Orioles outfielder Austin Hays knows ‘things turn around quick.’ His return so far is promising.
In the same inning Orioles manager Brandon Hyde marveled at Jorge Mateo and Gunnar Henderson racing around the bases for consecutive triples, each in 11.3 seconds, he winced at Austin Hays.
Hays came off the injured list Monday after being shut down for a week and a half and then playing five games in Double-A Bowie rehabbing a calf strain. On the day he was activated, the veteran outfielder’s calf flared up again, but the team remained steadfast with its plans to ease him back into the lineup.
So it’s hard to blame Hyde for flashing a slightly concerned look after watching Hays — who pinch hit for Ryan O’Hearn in the seventh inning Friday night — digging to second base on a hit to right-center field. A groundout by Anthony Santander pushed him to third. Then, on a wild pitch, Hays went for it, again sliding head first into home for the Orioles’ final run in a 9-2 win over the Seattle Mariners.
“Yeah, he wasn’t supposed to run like that,” Hyde said with a laugh. “He stretches a single to a double and then scores on a wild pitch so that wasn’t exactly how I drew it up. I just wanted to get him that at-bat. I want to get him out for a couple of innings of defense. But Austin Hays plays like Austin Hays and that’s with his hair on fire and that’s the only way he knows how to play.”
Hays didn’t hesitate on the chance to dash home. The 2023 All-Star was halfway down the line and said that if the ball kicked in any direction, he was going.
Hyde told him before the at-bat he just wanted to get Hays the chance to hit against a lefty. Hyde told him he merely wanted Hays to get on and go base to base. Well, when Hays burst out of the batter’s box, he felt no discomfort in his calf. While turning through first, he noticed center fielder Julio Rodríguez hadn’t scooped up the ball yet.
“I was like, ‘Uh, I think I’m just gonna keep going,'” Hays said. “When I slid into second and turned and looked, Hyder was like, ‘Hey, what the heck?’ I was like, ‘Hey, I was feeling good.'”
Before Wednesday, Hays hadn’t stretched any of his five hits past first base in 50 plate appearances this year, recording a .311 OPS. The late-April injury delayed any opportunity to climb out of his slump.
But ahead of Friday’s game, Hays gave the kind of answer of someone well acquainted with baseball’s turbulent nature. He was talking about his slumping teammate, fellow outfielder Cedric Mullins, when he offered a bit of optimism: “Things turn around quick. You have one good week … and all of a sudden your stats look pretty good again.”
This week, Hays found that groove.
He pinch hit for Mullins in Wednesday’s 3-2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays and doubled in the seventh inning. Having been without an extra base hit all season, Hays doubling twice in three days was “a big relief.”
Some soreness had popped up when he was activated. The Orioles gave it a day and it worsened Tuesday, he said. But the ensuing MRI was clean and Hays trended positively from there.
This stretch proved to himself that the early week flare-up was, in fact, just soreness.
“It’s nice to see the ball fall and start getting some extra base hits,” Hays said. “But right before I had gotten hurt I was swinging the bat really well. Had some deep lineouts, some diving catches, balls that could have very easily been doubles. … I was able to use my legs tonight. That was a good feeling.”
Hays knows his advice to Mullins as well as anyone. He can compartmentalize the .111 batting average through April 20 and say, “it’s not what the scoreboard says now. It’s what it says at the end of the year.”
“It happens different every year, every season is different,” Hays said. “You wish you could hit .300 the whole year but sometimes you start cold and you gotta chip away at it and battle back. That’s kinda where I’ve been at, and now you start to see it creeping back up. It happens quick.”