Shaking off a bad-hair day
PHOENIX -- Who's perfect? In baseball, nobody. Even the immortals of the game have had their much-publicized flaws. Ty Cobb was a pain in the you-know-what. Babe Ruth was fat. Mickey Mantle? Well, he probably hoisted a few too many cold beverages from time to time.In the modern game, the
PHOENIX -- Who's perfect? In baseball, nobody. Even the immortals of the game have had their much-publicized flaws. Ty Cobb was a pain in the you-know-what. Babe Ruth was fat. Mickey Mantle? Well, he probably hoisted a few too many cold beverages from time to time.
In the modern game, the most straight-laced of sluggers on every major league team make seven outs for every ten times they come to the plate. Milwaukee Brewers star Christian Yelich, for instance, hit .326 last year en route to the National League MVP. But in 574 at bats, Yelich was out 387 times.
In the top of the eighth, his day went haywire.
A Rangers hitter sliced a sinking liner to right field. The Brewers' right fielder dove but could not make the catch. The ball kicked up. It was quickly relayed to Hiura, playing second, as the runner rounded first base. Trying to catch the runner napping, he wheeled and side-armed it to first.
Whoops.
Instead of completing what could have been a successful, heads-up play, Hiura saw his throw sail over his teammate's head. It sailed, and sailed some more. Skipping all the way into the dirt, it landed ultimately at the feet of some of his teammates on the bench, in the dugout, for a two-base error.
To be fair, Hiura is having a great spring. He has been a revelation, of sorts, leading the Brewers in RBI with 13 in 18 games through Tuesday. He's produced an OPS of .921, one of the best numbers on the team for players with 30 or more at bats.
In an interview Wednesday morning, the 22-year-old from Southern California shrugged off his miscue.
"It's a game of failure" Hiura said. "Every game is a game of failure. That's how you learn. That's how you get better. That's how you want to work on things, making sure it doesn't happen again. All that -- outs, or errors, mess-ups -- those are the ones you really take more away from than a home run or a hit. Those are the ones where you challenge yourself."
Projected as the starting second baseman for the Triple-A San Antonio Missions, Hiura promises to be a challenge for opposing pitchers in the Pacific Coast League. The third-year pro out of Cal-Irvine has hit with authority at every level of his career.
In his senior year of college, he led the NCAA in batting average (.442) and on base percentage (.567). Entering pro ball in 2017, the ninth overall pick in the draft tore through rookie league and Single A and then followed up last year an all-star season in A and Double A.
Carrying a .313 average in the minors, Hiura has produced 204 hits in 165 games. A free-wheeling, right-handed hitter, he has belted 48 doubles.
Last week, Hiura dropped jaws all over the ball park when he hammered a ball against the Los Angeles Dodgers that looked like it might carry out for a grand slam. As it turned out, Hiura pulled into second for a three-run double, and the Brewers rallied to win, 9-8.
Brewers farm director Tom Flanagan predicted that Missions fans would enjoy watching Hiura this season. Milwaukee's big-league club is armed with some dangerous offensive weapons, including Yelich and
"There are certain (weaknesses) in his game," Flanagan said. "He knows what they are, and he's working on them. But he's kind of got that knack, the good timing, whatever, and a special bat. When you watch him hit, he's very advanced, and he knows what he's doing. He (produces) pretty impressive results, with the extra-base hits and so forth.
"He's a fun one to watch."
As the son of parents who work as pharmacists in Santa Clarita, California, Hiura said he enjoyed all sports when he was a kid. He also played football, basketball, football, soccer and golf. Baseball tugged at him, though, because he felt like he was better at it than his other pursuits.
Like everyone who has ever played at any level, Hiura experienced some awkward moments when he was a kid. He laughed and acknowledged that his parents still have youth baseball pictures as evidence. "Uh," he said, trying to remember the funniest, "there's some bad haircuts and helmet hair, and a bunch of stuff in there, quite a few."
Actually, he's had a few bad-hair days this spring. Hiura was hitting a modest .257 entering play on Tuesday, and he's struck out nine times in 35 at bats. But working in his favor is a sense of calm, as if he knows that through hard work, he can realize his dream.
Hiura is not sweating a throw that nearly hit the water cooler.
"I just say, 'What can I do to prevent this from happening again?" he said. "What can I do to be better prepared for next time? That's that way you should always (approach it) when failure presents itself. It is what you take out of it."