Lost Play Ball! Article: Keston Hiura from Appleton to Milwaukee

The 2020 Play Ball! was just about ready to go to print when everything went haywire. We never got a chance to print it. We did have the articles finished and wanted to share them with you. This "Lost" Play Ball! article is on 2017 Timber Rattler and his rapid climb to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2019.

Keston Hiura went from #1 draft pick to Wisconsin Timber Rattler to major leaguer to regular in the Milwaukee Brewers lineup during a pennant race in the space of in a little over two years. This year will be his first full season with the Brewers and it is time to just slow down and look at his rise.

The Brewers selected Hiura after his junior season at the University of California-Irvine with the ninth pick of the 2017 draft on June 12. He had been named the Big West Conference Player of the Year with an OPS of 1.260 in 56 games in his final season with the Anteaters.

Hiura began his professional career with Milwaukee’s Arizona League affiliate with a game on June 24, 2017. He went 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI in that game and he kept hitting for about two weeks. Hiura was bumped up to the Timber Rattlers after fifteen games in the desert…and he went hitless in just one of those games.

The first game Hiura played for the Rattlers was on July 19 and he was 1-for-4 in the game at Neuroscience Group Field against the South Bend Cubs that started a six-game homestand. In the six games of that homestand, Hiura went 11-for-26 with three doubles, a triple, five RBI, and an OPS of 1.038.

In all, Hiura played 33 games for the Timber Rattlers over the final month of the 2017 season and went hitless in just four of those game. There was only one game out of those 33 in which Hiura didn’t reach base. As much as we would have loved to have him back to start the 2018 season, it was time for him to move up the system.

The next season was a busy one for Hiura. He started in Carolina with the Mudcats and hit .320 with seven home runs in fifty games. On May 31, 2018, Hiura went 5-for-5 with two home runs against Lynchburg. On June 1, 2018, Hiura was in the lineup for the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers.

In his time with Biloxi, Hiura appeared in 73 games and hit six homers. His season wasn’t over when the Shuckers were done. Milwaukee assigned Hiura to the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League. In the AFL, Hiura did extremely well and was named the AFL’s Most Valuable Player.

Hiura was assigned to Triple-A San Antonio to start 2019, but it was only a matter of time before he would be called to the big leagues. That happened in May after he had hit eleven home runs in his first 37 games of the season.

The first call to Milwaukee was just a cameo, but Hiura was 16-for-54 with four homers in those 15 games. He went back to San Antonio on June 3, but the return trip didn’t even last a month. He was back in the big leagues to stay when the Brewers recalled him on June 28 – just a few weeks over two years since he had been drafted and well under two years since playing his last game with the Rattlers.

After he had been recalled, Hiura gave Brewers fans a thrill with a two-run walkoff home run off Craig Kimbrel to beat the Chicago Cubs 5-3 at Miller Park on July 27.

A hamstring injury in late August put Hiura on the injured list for about two weeks, but he was back for the playoff chase and he was hitting as the clean-up batter in Milwaukee’s lineup for the Wild Card Game at Washington.

This Brewers team will be trying to make it to the playoffs for the third year in a row, something that they have never done. Hiura will be a big part of that push and the Timber Rattlers fans will be cheering both Hiura and the Brewers on from the Fox Cities.