{"id":208266,"date":"2026-06-02T09:58:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T09:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208266\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T09:58:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T09:58:31","slug":"nick-gonzales-homer-drought-ends-at-412-in-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208266\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Gonzales\u2019 Homer Drought Ends at 412 in Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Gonzales<\/a> entered Sunday\u2019s game against the Minnesota Twins<\/a> having gone 411 at-bats without hitting a home run. It was the second-longest drought in baseball, behind only the speedy Chandler Simpson<\/a> of the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>, who had gone 629 at-bats without homering to start his career heading into his game on Sunday.<\/p>\n

After striking out in his first at-bat against Minnesota Twins starter Zebby Matthews<\/a>, Gonzales\u2019 drought extended to 412 at-bats, a perhaps fitting number for a streak that was about to end in Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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With a runner on second base and two outs in the bottom of the third, Gonzales connected on his first home run of the year and first since last year against the Giants in San Francisco<\/a> on July 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt good,\u201d Gonzales said following the Pirates\u2019 7-3 win to clinch a sweep<\/a> of the Twins. \u201cBeen waiting a little bit for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzales\u2019 shot was no cheapy. The Pirates third baseman capitalized on a hanging slider from Matthews and hit it into the bullpens in center field. His two-run blast, which measured 407 feet, gave the Pirates a 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, he earned it, too,\u201d manager Don Kelly<\/a> said. \u201cThat\u2019s a long way to center field. He\u2019s been so close so many times this year. Really happy for him that he got it out, and he got it out to big boy park there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It had been even longer since Gonzales last circled the bases at PNC Park. Prior to Sunday, his last home run in Pittsburgh came on June 6, 2024 against the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This time, a relieved Gonzales cracked a big smile after breaking into his home run trot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been a while,\u201d he said. \u201cFelt good to kind of just get that weight off my shoulder and just help the team, too, and score two runs. It\u2019s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite not showing much power this season, Gonzales had had a pretty good season at the plate. After finishing Sunday\u2019s win 1 for 3 with a homer and a walk, he ranks 12th in baseball and ninth in the National League with a .303 batting average.<\/p>\n

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He also has the highest walk rate of his career (6.5%) and his strikeout rate (17.6%) is down for a fourth-straight season. Gonzales now has a .720 OPS, just above league-average and the highest mark of his career.<\/p>\n

Despite having to wait longer than he wanted to get his first homer of the season, his performance this season is another reason that Pirates have had a strong season offensively.<\/p>\n

Maybe Sunday\u2019s swing was one that will spark a little bit more power to turn a good season into an even better one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had somewhat success this season, and that could kind of weigh on you when you haven\u2019t hit a home run. But you\u2019re still producing, still doing stuff, still driving runs in, having good at-bats,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo you\u2019ve got to stick with the process. Hitting coaches have been great in telling me, like, \u2018Hey, don\u2019t worry about that. Just keep doing what you\u2019re doing, drive in runs, hit the ball hard, and it\u2019ll come.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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The post Nick Gonzales\u2019 Homer Drought Ends at 412 in Pittsburgh<\/a> appeared first on Pittsburgh Baseball Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Gonzales entered Sunday\u2019s game against the Minnesota Twins having gone 411 at-bats without hitting a home run.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[91039,34762,11200,16736,57211,73,75,74,10997,8591,27091,90947],"class_list":["post-208266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-chandler-simpson","tag-don-kelly","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-nick-gonzales","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-san-francisco","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-zebby-matthews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}