a .265/.353/.503 slash line with 12 home runs and 34 RBIs, leading all Major League rookies in RBI while trailing only Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox in homers.
“A lot of guys who get to the big leagues who have been good hitters their whole career, and then they get humbled a little bit up here,” Krall said. “It is unusual for a player his age to already have that confidence.”
Stewart was pleased with his performance in Philadelphia, but he knows that there is still a long season ahead. Three good days are nice, but he’s determined to make sure the months ahead look more like March and April and less like May.
“I'm happy with the adjustments I made, but we’ve got another series coming,” Stewart said as he prepared for the flight back to Cincinnati. “I’ve just got to get back to work.”