DETROIT — Colt Keith started growing a beard last weekend in Cleveland almost by accident, not by superstition. The way the young Tigers slugger keeps hitting, he might be keeping it for a while.
“It’s really itchy,” he said after his second home run in as many games against the Rays powered Detroit’s winning streak to five with a 4-2 victory on Tuesday night at Comerica Park. “But if it produces hits, I’ll leave it there all year.”
Keith has been through enough peaks and valleys in his brief career to know he probably won’t be doing that. And realistically, Keith’s hot hitting predates his facial hair. But even with his rational approach to his swing, Keith doesn’t want to mess with a good thing.
“I’m trying to just focus on swinging easy,” he said. “I think that’s allowing my hands to speed up and get to everything. Obviously, baseball’s full of ups and downs, so I’m trying to ride this high as long as I can, keep that feel as long as I can.”
Not only did Keith’s game-tying single and go-ahead homer change the game, it raised his OPS for the season to .800 for the first time in his career. Take away a slow opening month — Keith hit just .171 with a .518 OPS from Opening Day through April 29 – and he’s batting .308 with a .917 OPS over his last 54 games.
“We need to remember that he’s still scratching the surface of who he’s going to be and what he’s going to be at this level,” manager A.J. Hinch said of the 23-year-old second baseman. “We showed some patience with him over the last couple of seasons just as he’s tried to figure it out.
“He’s always been a smart hitter. He is learning that less is more. Whether that’s the backside base hit with the runner in scoring position, whether it’s getting to a pitch late in the game and pulling it out of the ballpark, he is a complete hitter. And he doesn’t have to be perfect to do it. And he’s an impactful guy. That’s why I put him at the top of the order against these righties, because when the lineup flips, he’s going to put up a really good at-bat.”
The Statcast bat-tracking data shows a difference, even with a midseason adjustment. While Keith’s swing length has remained the same from last season to this year, his average bat speed has dropped from 71.3 to 70.7 mph. Keith’s fast-swing rate — the percentage of swings at 75 mph or faster – is down from 14.3 to 9.9 percent. Yet, Keith has a higher squared-up rate and higher percentages of Blasts (squared-up swings with a high bat speed).
Meanwhile, Keith’s average exit velocity is up nearly two mph, his hard-hit rate is up, his barrel rate has nearly doubled and his launch-angle sweet spot rate is among the top eight percent of Major League hitters.
“My heartbeat’s been so high for my whole big league career,” Keith said. “Just fighting to get that down. It makes sense. Tight muscles are sore muscles, as they say. Kind of like golf, you just swing easy and it goes further. It’s kind of the same thing. No way I could’ve learned that without the experience.”
Twice in three innings, Keith rewarded Zach McKinstry for a leadoff walk and a stolen base. After swinging and missing at Ryan Pepiot’s first-pitch fastball at 95 mph, Keith sent a second-pitch changeup to the opposite field for a game-tying single in the fifth inning. Keith put Detroit in front for good with his eighth home run of the year, punishing former Tigers Spring Training invite Edwin Uceta for throwing back-to-back changeups.
“After that first [inning] strikeout, it was really tempting to go out there and just swing harder,” Keith said. “But just stay within myself, because it’s worked for a couple weeks now.”
The more Keith’s facial hair grows, the better he seems to hit. He has five hits, two homers and four RBIs through two games of this series, and is batting .478 (11-for-23) for July with six extra-base hits.
Keith didn’t mean the beard as a good-luck charm.
“I was in Cleveland, and their razors [in the visiting clubhouse] are pretty subpar,” Keith explained on Monday. “So I started [shaving] at the bottom, and I was like, ‘Man, I can’t finish this. So I just lined it up and left. Then I was lazy [Monday] morning and didn’t shave it. But now it’s staying until I have a bad game.”
