With June surge, Pirates' Bryan Reynolds back to making big splash with his bat

Asked if he would be willing to jump into the Allegheny River to retrieve a home run ball like the shirtless Pittsburgh Pirates fan shown on the television broadcast, Bryan Reynolds cracked a sly smile and answered in the affirmative.

“I just saw the picture of the guy doing the cannonball in and getting it,” Reynolds said, “so, yeah I’m jumping in for sure.”

That the ball, which reached the river on a bounce, came off the bat of Reynolds is one of the Pirates’ most promising storylines of the season. After switching from left field to center, the 26-year-old Reynolds is generating attention for the All-Star Game with both his bat and his glove in a bounce-back season.

Smashing a 428-foot homer that ends up in the river doesn’t hurt his cause, either.

“Bryan Reynolds has had a heck of a year,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said, “and since he’s moved to center field, by the eye test and the metrics, he’s playing above average.”

After batting .314 with 16 homers and 68 RBIs as rookie, Reynolds endured a sophomore slump by slashing .189/.275/.357 in 55 games last season. Now, Reynolds has a .299/.394/.529 slash line through 68 games, thanks in part to a surge in June..

Reynolds is batting .338 (21 for 62) with four doubles, five home runs and 13 RBIs this month, and he ranks among the National League’s top 10 in hits (73), doubles (20) and OPS (.922) this season.

“Yeah, I mean, I feel good up there,” Reynolds said. “I feel like my timing is good and all that good stuff, so just trying to keep it rolling and keep putting the barrel on the ball more than anything.”

That’s what Shelton has noticed as the main difference for Reynolds this season. After talking about his timing being off last season because of the shortened spring training and season, Reynolds is barreling more pitches. That’s especially true of fastballs, against which he batted .221 against last season but is now hitting .368.

“The thing that really stands out to me are his contact points. It looks like he’s getting the ball in front of the plate on a more consistent basis,” Shelton said. “At times last year, the ball beat him, whether it was because of timing or the contact point. But he’s in a better position to hit, and his contact points are farther out, and that’s why you see him drive the ball.”

That’s not to suggest Reynolds has radically changed his swing. He swears he hasn’t made any major changes. He is being more patient at the plate, which has reduced his strikeout rate from 27.4% last year to 20.1% this year, while increasing his walks from 10.1% to 12.6%. His timing is back, and he is making pitchers pay.

“Trying to get my barrel in a spot that it was ready to fire from instead of wrapping it so much, and I feel like that’s helped me to deliver more consistently,” Reynolds said, “but, in terms of a big, giant change, nothing really there.”

A former hitting coach in Tampa, Shelton spotted a slight difference in Reynolds’ contact point getting “just a tad” deeper Saturday when he flew out to center field in the sixth inning. Reynolds adjusted and hit Indians closer James Karinchak’s 0-1 fastball for a three-run homer in the seventh inning of the 6-3 win.

“He took a really good swing at that and just missed that, but the contact point was a little bit farther back,” Shelton said. “The next one, he got a little bit farther out front and it ends up going into the river.”

That one cleared the right-field seats, a blast that brought a cannonball in a season where Reynolds’ bat is back to making a big splash.