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Morris: Pearce believes he will be a hit with the Pirates
Posted on 04.05.09
CommentsDUNEDIN, Fla.
The defining moment in Steve Pearce’s South Carolina baseball career had nothing to do with his hitting barrage at the College World Series, his 42 home runs in two seasons or his .352 batting average.
Instead, it involved an early 2004 game upon his arrival at USC from Indian River (Fla.) Community College. That’s when Ray Tanner signaled from the third-base coach’s box for Pearce to hit behind the runner at second base, perhaps moving the potential winning run to third base with a ground ball to the right side of the infield.
Pearce called timeout for a chat with Tanner to make certain he understood the coach’s instructions. Understand, Tanner was not certain Pearce was capable of hitting behind a runner at that stage in his career.
Pearce knew what Tanner wanted and returned to the batter’s box. The right-handed hitting Pearce proceeded to belt a long, game-winning home run over the right-center field wall at Sarge Frye Field.
“I’ve had some pretty good players. I’ve never had one who believed any more than he did that he could hit,” Tanner says. “It was not arrogance. It was not ego. The guy believed he could hit. He believed he could hit with anybody, and that’s gotten him as far as he has right now.”
Pearce will begin his fifth professional season this week in Indianapolis as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Triple-A farm club in the International League. He got a taste of the major leagues the past two summers, batting .266 with four home runs in 60 games for Pittsburgh.
Pearce seems to understand his plight with the Pirates: The club would rather have one of its top hitting prospects playing full-time at Triple-A then sitting on the bench in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh has Adam LaRoche at first base and veteran Eric Hinske, who can back up LaRoche and play right field. Pearce, who will turn 26 on April 13, cannot match the experience of those two players.
“He’s relatively young in his curve, as far as where he’s at,” says John Russell, Pittsburgh’s second-year manager. “He accelerated through the system a couple of years ago rather quickly. Last year I think it caught up with him a little bit, and this year I think he’s more ready for the challenge.”
That challenge will be what it always has been for Pearce, and that is proving people wrong. At every level of play he has had to convince coaches he can find success with an unorthodox swing. Because he stands 5-foot-11, he also has had to prove he can play first base despite providing an undersized target for his infielders.
“I’ve always been told my swing wouldn’t work, this wouldn’t work, that wouldn’t work,” Pearce says. “But it’s all about going out here and working hard and staying within yourself, not trying to do too much and basically not taking no for an answer.”
The first and only coach to alter Pearce’s swing was Mike Eason at Indian River Community College. He trimmed the length of the swing and added a leg kick as a timing device. The inherent problem with Pearce’s swing is that he shifts his weight to his front foot. In baseball parlance, it is called swinging off your front foot.
Tanner never saw Pearce swing a bat before he arrived at USC, but the scouting report from assistant coach Jim Toman was to the point: “He is a hitting machine.” Tanner, Toman and hitting instructor Monte Lee learned long ago you don’t tinker with a “hitting machine’s” swing.
What separated Pearce from most “front-foot” hitters was his ability to keep his hands back behind the ball as his weight shifted forward. By staying back with his hands, Pearce could power the ball to all fields, and few USC players have been so adept.
His 42 home runs are the most, by 10, of any two-season player in USC history. His .352 batting average ranks 11th all time. The bigger the stage, the better the hitter Pearce became. In the 2004 NCAA regional tournament, Pearce batted .600 with three home runs and nine RBIs. In that season’s College World Series, he went hitless the first game then went 12-for-17 the rest of the way with one home run and five RBIs.
“Of all the guys I’ve ever coached, the ball finds his barrel as much as any player. He’s just a pure hitter,” Tanner says. “Mechanically sound? No. You don’t take out his video and show guys how to hit. But if you’re talking about getting a man home from third base with one out, or squaring a ball up, he’s incredible. He was absolutely incredible.”
There is one other characteristic with Pearce: He is extremely confident in his ability to hit. After being selected in the eighth round of the 2005 draft, Pearce surprised everyone but himself by quickly ascending through the Pittsburgh farm system. He hit 31 home runs going from High A-level ball to the major leagues in 2007, earning Pittsburgh’s minor league player-of-the-year honor along the way.
Tanner recalls how Pearce would occasionally go hitless in four at-bats at USC. Tanner would turn his head in the dugout and hear Pearce boasting about being “the best oh-for-four hitter in the country.”
At the close of fall practice one season, Pearce and Steve Tolleson were in a dead-heat for the club batting crown. Tanner recalls Pearce getting into Tolleson’s face and telling his teammate he “had no chance of winning,” with one practice game remaining. Sure enough, Tolleson got two hits. Pearce won with three.
While Pearce found a home at first base at USC, he has been shuttled between that position and right field in the Pirates’ organization. He carries two gloves to the ballpark each day, and this spring he received individual instruction in an effort to improve his skills at both positions.
“You can tell he likes having a bat in his hands,” Russell says. “That’s one of the things we’ve really tried to work with him, is there is more to it than swinging the bat, and his defense has improved a lot.”
As fluent as major league rosters are these days, Pearce’s time at Triple-A is probably not long. When he returns to Pittsburgh, he likely will be past the proving-ground stage and ready to show he belongs.
Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM
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