A homer that isn’t for Hayes of Pirates
Ke’Bryan Hayes forgot to touch ’em all.
The Pirates’ rookie third baseman, the son of former Giants third baseman Charlie Hayes, missed first base running out a home run Tuesday night in Pittsburgh against the Dodgers and was called out after a replay review.
Hayes stung an oppositefield line drive in the first inning against Walker Buehler that narrowly cleared the rightfield wall, just inside the foul pole. Running hard with his eyes on the ball, Hayes missed touching first base with his left foot by a few inches and kept on going.
Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts challenged, and umpires overturned the call after a short video review.
Hayes also was thrown out at second base trying to tag up from first on a flyout to left field to end the third inning.
Hayes, 24, hit .376 with five homers in 24 games last season. He sprained his left wrist in Pittsburgh’s second game and missed two months, returning last week.
Cole’s stumble: Gerrit Cole had no easy answers. After being accused of using an illegal sticky substance to alter his spin on the baseball, the Yankees’ righthander dodged questions.
“Um … I don’t know … quite know how to answer that, to be honest,” Cole said after an awkward pause, when asked if he had used Spider Tack, which improves power lifters’ grip. “I mean, there are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players, to younger players from the last generation of players, to this generation of players.”
Cole’s nondenial, which went on for quite some time, was in response to allegations by Minnesota’s Josh Donaldson last week. The 2015 AL MVP implied that Cole did not use the stuff he has used in the past in his last start because he was concerned about a crackdown on pitchers using foreign substances. In that start, Cole allowed five runs on five hits in a loss to the Rays, and the spin rate was down on each his four primary pitches.
Cole said it was a result of a bad delivery. “I mean, I attribute it to, again, just not not being as not being as good or as sharp as I, as I want it to be,” Cole said. “Simple as that.”
He’ll start Wednesday against Donaldson’s Twins.
It’s not the first time Cole has been called out by a player. Trevor Bauer, Cole’s old UCLA teammate, tweeted in 2018 his suspicions that something was helping pitchers in the Astros’ organization increase their spin rate unnaturally.
Briefly: The Nationals put pitcher Austin Voth on the 10day injured list with a fractured nose suffered while he tried to bunt Sunday . ... The Blue Jays placed Danny Jansen (hamstring strain) on the 10day IL and recalled fellow catcher Riley Adams from TripleA Buffalo.