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<\/p>\nCINCINNATI \u2014 As soon as Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes led off the second inning of Saturday\u2019s 9-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds assistant hitting coach Alex Pel\u00e1ez knew exactly what TJ Friedl was going to do \u2014 bunt.<\/p>\n
Pel\u00e1ez was Friedl\u2019s hitting coach at what was then High-A Daytona and at Triple-A Louisville before joining the Reds\u2019 big-league staff for the 2025 season. He\u2019s seen plenty of Friedl since 2017, when Friedl first played for him. When things aren\u2019t going well for Friedl, who entered Saturday hitting just .159, he will always look for an opportunity to bunt as a way to reset himself physically.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve used it my entire career, especially when I get too spinny \u2014\u00a0pulling off the ball or maybe not closing my front side as much as I should,\u201d Friedl said. \u201cI do it in BP in the tunnels down below. Like if I take a couple bad swings, I\u2019ll bunt one down the 3rd baseline to just stick my nose in there, watch the ball hit the bat and then go back to swinging.\u201d<\/p>\n
With no outs and a runner on second, Friedl couldn\u2019t have asked for a better situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorst-case scenario I move him over, but also reset myself and just watch the ball hit the bat,\u201d Friedl said. \u201cIt helped that it was a knuckle-curve because you\u2019ve really got to stay on that to put it down the third-base line. In a sense, that\u2019s my reset button.\u201d<\/p>\n
The leadoff man is important to any team, but on a team that has Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart in the heart of the order, baserunners are paramount for a Reds offense that struggled scoring runs to start the season, but improved to 18-9 on the season. Last year, only two leadoff hitters \u2014 Shohei Ohtani and Fernando Tatis Jr. \u2014 reached base two or more times in a game more than Friedl\u2019s 77. His on-base percentage of .364 batting first last season was the fourth-best mark in the majors among players who played at least 50 games as a leadoff man.<\/p>\n
Entering Saturday, Friedl\u2019s on-base percentage was .260, so a reset was certainly needed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n TJ Friedl watches his first homer of the season go out on Saturday night. (Aaron Doster \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cI think him and (Matt McLain) both, because we have Elly and Sal swinging the bat so well, that the more they\u2019re on, it can create some problems,\u201d Reds manager Terry Francona said.<\/p>\n
Stewart continued his Rookie of the Year pace Saturday, with three hits and five driven in. His fifth and final RBI was Friedl, scoring from second after a single, proving Francona\u2019s point.<\/p>\n
If the bunt was a physical reset, Friedl\u2019s first hit of the day, a check-swing bloop double, was a bit of a mental reset, reminding him that the ball can fall his way from time to time. Friedl checked his 3-1 swing against reliever Burch Smith and the ball found his bat, falling just behind Tigers third baseman Colt Keith.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to say \u2018It all evens out at the end of the season,\u2019 even though we all know it doesn\u2019t,\u201d Friedl said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I live by in my head. And today I get a check-swing double over the third baseman\u2019s head who is playing in because I\u2019m going to bunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was Friedl\u2019s sixth-inning at bat against lefty Tyler Holton that let him know he\u2019d stopped pulling his front shoulder. On an 0-2 count, Holton threw a sweeper to the outside corner of the plate and Friedl served it into left.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith a big sweeper guy like that, it lets me know I\u2019m directionally staying on it through center field,\u201d Friedl said of his swing. \u201cBecause if my front shoulder goes (ahead) a little bit, that\u2019s a swing and a miss.\u00a0 If I can stay on it and keep my direction through center field, I can get that broken-bat blooper.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friedl\u2019s double had an exit velocity of 52 mph and a hit probability of 15 percent. His single was 68.1 mph off the bat. Friedl came up one last time in the eighth against right-hander Drew Anderson, who struck him out on four pitches the night before. With a curveball that he didn\u2019t hit Friday at the front of his mind, Friedl let the first one he saw Saturday go by, but not the second, launching his first home run of the season<\/a>, the day after McLain and Nathaniel Lowe collected theirs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun when everyone\u2019s rolling together, pulling for each other,\u201d Friedl said. \u201cIt could be a different guy every day. That\u2019s the makeup of this clubhouse and this team \u2014\u00a0you can come in here every day and somebody\u2019s going to do something special.\u201d<\/p>\n When Friedl steps to the plate for the first time on Sunday, the scoreboard will still show him with a .185 average, but that slow start is a little easier to take when the team\u2019s 18-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 As soon as Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes led off the second inning of Saturday\u2019s 9-2 victory over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5257,591,85],"class_list":["post-632431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}