BRADENTON, Fla. -- Henry Davis could've changed and gone back to his old swing. Face it: An 0-for-17 start to Spring Training would force most baseball players to try something.
But the Pirates' catcher has remained resolute. Stubborn, even. Davis believes in the swing changes he made this past offseason, and he refuses to chase short-term results.
Luckily for Davis, they both arrived Saturday in the form of a rare leadoff home run, sparking an 8-6 victory over the Orioles at LECOM Park.
More than that went into this win, which raised Pittsburgh's record to 15-6. Marcell Ozuna and Billy Cook also went deep. Carmen Mlodzinski twirled five strong innings. But the biggest storyline was Davis.
The guy who hasn’t gotten results but has remained steadfast in his approach.
“I’m glad I didn’t rush things,” Davis said. “I really do believe in the stuff that I’m doing.”
Facing Trevor Rogers, Davis sat on an 0-1 changeup down and clobbered it over the fence in left-center for his first hit and homer of the Grapefruit League season.
It was made possible, at least in part, by some offseason swing tweaks. Davis is more upright in his stance, while his hands are farther away from his body.
The new move Davis has toward the pitcher put him in position to adjust and smash a changeup. But there was another funny story behind his aggressiveness early in the count.
After Mlodzinski came into the dugout, he claimed Davis asked if he could swing at the first pitch, ensuring that wouldn’t have a negative effect on his pitcher.
Mlodzinski laughed.
“I said, ‘What are you asking me for? Let it fly,’” Mlodzinski said. “I did give him crap, though. I said, ‘Took you two pitches, not one.’”
Davis seemed to debate the account, but it didn't matter. The exchange was typical Davis, basically checking with a pitcher first before he does something. He has grown so much as a defender, but he obviously needs to hit.
That he hasn’t irks Davis, hence the deep dive this winter and exhausting days in the cage since the start of Spring Training.
“He's one of the hardest workers in the clubhouse,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “It's not for lack of effort. Sometimes I think he just needs to take a deep breath and allow his athleticism and talent to play out.”
The start to Grapefruit League play would seemingly have tested Davis’ resolve. But he has bought into the swing change, believing the timing will come.
Saturday offered evidence that it’s there. The challenge becomes replicating that feeling and making it routine.
“This city deserves winning baseball,” Davis said, taking the conversation a little deeper and showing his introspective side. “I should be counted on to produce, and I haven’t. I’m making adjustments. But it’s a goal I have, to stay the course.
“I’m swinging at the right pitches and making good contact. We can literally look at it and say, ‘I’m getting more comfortable with this load and gradually letting the ball be farther out in front.’
“I don’t want to rush it, then all of a sudden start hooking stuff, little things that would happen last year. I feel like I’m in a really good spot whether the results are there or not right now.”
Mlodzinski adjusts, shines
When Spring Training began, there were legitimate questions where Mlodzinski would be best deployed as a starter or a reliever. The Pirates built Mlodzinski up as a starter, which made sense. It’s easier to go down than up when it comes to pitching volume.
In the meantime, though, Mlodzinski had remained in the fight -- and he threw a few more punches Saturday with a solid outing.
The right-hander worked five innings and allowed two runs. Though the Orioles had seven hits, Mlodzinski walked none and struck out five, throwing 48 of 64 pitches for strikes and accumulating seven whiffs.
“I’ve done some good things this spring in terms of the work,” Mlodzinski said. “That started in the offseason, just making sure I’m coming in with a new game plan and being aware of some of the struggles that I had last year.”
Inside of Saturday’s outing, it meant Mlodzinski recognizing what the Orioles were trying to do against him (hunting fastballs) and tweak his pitch sequencing to feature the splitter that has become a real weapon.
That might sound simple. However, it requires awareness and ongoing conversations among Mlodzinski, Davis and pitching coach Bill Murphy, plus the ability to adjust.
After allowing a two-run homer and two singles in the third, Mlodzinski tweaked what he was doing and got a double play before finishing with two 1-2-3 innings.
“It felt good to be efficient toward the end of an outing,” said Mlodzinski, who has tied for the team lead with 12 1/3 innings while pitching to a 2.92 ERA. “Can’t say I did that a whole lot last year. Good to be just a little bit better than before and not make the same mistakes again.”
‘That was impressive’
The Pirates grabbed the lead for good thanks to Ozuna’s three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. Orioles reliever Yaramil Hiraldo hung a 1-1 slider, and Ozuna smoked it a Statcast-projected 400 feet at 105.8 mph to left-center for his first this spring.
With 6,715 regular-season plate appearances, there’s little anyone needs to see from Ozuna. However, it’s not like Kelly will turn away the help.
“He had some good swings early in the game; you could see it coming,” Kelly said. “Then that last one, he was able to catch it out front. That was impressive.”
Around the horn
Isaac Mattson’s latest lightning-quick outing: three up, three down, two strikeouts, 13 pitches, 10 strikes. Routine at this point. … Cook homered for the second time in four games in the eighth. He has a 1.077 OPS this spring. … Kelly on Chris Devenski, who was hit in the head by a line drive Friday: “Nothing firm on any diagnosis, but he's at home resting and doing as well as he can. That was really scary.”